05/03/2020: UK Music held a dinner in Parliament for UK Music members and politicians from the Scottish Nationalist Party (SNP) hosted by APPG on Music Co-Chair Pete Wishart MP.

The dinner was attended by APPG on Music members Patrick Grady MP (SNP Chief Whip), Alison Thewliss MP (SNP Treasury Spokesperson), Deidre Brock (SNP DEFRA Spokesperson), and Anne McLaughlin MP (SNP Women & Equalities Spokesperson).

UK Music members who attended including Cameron Craig (MPG), Crispin Hunt (Ivors Academy), Annabella Coldrick (MMF), Dan Guthrie (BPI), Maddy Radcliff (MU), Paulette Long (UK Music Diversity Taskforce), Camilla Waite (PPL), Scott Walker (PRS for Music), Rob Challice (UK Live Group) and Amanda Maxwell (UK Music Futures Group).

UK Music Acting CEO Tom Kiehl gave a presentation outlining key figures from our Music By Numbers report and highlighted Scotland’s booming music tourism statistics. Scotland saw the strongest growth in music tourism, rising from 800,000 tourists in 2017 to 1.1 million in 2018, a jump of 38%. New festivals such as Summer Sessions helped to attract the growing number of music tourists. He also gave an overview of our key policy asks from the report.

Discussion covered the importance of copyright protections, post-Brexit touring and music in education. The importance of the live sector including grassroots music venues to the talent pipeline was also covered.

Thanks to all who attended.