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

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what assessment he has made of the potential merits of a regulator in the music industry to support musicians' (a) wellbeing and (b) incomes.

The Government believes all artists have a right to exercise their profession free from harassment, bullying and discrimination and we also recognise that it is important that artists are fairly remunerated for their work. We are aware of the concerns that have been raised recently with regards to musicians’ wellbeing and incomes.

The music industry already has routes for tackling welfare issues and providing advice on financial matters through codes of conduct and independent advice services.

For instance, the Musicians' Union has a Safe Space facility to enable individuals to confidentially report incidents without fear of unwanted consequences, and also provides a Contract Advisory Service to assist musicians starting out on their careers to have any contracts they are offered checked by independent and respected industry lawyers.

In this context, the creation of a new regulatory body would need to be carefully considered to ensure that it is not duplicating industry efforts to address these issues and does not create undue burden on either the creative workforce or employers.

We are actively engaging with the industry to better understand how effective these industry initiatives are at a) supporting the wellbeing of artists, and b) providing advice on financial matters.

Following this engagement, we will consider what further steps are necessary and how the Government can support the sector and artists.