An influential House of Lords committee is urging the government to start working with EU capitals to remove Brexit barriers that block musicians, young people and professionals working easily in Europe.
After six months of research and evidence from 40 witnesses the European affairs committee says it has identified 72 areas where small changes could make a huge difference in areas of cultural and educational interests on both sides of the Channel.
The chair, Lord Kinnoull, said the report, The future UK-EU relationship, was not about the big “reset moment” in 2025 when the trade deal is renegotiated – a move that would risk the wrath of Brexiters.
“The report is really a laundry list of lots and lots of small suggestions, which you can put in place, that are actually mutually beneficial ideas,” he said.
“It is not going to be snowstorm. It will be a gradual thing because this trust rebuilding must go on,” he added, talking of the thawing of relations between the UK and the EU since the Windsor agreement on Northern Ireland was sealed last month.
He said the committee of 13 “cross-party Brexiters, remainers and beyonders” believed all 72 recommendations were achievable.
Top of the list is getting music and theatre tours moving again in both directions and school coach trips from the continent to the UK back on the road.
It expressed particular disappointment at the lack of progress to enable musicians to tour Europe easily again after the end of free movement, a benefit of the single market.
“It’s not about the Beyoncés of this world. They can cope with the rules. It’s for the small bands, for the vast majority of musicians. The travel is not about a huge economic activity,” said Kinnoull.
Much travel could resume if the rules were simplified, centralised and made easier to navigate, the report found.
Post-Brexit changes to immigration rules also triggered a collapse in bookings for school trips from the continent because the border force will no longer accept ID cards, and instead requires passports and visas for non-EU children on the school trips.
The government told the committee the ban on ID cards was because of the high incidence of document fraud but the committee urged the government to revisit the matter.
“We were not able to find any evidence schoolchildren engage in ID card fraud and there were at least two members of the committee that are exceptionally interested in this area,” said Kinnoull.
He said the benefits for loosening the rules for children would go in both directions across the Channel, given the difficulties British schools are also having with delays at Dover.
“We are talking about travel through liberal democracies in Europe. We think we can do better and we must do better, and we have the mechanics to do better,” he said.
Other recommendations include renewed efforts to launch mobility schemes between individual EU countries and the UK, allowing adults under 30 to work for a short stint in each other’s country.
“The UK has got such a scheme with Australia and New Zealand, and France has it with Canada. There is no reason why these schemes could not be in place between EU countries and the UK,” said Kinnoull.
Other recommendations include an expansion of Turing, the replacement to the Erasmus student placement programme scheme, to allow EU students come to the UK, and an intensification of foreign, defence and diplomatic cooperation.
Trust after the turmoil of Brexit is still an issue, with EU sources pushing back on suggestions last week that UK travellers could soon be using e-gates at airports.
“An improved atmosphere doesn’t mean rebuilding trust in itself,” said Kinnoull.
“What one has got to do is start doing a few deals and to build that trust by getting into the meeting room and talking.
“Of the 24 committees under the trade and cooperation agreement, 22 have been pretty well sitting doing nothing because of the impasse over the Northern Ireland protocol,” he said.
