My Lords, I agree that this deal is preferable to no deal and I will support it, but with some, I hope, constructive reservations. I wish that Parliament had had longer to scrutinise a Bill of such massive importance. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, on the undesirability of taking our legislative cue from Henry VIII. I share the concerns of my noble friends Lord Pannick and Lord Anderson of Ipswich and the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, over Clause 29.
Negotiation sometimes means going back on what one has originally said, but that tends to suggest that care is needed when giving assurances. I too saw the Prime Minister’s response almost a year ago to an MP in the other place, Mr Chapman, who asked if there was a threat to the Erasmus programme. The PM said that Mr Chapman was talking out of the back of his neck. Well, clearly Mr Chapman has better foresight from his rear than the PM does from his front.
It is a tragedy that Erasmus will no longer involve UK students and UK places of study. As the noble Lord, Lord Ricketts, and the noble Baroness, Lady Donaghy, said, this is a disastrous and small-minded move. It will cost far more in money and time to start a new scheme. If it ain’t broke, why fix it? I concur too with worries over the lack of any useful information on the services side, in particular as it relates to the creative industries and broadcasting.
Finally, there is the ability of artists to tour, as mentioned by my noble friend Lady Bull. Already hit by Covid and falling through the Government’s support net, musicians and artists are now going to suffer the third strand of a triple whammy. UK Music and the Musicians’ Union have consistently proposed reciprocal arrangements for musicians and their crew to facilitate music touring, without having to navigate the complexity of 27-plus different immigration systems in light of Brexit. This House was reassured, as I was, by Ministers in June, that the Government were looking to negotiate
“a reciprocal arrangement … so that UK musicians could work short term within the EU”.—[Official Report, 3/6/20; col. 1360.]
Yet the agreement we are debating today fails, I am afraid, to achieve this. Musicians and crew are not included on the list of workers for short-term visits without a permit, meaning that they will now face additional costs and bureaucracy when touring EU member states in future.
Can the Minister please explain why the negotiations failed in this regard and why it has been reserved under pages 695 and 733 of the agreement? Will he please take this opportunity to reassure the House that the UK Government will seek a supplementary agreement with the EU to rectify the issue of work permits for musicians, to minimise the disruption and damage that the new arrangement will cause to our much-valued music industry?
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