Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what steps her Department is taking to help allow UK creative artists to tour freely across the EU.

The Government is committed to supporting UK creative industries to adapt to new arrangements with the EU.

We are supporting the sector by clarifying arrangements on visas, movement of goods and haulage, including through bilateral engagement with Member States. We have taken steps to support specialist concert hauliers, and worked across government and with industry to develop guidance including ‘landing pages’ on GOV.UK specifically for touring musicians and other creative sectors.

We have clarified existing arrangements and established that:

• Nearly all Member States offer visa and work permit free routes for musicians and creative performers. This includes, following extensive engagement by the government and the creative sector, Spain and most recently Greece, who announced a visa and work permit free route in June 2022;

• Portable musical instruments, carried or in a vehicle, can be transported cost-free and should not require ATA Carnets; and

• Small ‘splitter vans’ are not subject to the Trade and Cooperation Agreement limits around ‘haulage for the creative sectors’ and ‘cross trade’. In addition, the Department for Transport is implementing dual registration to support specialist hauliers, meaning they can benefit from more generous market access and cabotage arrangements in GB and the EU.

The Government raised touring with the European Commission at the first meeting of the UK-EU Partnership Council in June 2021. We continue to work with the few remaining Member States that do not allow any visa or permit free touring to encourage them to make touring easier.