Visas for culture and creative sectors: Letter to Home Secretary

To: Secretary of State for the Home Department

From: Cabinet Secretary for Constitution, External Affairs and Culture

07 March 2024

I am writing to you to raise my concerns around the impact of the Home Office’s decision-making process for visas on those working in our culture and creative sectors. I would further like to request an urgent meeting to discuss these pressing issues, and to explore ways that we can work together to find practical solutions.

As you will be aware, the ability of artists and other creative professionals to come to Scotland and elsewhere in the UK to participate in cultural events is vitally important to our culture and creative sectors. The contribution made by international artists is central to the success of our festivals and other cultural events, and the presence of international artists is key in building more vibrant and diverse culture and creative sectors.

However, I am increasingly concerned that the Home Office’s procedures for processing visa applications are having a negative impact on the ability of international artists and creative professionals to contribute to cultural events in Scotland. Each year we hear examples of creative professionals having their work disrupted or delayed, and festivals and events facing challenges programming international performers due to delays with the UK visa process. Approaches to immigration can often lead to discriminatory outcomes for people from minority ethnic backgrounds through combinations of post-colonial legacies, unconscious and conscious bias, and systemic or institutional racism. Stakeholders have repeatedly raised their concerns of this worrying trend and its impact on our culture sector.

A recent example of this that has been brought to my attention is that of poet Soukaina Habiballah from Morocco, who is due to perform at StAnza, Scotland’s International Poetry Festival. Despite the considerable evidence that she is recognised as a leading international poet, with considerable talent and an extensive catalogue of work, her visa was initially denied. While I understand that, following various interventions, the matter has been resolved and a visa now granted, this raises serious questions about the reliability and timeliness of the decisions being made by the Home Office in relation to creative professionals and the suitability of the visa routes available to them within the UK immigration system.

I’m sure that you will agree that such unnecessary barriers to creative professionals coming to the UK to participate in cultural events are detrimental not just to international artists, but to our culture and creative sectors themselves. Stakeholders have raised concerns that when visas are denied or delayed in this manner, it puts significant extra financial and administrative pressure on cultural organisations given the resources required to programme international artists.

I hope that we can meet at an early opportunity in order to discuss practical measures to support this vital sector in attracting the international talent that is so important to it.

I am copying this letter to the UK Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, Lucy Frazer MP, and the Scottish Cabinet Secretary for Social Justice, Shirley-Ann Somerville MSP.