Grassroots Music
Support
(Edinburgh West) (LD)
1. What assessment she has made of the potential merits of
requiring venues to introduce a surcharge on large event tickets
to support grassroots music venues.(900887)
(Ashford) (Con)
11. If she will take steps to require arenas, stadiums and major
festivals to charge a ticket levy to help fund grassroots live
music.(900899)
The Minister for Media, Tourism and Creative Industries ()
I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Member for Maldon (Sir
) for supporting my
maternity leave. The chance to raise a tiny child is fleeting and
precious, and his superb stewardship of my portfolio granted me
that gift. One of my big worries on standing for election and
then becoming a Minister was that it might prove incompatible
with starting and now expanding my family. I simply say to other
women who want to get involved in public life, “Do not be afraid.
There is a lot of talk of barriers, but service and motherhood
are compatible privileges.” As my right hon. Friend the Member
for Norwich North () said so encouragingly to me,
you can do it.
Grassroots live music venues are the talent pipeline of our music
industry. We are supporting them with funds and rate relief. We
have no plans for a Government-mandated ticket levy, but we
encourage industry discussion.
I welcome the Minister back to her place. In Edinburgh, we
benefit from a plethora of small venues that depend on the
Edinburgh Festival to survive. We also have big events every
year. At the moment all the excitement, even in my household, is
about Taylor Swift coming to the city in June, but we recognise
that small venues—the Music Venue Trust says 10% currently
struggle to survive and depend on grants from it—do not get any
benefit from big gigs. Will the Government consider a levy to
support smaller venues, because without them we will never have
the Elton Johns, the Queens and the Taylor Swifts who use them to
learn their craft, develop and benefit our economy and
culture.
The hon. Lady is absolutely right that grassroots venues are the
talent incubators of the music industry. She will be aware that
the Chancellor gave a substantial amount of money at last year’s
Budget—up to £7 million for a new hub for the Edinburgh Fringe
because of that talent pipeline—for the Edinburgh Fringe and the
Edinburgh Festival. We are doing what we can with various
different pots of money, but we also think there is room for the
industry to find a solution on ticket levies. We think it is
probably best for the industry to do that, rather than mandate it
as a Government.
I welcome my hon. Friend back to her place. In 2023, across the
country, not just in Edinburgh, live music boomed, with some 22
million people attending gigs, yet 76 small venues closed—more
than one a week. I draw the Minister’s attention to an analogy
with another hugely successful leisure industry, football, where
a small amount of the enormous riches gained by the Premier
League is allowed to trickle down to the grassroots so that the
future of the sport is preserved. Just as with football, we have
hugely profitable large arenas where the superstars of today
perform and create huge revenues. A levy on the tickets from
those sorts of shows—[Interruption.] I am sorry, Mr Speaker; I am
very passionate about this—would help small venues to produce the
superstars of tomorrow, so will the Minister take a positive
attitude towards a levy?
My right hon. Friend has made his point well, if not briefly. We
agree about the importance of grassroots music, which is why we
have given another £5 million to the supporting grassroots music
fund, but we are also in close touch with the Music Venue Trust,
which has a great initiative called “Own Our Venues”. Arts
Council England is helping with the purchase of some of the
freeholds of these venues. We support that as well, but we think
there is more scope for the industry to lead a solution, and we
are backing talks between different parts of the industry.
Mr Speaker
Let us hear from the industry. I call .
(Perth and North Perthshire)
(SNP)
The music industry is just about the most unequal sector in the
whole of society. Those at the bottom—the vast majority—earn an
absolute pittance, while those at the very top have unimaginable
earnings. Surely we should be doing everything possible to try to
change that. It is the sensible option: they do it in France, and
the Scottish National party Government are considering doing it
in Scotland. Will the Minister support that effort and initiative
in Scotland, and if it shows that it can help redistribute some
of this money, will she follow that example?
I thank the hon. Gentleman for telling us what the Scottish
National party is doing. I had understood that it was cutting a
substantial amount from the arts budget. We have been supporting,
for instance, the Edinburgh grassroots hub. I think there is a
great deal of appetite in this place for a solution; I also think
that the best option is for those in the industry to get
together, and we are backing discussions of that kind. Indeed,
before I went on leave I talked to Mark Davyd of the Music Venue
Trust about the issue.
Dame (Gosport) (Con)
I, too, warmly welcome the Minister back to her place. She
mentioned the £5 million for the supporting grassroots music
fund, and that is greatly welcomed, but let us be clear:
festivals, rehearsal spaces and independent promoters are also
eligible for the fund. That is a lot of mouths to feed. They are
all important parts of the ecosystem, and they all need funds. In
real terms, this is a tiny amount of money for grassroots music
venues. Is my hon. Friend pushing the Treasury to expand that
funding to ensure that it can go further?
I thank the hon. Lady for drawing on her expertise in this
regard, and for the work that the Select Committee is doing. I am
going to provide that dreadful answer: ahead of the Budget, we
will be discussing all these matters with the Treasury.
