Business events are a vital driver of trade, innovation, and regional growth across the UK. The UK’s business events industry is a vital economic engine: a recent economic impact report found that the industry generated £11.5 billion in total output and supported 126,000 jobs in 2024.

My constituency, home to the Scottish Events Campus (SEC), benefits greatly from the business events industry. The SEC alone hosts more than 50 exhibitions per year bringing millions of pounds of investment from overseas visitors into the area. Recent research shows that across the UK more than 1,100 exhibitions were held in 2024 attracting more than 7 million attendees annually.

That’s why earlier in the year I joined the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Events to help champion the sector and facilitate economic growth which will benefit people and businesses in Glasgow North and right across the rest of the country. The group has been working hard engaging with Government, VisitBritain, and trade associations across the UK, to ensure the events sector has a strong and consistent voice in Parliament.

I’m also backing the campaign recently launched by the Events Industry Alliance, a trade association representing the sector, calling for the establishment of a Mutual Recognition Agreement (MRA) for the business events sector with the EU. There is no doubt that Brexit negatively affected the perception of the UK on the world stage, with knock on impacts across the economy. Increasingly, the UK can be perceived as less welcoming and less accessible than other Europeans countries for business events, creating a barrier that is causing many international gatherings to go elsewhere. Several post-Brexit challenges from increased paperwork to mobility restrictions, are well documented across different sectors and are making it harder for businesses to exhibit and operate across borders. 

It’s right that the Labour Government has worked hard since being elected to seek a closer working relationship with the EU and we will continue to do. The UK/ EU summit in May was an important reset moment, it was great to see commitments to continue working on making it easier for touring artists, travel, and cultural exchange amongst other agreements around food standards, defence and security, and youth mobility with the bloc, it is important for the business events industry to be part of these conversations. 

A bespoke agreement with the EU covering the business events, trade shows and exhibitions would go a long way to ensuring venues in cities such as Glasgow continue to thrive and grow. The aim of this would be to support smoother cross-border activity, maintain the UK’s strong position in global trade and strengthen the appeal of the UK as a destination for international events.

Business events are a vital driver of trade, innovation, and regional growth across the UK and the more we can do to encourage more global events to choose the UK as their destination meeting place the better.

Martin Rhodes is the MP for Glasgow North and member of the All-Party Group for Events in Parliament.

The campaign for a mutual recognition agreement was launched by the Events Industry Alliance - an alliance of trade associations created by the three event industry bodies: the Association of Event Organisers (AEO), the Association of Event Venues (AEV) and the Event Supplier and Services Association (ESSA) to provide a group secretariat service in the business events industry.