Moved by Lord Bragg That this House takes note of the contribution
of the arts to the economy and to society. Lord Bragg (Lab) The
creative arts generate more revenue than the life sciences and the
aerospace and construction industries combined. Add the input from
television, films, advertising and broadcasting and we are faced
not with a charming marginal activity but with an industry ready to
grow to the massive benefit of this country, commercially
and...Request free trial
Moved by
That this House takes note of the contribution of the arts to the
economy and to society.
(Lab)
The creative arts generate more revenue than the life sciences
and the aerospace and construction industries combined. Add the
input from television, films, advertising and broadcasting and we
are faced not with a charming marginal activity but with an
industry ready to grow to the massive benefit of this country,
commercially and educationally, and equally in areas such as
health and social equity.
First, however, the arts industry needs a radical overhaul. At
present, it is dangerously patchy and punching way below its
weight. Last year, there were over 3 million job roles in the
creative and cultural industries—and there could be more, if we
recognised and reached the full potential of what is still
considered too often to be the cherry on the cake. The arts are
not the cherry on the cake—they are the cake. It is the
opportunity this society needs to reform itself, to replenish all
parts and pockets, and to stem the slide to the bottom of just
about any listing that appears. It is an open goal.
There is no doubt that this country could build itself up through
a cultivation of the arts, and a determination to release its
energies and take on the mantle of other places and other
times—this is not too fanciful—such as Athens, Florence and
elsewhere, which transformed their societies through the arts.
Why cannot we do so? We have the skills, but what we need is the
vision and the will. We need to think of the arts as an industry,
and a new industry, which it is.
What we have to build on deserves attention and often praise.
Cities which have imploded, especially in the north, because of
government abandonment and investors seeing no future beyond the
stock market—I will take three: Newcastle and Gateshead combined,
Leeds, and above all, Manchester—have regrouped and found profit
from their engagement with the arts. This goes for similar
smaller venues too: Keswick in Cumbria, middle-sized cities such
as Bath, and towns such as Cheltenham. In many places, the arts
have reinvented and magnetised dying conurbations. However, this
still does not provide the fundamental requirement, which is to
engineer a deep change which will be universal.
To get to the best, we need to take a close look at the worst.
Recently, the Times chief cultural correspondent, Richard
Morrison, said that British theatre is “dying” and “in a dreadful
state”, its demise hastened by the dominance of television and
streaming, and that
“Those theatres not facing closure because of local authority
budget cuts … are struggling to attract audiences for anything
except musicals and famous plays featuring famous actors”.
National Theatre Wales has lost its subsidy from the Arts Council
of Wales. Creative Scotland has received a big cut from the
Scottish Government. An all-party report from a House of Lords
Select Committee last June commented that the current Government
policy towards the sector is
“complacent and risks jeopardising the sector’s commercial
potential”.
It is strange that, although over the past decade the creative
industries have grown at 1.5 times the rate of the wider economy
and contributed billions of pounds of business activity and
exports, again and again these profits drain away and the only
begetter of the arts is left stranded on overdrafts. This is at
least unfair and at most blind to the power and potential of the
arts.
When they built the first steam engine, they did not say, “Okay,
we can do it—we’ll stop now”. They went on to create a network,
here and abroad, with a brilliant non-university workforce. Why
do we stop here now, in this country, when it is losing its
theatres, its music and its dance? We are sleepwalking into
permanent mediocrity, and cultural institutions once the
guardians of the arts have, in crucial cases, become accessories
to this deterioration.
The Arts Council, for example, set up in 1948, in those flagship
years of public service, has been of the greatest value for the
arts, especially its arm’s-length management. Yet in November
2022, English National Opera was given 24 hours’ notice by Arts
Council England that all current funding would be withdrawn and
the company removed from the national portfolio by April 2023.
This was said to a company approaching a century of often
outstanding work: opera in English; free ticket schemes for young
people; 51% of audiences first-time bookers; and a world-class
infrastructure. The way in which this was done disgraced the
Government. , the Culture Secretary,
“instructed” in a short letter—she used the word several
times—Nicholas Serota, chairman of the Arts Council, to do as the
Government, that is, , dictated. We had become, it
seemed, a state-run arts country, one step away from the
dictatorship of the state on the agenda. Without being rude, what
on earth was she playing at? Who did she think she was, and why
did the Government back her? Dr Harry Brünjes, chairman of ENO,
fought it, and eventually the Government shifted their ultimatum
back a few years. What on earth is going on? ENO makes a profit,
just as importantly as it makes a mark on the future of opera in
this country. The magnificent Royal Opera House is
incomprehensibly besieged by not dissimilar troubles.
Ms Dorries did not stop there. She threatened the reviewing of
the BBC licence fee by 2027 in such terms that the BBC knew it
would have crumbled—a policy which seems to have been adopted by
her successor. So far, the BBC has stood firm. We will see what
happens in the media debate. The finest cultural institution in
this country is the BBC. Classical music would be bereft without
it. From the Proms to new composers, music of all genres is given
airtime. BBC drama on television has pulled in some of the most
memorable work over the generations, as have discussions and
features on the radio. In the broadest sense, BBC radio is a
tailor-made embroidery of our tastes, aspirations and
intellectual achievements.
Then there is the World Service of the BBC, surely our greatest
ambassador. From the diurnal to the most distinguished, the BBC
defines the range and ambition of our society. Yet it is under
constant attack from those who envy it and want to capture its
audiences, not to make better programmes. There is to be a debate
on the media in your Lordships’ House quite soon. I trust that
this House will develop some themes which are brought out today,
and come out emphatically to leave the BBC unweakened.
The key word is “education”—to change the society thoroughly.
This can lead us to a new state of the arts. I owe much of the
next passage to the composer Howard Goodall. In the last century,
there were the county music services, free instrumental lessons,
Saturday morning music schools, orchestras and choirs. After
2020, these services were transferred into “hubs”, a private
enterprise model. The local authorities lost responsibility for
them and the slide began. In 2022, the number of hubs was reduced
nationally from 116 to 43, in direct contradiction to
consultations saying that this would be the worst possible option
for state schools. The 43 hubs had to do the same work as the
116, and on the same money.
The uptake in GCSE music has dropped from 50,000 entrants in 2009
to 29,000 in 2022. Consequently, staff numbers in music and other
arts have dropped dramatically. The noble Baroness, Lady
Featherstone, in her excellent speech on the depletion of support
for the performing arts, referenced this, pointing out that
“the decline in teachers of dance, drama and music”,
and in “teaching hours” and “position in the curriculum”, is
disgraceful,
“nor is there support for small music venues, which are closing
down at the rate of one a week”.—[Official Report; 30/3/23, col.
GC 108.]
Mr Sunak promised assistance, but none has arrived yet.
Howard Goodall writes that what has happened to music education
in the past 13 years is a “seismic reconfiguration”. He continues
that “the Conservative agenda being driven through the Arts
Council seems to be to let classroom music die out in state
schools”. The Department for Education met only 27% of its target
for newly trained music teachers last year.
In 2008, under a Labour Government, a programme was funded that
revived group singing in 97% of all primary schools in the
country, with a verifiable increase in discipline, attendance and
work in classrooms. Music mattered—it lit the flame— but the
scheme was dropped. Why cannot the 93% of children in our state
schools receive the same musical offering that the 7% in private
schools take for granted? It is shocking, unfair and just
wrong—and what a waste. Just imagine what talent could be
released and what benefits would flow were not only music but all
the arts given a chance to be a part of the engine of growth in a
country which used its proven assets—talent, flair, cultural
enterprise—to grow to its full potential? Of course, this needs
more investment and rescuing from the doldrums, but look at how
we are wasting money at the moment. We are squandering it. What
enormous rewards could follow from building up the arts. Let us
look again at the Industrial Revolution—the greatest revolution,
I would say, that the world has ever seen. Why do we not have an
Industrial Revolution for the arts? It is possible.
Finally, Professor Daisy Fancourt has just delivered a book to be
published first in America. If ever utterly conclusive proof were
required of the benefits of the arts in our society, here it
is—she has nailed it. She says: “In 2018, the World Health
Organization reported that after 3,500 studies, it had cast-iron
evidence of the deep and widespread health improvements which
came from the teaching of the arts, from neurological disorders
to child development. Cohort studies have shown that tens of
thousands of people of all ages benefit physically, emotionally,
and intellectually by going to galleries, by dance and singing in
choirs”.
I shall not club your Lordships with statistics at this stage,
but the evidence of the connection between the arts and
intellectual health has now been conclusively made. We have
scientific proof that art exercises the imagination and feeds us
in positive, unique and lasting ways. We cannot afford to ignore
this. We can no longer go on to cut, stint, cancel and slash. If
we are to bring up generations whose minds and feelings are
moulded by the best work, good teachers, and multiple
opportunities, we could indeed make a brave new world. Why not,
and why not start now? I beg to move.
12.03pm
(Con)
My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Lord, , who has given so much to the
arts over so many years. I briefly declare my interests as a
trustee of the Tate, chairman of the Marlow Film Studios and a
cultural broadcaster on Times Radio, broadcasting from the South
Bank, but not quite to the same level as the noble Lord, .
The funding for the arts in this country is not actually
insubstantial, if you take the direct grants to museums, the
grants through the Arts Council, the BBC itself, the tax credits
which extend from film through to theatre and museums and, of
course, university and local authority funding, although I accept
that local authority funding is under intense pressure at the
moment. This Government also deserve a great deal of credit for
the support they gave the arts throughout Covid. My noble friend
is not in the Chamber today,
but he and Ministers worked tirelessly to ensure that the arts
were supported. Nevertheless, it will not surprise your Lordships
to learn that I think we can still give more.
I take a very simple view: that the arts budget is effectively a
rounding error in terms of what government spends across the
piece. It could be increased substantially for the arts
insignificantly for what government spends overall, and it would
make a difference. My thesis has always been that the Government
should decide effectively what their national champions are—the
national museums, flagship theatres, not just those in London but
around the country—and fund them properly, securely and
long-term, not to such an extent that it stifles their
creativity, enterprise and philanthropic needs, but certainly to
ensure that they do not have to keep looking over their shoulders
to see whether they can keep the roof on. That to me is what one
could call a no-brainer.
At Tate, for example, we have not lost our ambition. Tate
Liverpool is going through its first major refurbishment for 40
years. Tate St Ives has acquired the Palais de Danse in St Ives,
where Barbara Hepworth made her sculptures. We are building a new
storage centre, which will be open to the public in a very
deprived area of London. Please help these national institutions
match their ambition.
I noted that the noble Lord focused on the economic impact of the
arts, and there is no doubt that the arts and creative industries
are some of our most successful industries. Their wider impact
has also to be taken into account. I do not really like these
terrible economic reports which say that for every pound you
spend on the arts you get £500 back. I think they are
nonsense—but we are world-leaders, and the arts have a huge
impact on health, education, criminal justice and soft power.
The arts are the venture capital for really successful
industries, such as our film, television and video games
industries. Marlow Film Studios could not exist if it were not
for the incredible talent that exists through this country’s
heritage in television and film, but Marlow Film Studios may not
exist because of the chronic and appalling planning system that
exists in this country. If we look at the planning guidance in
this country, we can see that cultural heritage and assets come
even behind Wetherspoon pubs. The sooner we put cultural assets
and heritage at the heart of our planning system and speed it up,
the better.
Finally, I love the system we have in the UK of what we call the
three-legged stool—core government funding, enterprise and
creativity, and philanthropy. It is important to acknowledge all
the people who make that happen and say thank you—thank you to
the people who work in the arts, who work for salaries far lower
than their talents deserve or what they could receive outside. We
must thank the philanthropists, who give so generously, two of
whom are in the Chamber with us today, and thank business—and
yes, thank BP for its grant to the British Museum. Finally, of
course, we should thank my noble friend for being such an excellent
Arts Minister, and for the hard work and devotion he gives to his
job as a servant to the community that he works for.
12.08pm
(Lab)
My Lords, it is truly an honour to be speaking in a debate opened
by my noble friend . Probably like many noble Lords,
I am a devotee of “In Our Time” and a great fan of his books. I
intend to follow his speech and talk about the arts’ and creative
industries’ place in the education and development of our young
people and the generations who, we hope, will take this wonderful
heritage forward into a prosperous future.
I was inspired to make this the subject of my short time to speak
today by a recent visit to the National Theatre. I was treated to
a tour behind the scenes and stages, which I thoroughly
enjoyed—particularly, I have to say, the wardrobe department. I
really appreciated the challenges that the National Theatre faces
today, but I also learned of the extensive programme of
education, learning, teacher support, training and apprenticeship
which is on offer at our National Theatre. For example, it runs a
scheme called New Views; it is a year-long, in-school playwriting
programme for students aged 14 to 19. Each school is paired with
a professional playwright, who supports students to write their
own original 30-minute plays, one of which will be performed on
the stage in the National Theatre. It is of course a struggle to
keep that going under the current circumstances.
I thank the Royal Shakespeare Company for its briefing, which
tells us that it has 30 long-term regional partnerships, made up
of 280 schools and 15 regional theatres, all in areas of
disadvantage. It says that
“talent and potential are everywhere, but opportunity isn’t”.
I would hate to see that threatened and not thriving.
Near where I live in Camden, the Roundhouse offers a huge range
of poetry, music and performing arts for local schools and
children. But we have to raise the money in those schools—I do so
in my local school—to ensure that our children can go there.
Where I grew up in Bradford, the first art gallery that I ever
visited was Cartwright Hall. We visited it as children; nobody
every stopped us running around in it, which was probably very
enlightened of the keepers there. Many decades later, last year,
I took my granddaughter to its half-term arts activity, which was
put on by the gallery for the local children in Manningham, which
is one of the most deprived areas in the country.
St George’s Hall in Bradford is the Yorkshire home of the Hallé
Orchestra; last year was its 155th music season. I went from my
comprehensive school to its concerts. Today, the tickets for
school students are £5 each, I am happy to say, but we have to
raise the money for those children to be able to attend.
A huge favourite in our family is the Wonderlab at the Science
Museum. I see many schoolchildren go there. It has a sister
museum in Bradford, the National Science and Media Museum, which
is doing “Back to Space” as its trip for the half-term holidays.
I think that we will be in London this half-term because we are
getting only a day off, so my family and I will probably go to
the British Museum, with its wonderful and extensive programme of
learning and family activities—or we might take advantage of the
amazing offerings of the National Trust. Quite why this
Government have made a perverse ideological decision to focus on
culture wars and target the National Trust, our fantastic and
wonderful national treasure, is a complete mystery to me.
I mention these places and programmes not just because I love
them but because they are a small number of examples of the
richness of our arts and cultural heritage. Theatres, galleries,
museums and community arts projects are absolutely vital as an
investment in the future, sustainability and prosperity of this
sector, which we neglect at our peril. Labour’s vision is that,
no matter where they live or who they are, every single person
should have the opportunity to create and consume excellent art
and culture.
12.12pm
of Knighton (CB)
My Lords, we are indebted to the noble Lord, , for securing this necessary
debate. It is necessary because, notwithstanding the Minister’s
undoubted love of the arts and the money secured during Covid, we
find ourselves currently in the midst of a crisis—a crisis
brought about largely by ill-considered decisions whose
ramifications reach deep into the cultural fabric of our society.
Should we make a special case for the arts? Yes, on so many
levels, including the return that they bring to our economy, our
well-being and our standing in the world.
Out of deference to the gifts of the noble Lord, , let me start with literature.
Books are provided, as they should be, for those detained at His
Majesty’s pleasure. However, I am reliably informed that, in
areas of deprivation such as Haringey, primary school libraries
have bare shelves compared with our prisons. That is shocking.
The Minister may say that this is a matter for the Department for
Education, but I suggest that it falls well within the area of
our debate today because, if young children do not have
sufficient access to reading, what chance do they have of
becoming literate and, ultimately, potential writers—an area
where we are world leaders?
It is this failing at the most basic educational level that so
worries me, be it in literature, music, art or drama. Yes, there
has been some improvement in music in schools but, essentially,
most state schools—as opposed to private ones—are miserably
catered for, with hardly any peripatetic teaching and often a
dearth of instruments. The DfE admits that there are recruitment
problems in this area. Do local performances provide exposure and
opportunity? Sadly not. As we have just heard, in 2023 in the UK
more than one music venue a week closed permanently.
We know now that it is not just the very young for whom exposure
to music is beneficial; research published this week shows how it
benefits older people too. In fact, engaging in music throughout
your life is associated with better brain health, according to a
new study published by experts at the University of Exeter. Noble
Lords advancing in age may like to know that the study found
that, if you continue to play the piano into great old age, your
brain will benefit enormously.
A few weeks ago—here I should mention my interests as listed in
the register—I was working with the BBC Singers. I was amazed by
their legendary ability to sight-read new scores. The fact that
the axe was poised over their heads because of the cuts that the
BBC has been forced to make by government was shocking, as were
the ill thought-out and nonsensical Arts Council cuts to the
London Sinfonietta, the Britten Sinfonia and the ENO. I concede
that that there was mismanagement in the past but, in recent
years, the ENO has fulfilled its outreach ambitions and the
bringing in of a young audience. The fact that its music
director, Martyn Brabbins, felt it necessary to resign over cuts
to these musicians is a matter
for which we should all feel shame.
Sheku Kanneh-Mason, on the other hand, is a young musician for
whom we can all feel pride. But his family say that they would
not have prospered under the current provision of music in
schools. When Sheku dared gently to suggest that “Land of Hope
and Glory” made him feel uncomfortable, he was subjected to
racial abuse; when I supported him by recalling that Elgar
himself hated the jingoism attached to a piece originally written
purely for orchestra, I, too, received abusive comments. Here, at
least, in our condemnation of that sort of behaviour and of
racism, I suspect the Minister and I will be as one.
12.16pm
(Lab)
My Lords, I am very pleased to follow the noble Lord, , who continues to delight us
musically and in every other way.
We take the arts for granted. I therefore warmly thank my noble
friend , who has done more than just
about anyone else to demystify and popularise the arts in our
country. That certainly matters because he is giving us a timely
prompt—a spur—to our awareness in order to overcome our
collective complacency; I mean the whole nation, not just this
House.
Creativity in the arts and sciences, often fused in technology,
is the sustainable raw material of modern times. We now need
exploration and innovation as the means of maintaining life
itself. Of course, they need funding; philanthropy is therefore
invaluable. But society—certainly civilised society—should not
depend on charitable largesse, especially when public investment
in the arts magnetises and enables private investment. It pulls
in rather than crowding out.
Public funding for creativity is therefore essential for the
human spirit and for community cohesion and pride. However,
crucially, the arts are also an economic cornucopia. Using a
definition of “the arts” that is narrower than that employed by
DCMS, last November’s McKinsey report, Assessing the Direct
Impact of the UK Arts Sector, showed that, in 2022, there were
139,000 arts enterprises and 63,000 voluntary arts organisations.
Some 95% of those professional enterprises were sole traders or
small businesses; the other 5% included the BBC, which is the
biggest single employer of musicians in the UK.
The arts employed 970,000 people, including 350,000
self-employed, and generated revenues of £140 billion, tax
receipts of more than £50 billion and gross value added of £49
billion. Local authority provision is an essential and
substantial component of those totals—it is a keystone in the
cultural arch—but, as the House knows, with £20 billion-worth of
cuts to central funding since 2010, councils everywhere have
pared back all non-statutory provision.
The effects on creative activities have been severe and, in some
cases, ruinous. Such cuts in central funding are gross,
short-sighted and socially, educationally and economically
counterproductive. They impoverish lives, communities and the
future. They inhibit individual opportunity, stunt aspiration and
diminish global Britain. Despite that, so many creative people
still valiantly respond to the adversity of cuts as a challenge
to fresh inventiveness, rather than a defeat; they give so much
more than they take. I wish them well and I want them to know
that, although they are certainly underfunded, they are valued
and not forgotten. A creative compact with the arts will come
with a Labour Government, and the sooner the better.
12.20pm
My Lords, I too am grateful to the noble Lord, , for securing this debate, and I
am particularly glad we are debating the contribution of the arts
not just to finance and the economy but to society. The arts are
fundamental to human flourishing, to expanding our imaginations,
to deepening our sympathies and to touching all aspects of our
lives that, so often, the merely financial fails to engage
with.
Of course, the arts do make a significant contribution to the
wealth of this nation, and we are fortunate to be home to some of
the world’s leading orchestras, musicians
playwrights, theatres, artists and galleries. In my own diocese
in Hertfordshire there is a rapid expansion of studios that are
attracting filmmakers from around the world, which is important.
But the danger is that we do not give enough time and attention
to thinking, “Where are these musicians and
artists going to come from, and where are they first going to get
the experience of the arts? Where are the ordinary people, in
their homes and families, engaging with the sheer delight of
creativity?” That is why I find it deeply sad that many young
people do not have the access to artistic expression or musical
education in their communities, homes, or, sadly sometimes, even
in their schools.
As I go around the communities in Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire,
I note that, in many villages, the only place with any communal
singing left is the church; what was once a bigger part of
communal life is dwindling. But the music and arts are not just
for professionals: they should be accessible to all, and this
really matters. I have spoken before in this Chamber about how
many of the UK’s composers, including , Elgar, Howells, Taverner
and Rutter began their musical careers because they were caught
up in local music making in their churches. Without this
opportunity, many of them might never have touched the artistic
part of their lives and developed their skills.
A significant number of contemporary musicians also started
out in local—sometimes church—choirs, such as Ed Sheeran, Annie
Lennox and Chris Martin of Coldplay. The Royal School of Church
Music is just one example of an organisation that is working at
grass roots across our country to bring the joy of music making
to so many others that would not otherwise experience it, for
example through its Voice for Life course. In my own diocese, the
St Albans chorister outreach project has worked with over 80
primary schools and given thousands of primary school-age
children the opportunity to participate in and enjoy singing. The
National Schools Singing Programme, run by the Roman Catholic
Church, has already expanded into 27 of Britain’s 32 Catholic
dioceses, reaching more than 17,000 children in 175 schools.
None of this is funded by the state, but, in some limited cases,
all that is needed to get it going is some limited seed-corn
funding. Yet, in the face of financial pressures, those very
modest amounts of money have been renewed, which has enabled
people to get going; it has given them a life experience of the
joy of music and art and set them off in a career that has been
such a blessing to many people. So my question to the Minister
is: will His Majesty’s Government take a fresh look to ensure
that we do not just fund flagship arts projects but have modest
amounts of money to release the arts among a much wider group of
people in our nation?
12.25pm
(Lab)
My Lords, as we heard from my noble friend , McKinsey published an arts
report last November that described the UK as a “cultural
powerhouse” that punches above its weight globally with a dynamic
ecosystem of multipurposed talent. I thank my noble friend Lord
Bragg—a true multitalent—for initiating this debate. I also
mention my own interest, particularly in book publishing, as set
out in the register.
The creative industries significantly grow our economy, as we
heard from the noble Lord, , and the civic contribution of
the arts improves our health, well-being and happiness. Creative
learning inspires children’s inquisitiveness, persistence,
collaboration, imagination and self-esteem. The arts encourage
social cohesion and lower crime, which is perhaps why all 18
year-olds in Germany are given a €200 KulturPass for cultural
events, books or music.
A third key impact of the arts is soft power and international
reputation. British writers are some of the top-grossing global
film franchises of all time: think of JRR Tolkien, Ian Fleming
and JK Rowling. The film of Alasdair Gray’s novel Poor Things has
clocked up 11 Oscar nominations and the film of Martin Amis’s The
Zone of Interest has five. The BBC World Service is listened to
by 318 million people weekly and the British Council engages with
650 million people annually.
The Royal College of Art and UAL are ranked number 1 and number 2
globally for art and design. Other countries revere, invest and
showcase their creative successes, but not us. The BBC, an
admired global brand, sits at the heart of our connected creative
industries. It is a trusted provider of news and our largest
commissioner of entertainment. But, instead of nurturing it, we
freeze its income for two years, engineer a 30% decrease in
funding since 2010 and give it a below-average inflation rise at
the end of it. With the arts declining by 40% at GCSE and no
government plan to improve literacy, oracy, creativity and music
in schools, together with the downgrading of humanities at
university, I fail to see how we will keep a pipeline of
talent.
The destruction of our arts ecosystem began in 2010 with
austerity cuts. Local authorities, traditionally the largest
investors in culture, suffered a 40% real-term core funding cut
over 10 years, with libraries, local theatres, museums and public
art the first to go—making a mockery of the levelling-up agenda.
Meanwhile, as referred to by the noble Lord, , an astonishing one in seven
primary schools do not have a library. It would cost £14 million
to correct that and, if all children in the UK read for pleasure,
the UK’s GDP would be up by £4.6 billion over a generation.
By contrast, France’s primary schools devote 10% of their time to
the arts, all secondary schools have a cultural co-ordinator and
art history is compulsory up to 16 years of age. Twenty years
ago, South Korea decided to invest in the arts, and it is now the
seventh largest creative cluster in the world. It increased
funding by 14% last year and put £500 million into a
public/private VC fund for the arts. The film “Parasite” won over
300 awards and four Oscars. “Squid Game”, K-pop and the Hallyu
wave have powered the growth of other local industries, from food
to cosmetics to tourism—which is why British creative leaders are
all travelling to Seoul.
We did lead the world creatively and should have aspirations to
do so again. We still have the creative talent, but not the
policies or the funding, for our cultural industries to flourish
at the heart of a growth strategy. We fail to recognise the
innovation the arts initiate when coupled with science and
technology. We make it difficult for our cultural activities to
tour, to export and to be discovered. This has to change. We must
invest in the power of art and in the creative industries that
bring us such pride and recognition globally.
12.29pm
(LD)
My Lords, it is a great pleasure to contribute to this debate on
the arts from the noble Lord, . As the wonderful Darren Henley
said:
“England’s artists, arts organisations, museums and libraries
enrich our lives, increase our knowledge and open our minds to
new possibilities”.
They not only are life-affirming but contribute around £126
billion in gross value to the economy and employ some 2.4 million
people, so they are value for money and good for us too.
I declare an interest in that a son-in-law, Jon Rolph, is a
talented television and radio comedy producer. His son Tom Rolph
has already had leading roles in local musicals, with his amazing
singing voice. Their skills have brought pleasure to many and
will continue to do so, because of how important both music and
comedy are to our well-being. I used to sing and play the piano.
After the exhortation of the noble Lord, , I will perhaps try to do
better in the future.
It is enormously challenging for those talented in the arts to be
recognised and employed to use those talents. It is a cut-throat
business, severely damaged by Brexit and the pandemic. In many
areas, artists struggle to survive, even when they are highly
skilled, highly talented and very real assets to our national
life.
The noble Lord, , has a highly distinguished
career in the arts. “In Our Time” always makes fascinating
listening. Since listening this morning, I know a whole lot more
about the Hanseatic League than I ever thought possible. Age is
no barrier to achievement, as we see from amazing octogenarians,
nonagenarians and even centenarians who are still contributing
their artistic talents to our enjoyment.
As the noble Lord, , said so eloquently, the BBC is
a national treasure if ever there was one. We see its significant
contribution to education as well as enjoyment. It has the BBC
Bitesize programme, its flagship educational website, and BBC
Teach with resources for teachers and students alike.
We know that the Government are pressed for money, with health,
education and housing all vying for well-deserved eye-watering
amounts, if our people are to be housed, cared for and educated
to the standards that we all wish for in one of the wealthiest
countries in the world. But the arts too need proper support if
they are to continue to be world beating and economically
advantageous.
As one fascinated by heritage arts and crafts, I congratulate the
Minister on the part that he played in ensuring that the
Government will at long last ratify the UNESCO Convention for the
Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage; I thank him for
that.
We hear that, since Brexit, teaching, lecturing, exhibiting,
entering competitions and, importantly, trade with the EU for our
brilliant crafts men and women has virtually ceased, which
obviously affects the contribution of crafts to the economy. What
provision will the Government make to ensure that the skills of
our arts and crafts people will be supported so that the UK
continues to hold its place as a creative centre in the world?
What plans do the Government have to ensure that music, drama,
dance and art are taught in all schools—various noble Lords have
already identified that there has been a woeful shortfall in
recent years—to ensure that the next generation has every
opportunity to use its artistic talents to the benefit of the
economy and for the enjoyment of us all?
12.33pm
of Hudnall (Lab)
My Lords, I will come to my noble friend later. I remind the House of my
current and past interests, including as a former executive
director of the National Theatre and a former deputy chair of the
board of the Royal Shakespeare Company. I ask the House to be so
good as to take it as read that I agree with virtually everything
that has been said so far and that I anticipate agreeing with
most of what will be said after I have sat down. I will strive to
repeat none of it.
I will talk slightly differently about why I think the arts
matter—not for their economic impacts, important as they are, nor
because studying music improves our maths skills, for example,
which it does, but for the power that the arts have to change us
and thereby to change the world.
In the New Statesman last month, the journalist Anna Leszkiewicz
wrote:
“In narrating this injustice with empathy, immediacy and urgency,
television drama has succeeded where journalism has failed … The
series has invited the average person to step inside the
experience of Bates and so many others, to feel the iron walls of
bureaucracy closing in on them, to take on their panic and
powerlessness. It is an extraordinary and rare example of a drama
not just capturing but creating a national moment”.
The only word with which I disagree is “rare”. She was, of
course, talking about “Mr Bates vs The Post Office”. After it was
broadcast, there was widespread confusion: “How did this happen?
How did this drama have such an impact?” The hard-won experience
and skill of researchers, producers, designers, a remarkable
writer and director, and a peerless group of actors and many more
took us into the minds of others, obliging us to confront
experience that we do not have and perspectives other than our
own. This is how a drama about the Post Office succeeded in
altering the course of events when so much excellent previous
research and journalism—on which, of course, the drama
relied—could not.
All of us watching certainly gained knowledge, but much more
importantly we gained insight. Our imaginations were engaged and
we felt the “iron walls of bureaucracy”, the “panic and
powerlessness”, closing in on us and we were moved. This is what
art and artists can do: they link us to each other, remind us of
our common vulnerabilities and help us to make sense of an often
chaotic world.
Human beings need stories. It is how they learn. They need to
hear them and to tell them. Art, in all its many forms, is how
stories are shared. This is why encouragement of creative
thinking should be central to any well-balanced school
curriculum. Education cannot be about just acquiring knowledge,
important as that is, but must also be about learning to process
that knowledge, to challenge it thoughtfully and to use it
imaginatively.
We live in a dangerous world—angry, frightened and divided. The
power of the arts to help us navigate it has never been more
needed. We must protect and nourish them. Now I come to my noble
friend , who has probably done more than
anybody alive, in his extraordinary career, to protect and
nourish them. I hope that I do not embarrass him by saying that
he is a true national treasure but, more importantly to all of
us, he is an inspiring colleague and has been for many years. How
very lucky we are to have him.
12.37pm
(Lab)
My Lords, I too begin my comments by thanking my noble friend
for introducing this fascinating
subject with great eloquence and passion.
I want to do two things. The first is to ask the question: what
are arts? The question we are debating is: what is the
contribution of the arts to the economy and to society? That
raises two questions—arts and contribution—and I will say
something on them both.
We have talked about arts for a long time, but I am not entirely
sure what we mean by them. Some might ask whether sport is an
art. Is cricket an art? Is billiards an art? What can one say?
What would be the answer of those who were silenced by Mrs
Thatcher, who was interrogating this, to the question of what
snooker or cricket’s contribution to the economy or society
is?
The first thing to do is to be clear about the arts but, since I
cannot do this here, I will do it in my classroom. I simply say
that art refers to an imaginative reconstruction of an object or
activity. One creates an object and its bears one’s imprint on
it. Through that imprint, one makes it distinctively one’s object
and it can give a lot of pleasure to others.
The next question is far more important—contribution. The
contribution of the arts can be at many levels. One can produce
millions of DVDs, sell them and say that this is the contribution
of the arts, but is this our interest here? We are interested in
what is distinctive in the contribution of art, not just what is
incidental but what is intrinsic to it. Art cannot be imagined
without those contributions and we cannot imagine those
contributions from any activity other than art, in any
society.
I want to concentrate—because I think it is very important—on the
distinctive contributions of art to any society, without which it
is not really worth living in. I point to four contributions that
art makes. First, it gives you self-knowledge. Art gives a
society some understanding of what it is, the deeper forces
working within it, and the deeper contradictions and
self-knowledge.
Secondly, art points out the defects of society in an intelligent
and meaningful way. It does not lecture and say, “You should be
doing this”, but rather it subtly gets under your skin and points
out what the defect is and how it needs to be rectified. That is
why, for example, “Cathy Come Home” or “Mr Bates vs The Post
Office” had enormous impact. You ask why, if this had been going
on for all those years, nobody was moved? Why did we have to wait
so long, until a 45-minute programme came along? My guess is that
it is because art unsettles you. If you asked the millions of
people who saw it and were influenced by it what moved them, they
would give you all kinds of answers that refer to the internal
mechanism of the human mind, which the art was able to touch.
Thirdly, art creates a community. For example, a novelist
represents characters from different communities and introduces
them to each other. If I do not know how a worker lives his life,
by reading Dickens I begin to get a picture of how that person
works.
Fourthly, and finally, as Toni Morrison said, art is my access to
me—an entrance into my own inner life. By reading about art and
people like me, I begin to understand myself. What more
self-knowledge can there be than art? Religion is supposed to be
the source of out self-knowledge: God alone knows us . The artist
certainly does that: he holds a mirror to us and gives us some
idea of who we are. A society lucky with its artists is a society
that has a great contribution to make.
12.42pm
(CB)
My Lords, I am delighted to speak in this important debate,
tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Bragg—whose status as a national
treasure I am delighted to endorse—reminding all of us, not least
the Government, of the importance of the arts. I will focus on
music and its contribution to society.
So many of the events that define us as a society have music at
their heart. Hatches, matches and dispatches all feature music—we
sang some splendid hymns at Lord Judge’s moving thanksgiving
service last week. Music figures at national occasions, such as
the Coronation, Trooping the Colour and Remembrance Sunday. Music
festivals, whether pop, rock, jazz or classical, are important to
many of us, as are eisteddfodau in Wales. We express our
affiliations to our country, religion or football team in songs
and anthems. Where would we be without our choirs, orchestras and
ensembles, including the Parliament Choir, my own contribution to
which may or may not qualify as artistic? We even learned this
week that singing or playing music might help to ward off
dementia.
Like the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, I agree with everything
that has been said so far, and probably with everything that will
be said. I will highlight two challenges facing music, both of
which have already been mentioned.
Last week, I attended an event hosted by the Music Venue Trust,
representing grass-roots music venues across the UK. I was
shocked to learn that, as we have heard, the number of such
venues shrank by more than one a week in 2023, with 42% of these
closures resulting from financial problems. The trust does a
great job of making music available locally through such venues,
but much more help is needed, both nationally and locally. I hope
that the Minister might consider what steps the Government could
take to ensure a more sustainable ownership and business model
for grass-roots music venues. Might he consider a ticket levy,
with tickets for large-scale music events including a small
contribution towards supporting grass-roots venues? There are
other actions government might look at, such as reducing the
burden of VAT or business rates on small venues.
As we have heard, issues around music education raise even
greater concerns. The number of pupils taking music GCSEs and
A-levels has been steadily declining. Art and creative subjects
are excluded from the five EBacc subject groups, causing some
schools to drop them altogether, particularly state schools, as
we have heard. The Independent Society of musicians highlights a
teacher recruitment and retention crisis: targets for recruiting
music teachers have been missed, and some schools may have to
rely on non-specialist teachers or none at all. As the noble
Lord, , told us, the local music
education hubs set up under the original national plan for music
education have been consistently underfunded. They are currently
preoccupied with a major reorganisation to reduce their number
from almost 120 to 43—and will still be underfunded. How do the
Government intend to assure that the excellent aims of the
refreshed national plan—led by the noble Baroness, Lady Fleet,
who cannot be with us today—will be met, for the benefit of
children across the country? What will the Minister do to blow
the trumpet for music education and sing the praises of all those
who contribute to it, so that music’s absolutely vital
contribution to our society is sustained into the future?
Without music education, the music could stop. So come on,
Minister. We recognise his personal commitment, and he has an
excellent and ambitious plan to work with—why not give it a bit
more welly?
12.46pm
(Lab)
My Lords, if everybody agrees with everybody else, I wonder where
that leaves the Minister.
I will work on one thing for a couple of minutes: rural life.
Governments—of all parties, to be honest—ignore rural life in the
UK. The word “rural” has not crossed anybody’s lips, although we
came close with the right reverend Prelate’s speech. This goes
for the big arts funders as well.
I live in Ludlow. It is the case that citizens there cannot even
get home from events in Shrewsbury and Hereford, 30 miles away,
using public transport. We are on our own. I declare an interest,
in that Helen Hughes, aka Lady Rooker, was the pro bono chief
executive of the Ludlow Assembly Rooms for eight years, after it
was disowned by Arts Council England. It contains a 300-seat
auditorium, recently rebuilt to modern standards, and it is
mainly run by over 100 volunteers. Events can be streamed from
London and New York. A mixture of film, live shows and
international streaming for thousands of people, including those
with dementia and other impairments not catered for by the big
battalions of the arts, are offered. But the base funding is
crucial to help provide the infrastructure for such small
organisations. In turn, they are crucial for artists to develop
their craft—people often come to a 300-seat rural enterprise to
test events for a bigger auditorium later on. Funders want
innovation, while small organisations need core funding to stay
ongoing.
We are 10 miles from the Welsh border. Annual performances by Mid
Wales Opera fill the auditorium. Recently, “Beatrice and
Benedick” packed the place out. Mid Wales Opera ensures that
nobody in Wales and the Marches is more than 30 miles from
professional opera through its touring programme, together with
the outstanding work it undertakes in schools, providing an
education programme that gives massive benefits to so many young
people. But now, Arts Council of Wales, in its wisdom, has cut
support to this innovating company to zero. It just does not
care—that is the problem. Rural arts need more support and
attention.
12.49pm
(LD)
My Lords, as ever, it is a great honour to follow the noble Lord,
, who put his finger on a very
important issue. However, I return to the role that the arts play
in activism and campaigning—what the right reverend Prelate the
called “deepening our
sympathies”.
The arts can engage us in a way that a thousand worthy leaflets
or an informed speech simply do not. The noble Baroness, Lady
McIntosh of Hudnall, laid that out when she talked about “Mr
Bates vs The Post Office”. It took an ITV drama to focus the
nation’s attention; two decades of campaigning led up to it but
had not been able to focus anybody’s attention on its
sufficiently. I am amazed how the scriptwriter, Gwyneth Hughes,
managed so brilliantly to condense all that into a drama.
A gut-wrenching example of a brilliant and powerful play that I
saw in the last year was Suzie Miller’s “Prima Facie”, which
starred Jodie Comer. That play examines a brilliant, hard-working
woman who gets crushed between misogyny and the rules of the game
devised outwith the reality of women’s experience.
In a very different genre, Ai Weiwei’s recent exhibition at the
Design Museum was very thought-provoking. He is an absolute
master of stating tragedy with great subtlety, and of addressing
immense issues originally and strikingly. We are very lucky to
have him living in this country.
At the moment, I am reading Prophet Song by Paul Lynch. I
appreciate that he is an Irish writer; of course, the Irish
support the arts rather better than we do. It rightly won the
Booker Prize, and chillingly portrays the little steps it takes
to descend into a totalitarian state: the removal of sympathy,
the lessening of empathy as it seeps away from people,
neighbours, work colleagues and even family, until the state,
working on the resulting fear and isolation, takes total control.
It is a very chilling book that I thoroughly recommend.
Paula Rego changed a whole nation’s attitude to abortion through
her series of paintings, as the then President of Portugal
acknowledged. The power of art to change society for the better
simply cannot be overstated. There are lots of other examples of
that.
Right now, at Tate Britain, there is a very moving mixed media
exhibition, “Women in Revolt!”, which follows women’s activism
and campaigning on everything from equal pay to advertising to
war. It is a thoroughly worthwhile exhibition and only just down
the road. However, it provoked in me the thought that we have
come a long way in some regards compared with where we were in
the 1970s, but there is still an awfully long way to go. The arts
have a very big role to play in that.
12.53pm
(Lab)
My Lords, it is a great privilege to take part in this debate on
the contribution of the arts to the economy and society. It is
even more of an honour to take part in a debate led by my noble
friend . For most of my adult life, he
has been the cultural advocate to follow and one whose opinions
on the arts, artists and the art world have shaped much of the
national conversation. His contributions have made the arts
accessible and helped us all to see their value, rather than to
see the artistic endeavour as remote, highbrow and elitist. With
others, he has argued the place of popular culture—a legacy to
celebrate, surely.
In my few comments, I will draw attention to the role that the
arts can play in regeneration, in particular in seaside and
coastal communities. Living in and running a coastal city has,
inevitably, shaped my view.
In 2018-19, I chaired a Select Committee on the future of seaside
towns. Our report painted a depressing picture of decline and
lost opportunity—of once thriving seaside communities feeling
disconnected and left behind. Health and education, caring
services, public transport, access to the arts and culture—all
had outcomes infinitely poorer than in our major cities. We
charted this decline from the 1960s, when many seaside towns lost
access to the rail network and Brits with rising living standards
changed their holiday habits. We concluded that none of this was
inevitable.
The committee visited Cornwall, Clacton, Skegness, Blackpool,
Whitby and Scarborough, and Margate. We heard from councils,
social commentators, cultural entrepreneurs, MPs, Ministers,
architects, regeneration experts and, most importantly, local
people. In short, we listened to those with a passion for those
communities and their potential.
One thing came across strongly. The British people have not
fallen out of love with the seaside—visitor numbers remain high.
They just view the seaside and our coast in a different light.
The successful coastal communities we visited had a strong
cultural imprint and had invested in the arts, education and
culture. Margate, St Ives, Penzance, Scarborough and Falmouth had
all taken a leap of faith, and it was evidently paying off.
Take my own city: back in the 1960s and 1970s it was a
semi-industrial tourist town in economic decline but with the
Brighton Festival, the arrival of higher education and the
development of a college of art, it has shifted from being Keith
Waterhouse’s town that looks like it is
“helping the police with their inquiries”
to becoming the place to be. Now it is full of creatives,
arthouses, art entrepreneurs, TV production
companies, musicians writers and
performers. It has one of the UK’s highest business formation
rates, many of them linked to the arts and the digital economy.
The Brighton Festival, the Brighton Dome and the Royal Pavilion
show an economic impact annually of some £60 million and support
1,200 jobs. It is an arts hub for the south.
Is this a miracle cure for the seaside economy? In itself no, but
it is part of the answer. As we have heard, the arts have high
levels of productivity, can be open and accessible, can deliver
new skills, and are at the cutting edge of new technologies. The
UK, partly because of the brilliant advocacy of the arts by my
noble friend , is a recognisable arts
superpower. But just as decline is not inevitable, nor is
success. The arts economy needs champions, risk-takers,
well-shaped investment plans and a sense of national purpose, and
it needs a Government—a Labour Government—who are confident,
outward looking, invest in winners, help its arts exporters, and
celebrate and value our successes.
Regeneration led by arts and culture has enormous transformative
potential—just look at Dundee and the V&A’s impact—but we
need support, a framework of renewal and a national plan for
improving the seaside that embraces that potential.
12.57pm
(Lab) [V]
My Lords, I declare my interests as chair of the National Centre
for Creative Health—a charity independent of government —and as
co-chair of the All-Party Group on Arts, Health and
Wellbeing.
Since the APPG published its report, Creative Health, in 2017,
the term “creative health” has become increasingly familiar in
the worlds of healthcare, social care and culture. It denotes
creative activities and approaches that have benefits for our
health and well-being. Activities can include visual and
performing arts, crafts, literature, cooking, and creative
activities in nature, such as gardening. Approaches may involve
creative and innovative ways to provide health and care services
in healthcare settings, but also in homes, in communities, at
cultural institutions and at heritage sites. My noble friend
referred to the important
research by Professor Daisy Fancourt of the World Health
Organization, demonstrating the effectiveness of creative
health.
Creative health may be used as a targeted intervention to support
people living with specific mental and physical health
conditions. It can be applied in people’s everyday lives,
supporting general well-being, reducing isolation and loneliness,
and, as a component of place and community-based approaches to
population health, influencing the social determinants of health:
the conditions in which people live, grow, work and age.
Some noble Lords may recall that, in our proceedings on the
Health and Care Bill in 2022, when the Minister declined to set
up a review of the efficacy and potential of creative health, I
said that we would do it ourselves. The Creative Health Review
report, sponsored by the NCCH and the APPG, and led by a very
distinguished group of commissioners, was published in December.
It describes the current state of creative health in England and
makes recommendations to government and metropolitan mayors.
Greater Manchester and London are already well ahead with
creative health strategies for their city regions.
We call for a cross-governmental strategy to ensure that the
power of creative health is fully harnessed to improve the health
and well-being of all people across the life course, reduce
inequalities, improve economic productivity, reduce pressure and
demand on the NHS and support the personal resilience of staff in
the NHS and social care.
If the potential benefits of creative health are to be realised,
this is not just a matter for the DHSC and DCMS. We addressed
recommendations to the Department for Education, DLUHC, the
Ministry of Justice and other departments. We recommend, for
example, better focus on creativity in school and using
creativity to improve working conditions and the planning and
design of the built environment. Strategy to realise the full
potential of creative health needs to be driven by No. 10, with a
new and sophisticated analysis of the economic benefits by the
Treasury.
The report is available on the NCCH website. It presents evidence
that creative health offers value for money, and that creative
health interventions can lead to a reduction in healthcare usage.
Mindsong’s “Breathe in Sing out” programme in Gloucestershire
uses singing to support people with breathlessness resulting from
COPD, asthma or anxiety. They have seen a statistically
significant improvement in mental well-being, a 23% decline in
A&E admissions and a 21% decline in GP appointments.
Some integrated care systems, including creative health hubs in
West Yorkshire and Gloucestershire, have incorporated creative
health into their joint forward plans and established supporting
infrastructure and funding and commissioning models that
facilitate the sustained development of community-based creative
health initiatives. They have also collated consistent data that
demonstrate the long-term impact on health outcomes and
inequalities. The Government should encourage and support such
approaches across the country. This requires a whole-system
approach, endorsed and led by the Government, including health
systems, local authorities, schools and the cultural and VCSE
sectors.1.02pm
The (CB)
My Lords, I too congratulate the Government on deciding to ratify
the UNESCO treaty on intangible cultural heritage. I thank
Patricia Lovett, who has campaigned on this for so many years. I
also applaud the Government’s stated commitment to negotiate the
artist’s resale right with other countries, which is much
appreciated. However, the triumvirate of crisis areas—arts
funding, arts education and Brexit—is now causing firefighting on
a daily basis in terms of cost, red tape and feasibility.
An artist’s work is primarily a contribution to society, which is
why public funding is so important. Visual artists, for instance,
should be properly remunerated for participation in public
exhibitions on the kind of scale that, for example, Stuttgart has
recently announced for artists there. Compare that progressive
model with Suffolk and Nottingham, which are the latest councils
to announce zero funding for the arts. There will be no
exhibitions, let alone payment for artists, and theatres are now
in danger of losing much of their total funding, as the excellent
introduction by the noble Lord, , made clear.
I read with horror this week of the possible plans for a fire
sale of public assets to deal with local authorities’ financial
woes, including buildings that might be used for arts and
cultural purposes. This is so short-sighted. Councils have
already lost many precious buildings that cannot be recovered.
Local authorities ought to be part of the solution, rather than
hindering the provision of, for example, our increasingly scarce
music venues, which were mentioned earlier.
The Arts Council and local authorities are blamed, but ultimately
the long-term cuts to central government funding are responsible.
The key to arts funding lies in reversing the cuts to local
authorities, particularly as through the “Let’s Create” strategy
the overstretched Arts Council has taken on the kind of community
projects that used to be funded by local authorities.
Brexit has yet to be properly addressed for the arts. While much
can be done to ameliorate the situation, including renegotiating
the deal the EU originally offered us, in the end the real
solution must be to rejoin the single market. I say this
particularly because many of the jobs that used to be on offer in
Europe to performers as an accepted part of their career path are
now advertised only for those with European passports. We will
always remain at a disadvantage to our European neighbours in the
creative industries until we are an equal member of that market
again.
One specific thing the Government could do to help
touring musicians would be to
speed up and reduce the red tape on the issuing of A1 forms. I
have an Oral Question on this on 12 February, to be answered by
the Treasury, but I take the opportunity here to ask DCMS to
impress on the Treasury the importance of addressing this
concern.
The third main area of concern is arts education, with GCSE arts
entries falling by a massive 41% since 2010. The key issue here
is the accountability measures, with their built-in hierarchy of
subjects. Look to the recent report by the Lords Education for
11-16 Year Olds Committee that recommends the EBacc be scrapped
and Progress 8 reformed. One should bear in mind that the EBacc
was set up to cement the then Education Secretary Michael Gove’s
vision of a narrowly academic bias to school education, not the
properly rounded education that all students deserve and that
would most benefit society.
1.06pm
(Lab)
My Lords, I declare my interest as a member of the board of the
Royal Court Theatre. When I was first appointed to your
Lordships’ House, the first reaction of one of my oldest friends
was: “Oh wow, that’s amazing. Does that mean you get to meet
Melvyn Bragg?”. I cannot think of anyone else whose cultural
appetite spans so widely, yet whose passion is always tethered to
the values of incessant curiosity and intellectual rigour.
Another thing I associate with my noble friend is the belief that art and
culture should be available to everyone, whatever their
background—a statement that sounds trite, perhaps, until you
unpack what it says about a country and a culture when it stops
being true. It is rare that someone steps out and says, “Art
should only be for the privileged few”. But the problem is that
that is precisely what happens in a country that lets the open,
democratic contract at the heart of arts and culture slip away—a
country, sadly, a bit like ours.
This is what happens when you see the arts not as a staple of
what makes for a good life but as a luxury that can no longer be
afforded—the “cherry on the cake” misnomer, as my noble friend
said. It leads to nearly £1
billion cut from local government spending on the arts in the
last 15 years—a 30% real-terms cut in public funding for the arts
since 2010. It is accompanied by a view that the arts are the
plaything of the metropolitan elites. It tethers political
grievance directly to our cultural institutions—to our media,
whose integrity gets constantly questioned; and to our arts
institutions, which are portrayed as enjoyed only by the
champagne swillers. It leads to a Culture Minister who did not
even know that Channel 4, one of her party’s boldest innovations,
was not taxpayer funded.
In education, it continues with the prejudice that science is an
investment but arts are a hobby—that arts and culture are a
private good, not a public one. Arts courses at universities are
repeatedly challenged for their economic value, their academic
merit and even their political acceptability. Unsurprisingly,
these courses then get whittled away. Cash-strapped and
curriculum-overloaded schools become less able to offer
supplementary arts and music options, or even core arts and music
options, for their students. Over time, as many noble colleagues
have said, the values of empathy, curiosity, sensitivity and
openness become associated with elitism, privilege, weakness and
even being a “snowflake”.
What is the consequence of this financial and cultural chipping
away at the arts? It means that children’s access to arts is
radically reduced, arts institution cuts that were temporary in
bad times become the new normal, and thousands of freelance
workers who depend on the arts, and who are not often mentioned,
find their careers totally unsustainable.
It is no surprise, then, that in Britain today, people who grow
up in professional families are four times more likely than those
with working-class parents to be working in the creative
industries. One of our leading actresses, Dame Helen Mirren,
warns that acting is becoming the preserve of the rich. Thus, the
prejudices of many of those who neglect and starve the arts are
perversely vindicated.
The price we all pay for this is not just young people with less
exposure to the arts, and who are less enriched by them; it is
not just growing inequality in access to what should be a daily
staple for everyone in our country. It is also that the quality
of our democracy is undermined, because our arts are at the heart
of freedom of expression, solidarity, debate and disagreement
accompanied by civility.
Arts make us all better citizens, which is why we all need
access, continued exposure and participation in the arts. More
than anything else, this is why, whatever happens politically in
the decade ahead, we must all, whatever our party and our
preferences, call time on the neglect, austerity, politicisation
and prejudice towards our arts that I fear has become part of
daily life in the past decade.
1.10pm
(Con)
My Lords, I, too, welcome this debate, and thank the noble Lord,
, for securing it. As a general
point, I emphasise that the arts/creative industries sector
provides us with an important ingredient of soft power
internationally. The status and recognition of the UK and its
economy is based on a mixture of our history, the importance of
the English language, our education system and the BBC, but it is
enhanced by the role of the arts, whether music, dance, theatre
or anything else that can claim inclusion in the definition. In
this, the British Council has an important role, which I believe
could and should be extended.
In the short time available, I will concentrate my remarks on
dance and classical ballet, in particular. As a former
co-chairman of the All-Party Parliamentary Dance Group, a
position now enjoyed by my noble friend Lady Fraser of
Craigmaddie, I can point to the importance of the role of dance
in education, health, well-being, discipline and international
relations as well as in its sheer beauty and entertainment value.
In recognising the importance of excellence and high standards in
performance, a perhaps less-known institution, the Royal Academy
of Dance, plays a vital role. Here I must declare an interest as
a former governor of the RAD, which teaches the teachers of
ballet, provides the syllabus and examination system and
maintains standards. It is recognised for this throughout the
world. Indeed, I have come across RAD examiners working away in
South Africa and New Zealand and even in El Salvador.
In terms of culture, the Royal Ballet has, of course, a leading
role. Again, I should declare an interest as a former governor in
the days when my late friend of Preston Candover was the
chairman. I was also privileged to attend the Royal Ballet School
at the ripe old age of 10, so long ago that it was still known as
the Sadler’s Wells Ballet School. The Royal Ballet, at its home
in the Royal Opera House, represents a centre of excellence
renowned throughout the world and is a huge attraction for
tourists and British balletomanes alike. In talking about the
Royal Ballet, let us not forget the Birmingham Royal Ballet under
the brilliant artistic directorship of Carlos Acosta and in the
safe hands of its CEO, Caroline Miller. The BRB delights
audiences at its home base in Birmingham, but also brings joy and
pleasure to the citizens of Southampton, Bristol, Plymouth,
Sunderland, Salford and elsewhere in its capacity as a touring
company. We are fortunate in other companies, such as the English
National Ballet and the Northern Ballet, to name but two which
are also world class. All are struggling with budgetary
restrictions.
If I may raise a specific question for my noble friend, given the
funding cuts we have been hearing about, the higher rate of
theatre tax relief introduced in 2022 has provided a lifeline for
theatre, opera and ballet. It has made it possible to invest in
various productions, fostered innovations and supported
employment for actors, dancers, designers, producers and stage
crew who would otherwise be out of work. To take one example from
the Birmingham Royal Ballet, it supported the highly innovative
“Black Sabbath - The Ballet”, which last year thrilled sold-out
audiences across the country, many of whom had never seen ballet
before. The current rate of tax relief is due to end in 2025.
Could it be extended? Such a move would be cheered across the
performing arts sectors. Can my noble friend give me hope?
1.14pm
(Lab)
My Lords, we get to the point in the debate where we defy the
rules of “Just a Minute” and have hesitation and repetition.
However, I make no excuses for congratulating my noble friend and
national treasure on his lifelong commitment to
the arts and on ensuring this debate. I refer to my register of
interests. I spent 40 years as an actor before entering the
theatre of politics, and I know full well what my noble friends
Lord Bassam and said about seaside and rural
theatres. Indeed, I have performed the length and breadth of the
country, sometimes in theatres that wished I had not.
On a serious point, I believe that our lack of a comprehensive
arts policy will fail a generation in this country. Therefore, my
focus will be on access to the arts and the creative industries
in all their aspects through education at primary, secondary and
tertiary level and on physical access to experience the arts in
all their interconnected forms. I am indebted to the Lords
Library, in particular to Nicola Newson, for the detailed
research I requested and to the briefings I received from
Equity.
My premise is that we have no effective joined-up,
cross-departmental approach to one of our most successful
industries. I would go so far as to revisit the concept of DCMS
and instead make a case for education, arts, science and
innovation. I believe that without cross-departmental strategies,
young people, especially from working class and ethnic minority
backgrounds and people with disabilities, will be denied crucial,
life-changing opportunities without regular access to the arts,
arts education and the careers therein.
It is not only young people who benefit; it is
cross-generational. I have witnessed at first hand the impact of
drama and art within the prison system in opening up minds and
helping people to face the challenge of reading and writing and
expressing oneself and the deep and often damaging frustration
that comes when people are unable to express themselves. The arts
have the power to bring imagination to life and allow and
encourage individuals to explore new, unimagined opportunities.
The arts are all interconnected. Television soap opera, music,
television drama and theatre open audiences to the world around
them and challenge misconception and misinformation while all the
time being engaging and entertaining and in fact, as mentioned by
my noble friend Lady McIntosh, bringing about a monumental change
for justice, as we witnessed with “Mr Bates vs the Post Office”
and, for those of us old enough to remember, the social justice
that followed “Cathy Come Home”.
However, we are failing young people, as witnessed by the
findings of a report by A New Direction, a not-for-profit
organisation that promotes creative opportunities for children
and young people. Its report The Arts in Schools: Foundations for
the Future was published in March 2023, and it still needs to be
fully addressed by the Government. We must ensure that there is
greater time to study and explore music, drama, design, dance,
video games, films and audio within our schools and in hubs
outside, especially for those who might not otherwise be able to
afford it. We must keep our theatres, music venues and libraries
open. They are not luxuries; they make economic sense, and they
speak of the kind of civilised, open country that we are or could
become.
1.19pm
(GP)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the powerful contribution of
the noble Lord, , and join the universal
thanks to the noble Lord, , for securing this debate and
introducing it so powerfully. It is worth focusing on his key
message that the arts feed us. They are to our physical,
emotional and intellectual benefit. However, rather than cake, we
should look at them as bread—one of the staffs of life.
I shall focus on the importance of that staff being available to
all communities, as did the right reverend Prelate the in noting the near
collapse of provision in Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire,
particularly in opportunities for people to participate in the
arts. For the Green Party, that must be the foundation of arts
policy: focusing not on what people purchase—Hollywood movies or
blockbuster exhibitions —but on what they participate in or
jointly create. We know that that is of great public interest, in
the best sense.
To take an example that noble Lords may be aware of, there is
currently a giant furore around Suffolk County Council’s decision
to deliver a 100% cut to core arts funding. This has even
penetrated the London-centric mainstream media bubble. We have to
acknowledge the long-term impact of more than a decade of
government austerity on local government—and I declare my
position as a vice-president of the Local Government Association.
The foundational blame lies in Westminster. But the local
decision is still indefensible and has since, to a degree, been
reversed, although the outcome is yet to be finalised. However, a
partial climbdown by the county council leaves hugely valued
local institutions, such as DanceEast and the New Wolsey Theatre,
without the kind of certainty needed to securely continue to
deliver hugely valued community services. The mother of 15
year-old Jack, who has autism, told Channel 4 how much a weekly
drama class had brought him out of his shell. “I absolutely love
them”, Jack told Channel 4’s reporter.
Noble Lords will be aware that I work across many issues in your
Lordships’ House. In health debates, we often hear that the
Government understand and value the increasing contribution to
health of social prescribing, which enables people to access
dance, theatre and other creative arts as a way of caring for
them and improving their health and lives. Yet Ipswich, where
one-third of children live in poverty, faces a collapse of such
provision, which can only put more costs on to our struggling NHS
and take away that essential food to set children up for a
healthy life.
Finally, I step away from my main focus to comment on the
contribution of the noble Lord, Lord Vaizey, who is not currently
in his place, and disagree in the strongest terms with him about
the relationship between BP and the British Museum. As the
campaign group Culture Unstained said, this is “completely
indefensible”. Greenwashing and artwashing do not clean the hands
of companies such as BP, but they do damage the reputation, the
standing and the world’s view of institutions that enable that
effort at greenwashing.
To comment further on the noble Lord embrace of philanthropy,
relying on philanthropy as a foundation to keep our institutions
going means that a tiny number of people get a big say in the
direction of those institutions—the subjects they tackle and the
kind of work they support. How much better it would be to ensure
that big companies and rich individuals pay their taxes and we
all democratically decide how to allocate the funding. If we want
arts that embrace and show the way to change, rather than simply
seek to reinforce the status quo, we need democratically decided
funding for them.
1.23pm
(Lab)
My Lords, I join noble Lords in thanking the noble Lord, , for securing this debate, his
powerful introduction and, as so well expressed by my noble
friend Lady McIntosh, his exceptional contribution to this
country’s cultural and artistic life.
I had the privilege of introducing a debate on a similar subject
a year or so ago. Depressingly but unsurprisingly, little has
changed for the better since. The real reduction in public
funding for the arts has continued to squeeze all institutions
while the Arts Council stumbles on in its attempt to distribute
that inadequate funding in the context of admittedly incoherent
directions from the Government. All the while and against the
odds, artists of all disciplines in this country daily create
miracles of inspired excellence. So, are we wasting our breath
today? I was encouraged last night when talking to the chair of
one of the most important artistic institutions in the country,
from outside London. He welcomed our debate, saying that: “Nobody
else advocate for the arts—least of all the Arts Council”.
I declare my interest in the register as a vice-chair of LAMDA. I
strongly endorse the arguments made by the noble Lord, , and every other speaker about
the vital importance of the arts, directly and indirectly, to our
lives. I will make two brief points.
The noble Lord, , highlighted the huge divergence
in the teaching of music and the performing arts in the state and
independent school sectors. I see this vividly through the more
than 120,000 drama exams conducted by LAMDA worldwide every year.
While LAMDA, as a world-leading drama school, already draws its
students from a broadly representative cross-section of society
and works hard to improve that further, its exams are
overwhelmingly taken by students from independent schools—a vivid
but depressing illustration of the rundown of arts teaching in
state schools. My right honourable friend Sir Keir Starmer’s
commitment to the Labour Party promoting oracy through state
schools is a light at the not-too-distant end of the tunnel.
I hope that the Minister will not again insult the intelligence
of your Lordships in winding up by presenting small nominal
increases in funding for the arts and shrugging off the savage
inflationary cost increases suffered by all arts institutions.
Since the start of the Conservative and Conservative-led
Governments, public funding has been cut by over 30% in real
terms.
A year ago, I suggested that the additionality required for
funding from the lottery might be relaxed and that the doubling
of distributions to good causes promised by the new lottery
franchisee could be used to compensate in part for the real-terms
reduction in the Arts Council grant in aid. By coincidence, today
is the first day of the new lottery franchise, yet the new
franchisee has already talked about struggling to match previous
years’ distribution and a delay in any increase. Does the
Minister agree that the award of the franchise to Allwyn by the
Gambling Commission appears to have been based on a false
prospectus? If, as is now predicted, lottery funding for the arts
and other good causes does not meet the original projections on
which the franchise was awarded, will the Government make up the
difference through an increase in the grant in aid?
1.28pm
(CB)
My Lords, I too pay tribute to the noble Lord, , for securing this debate. I
refer the House to my interests as set out in the register,
specifically my chairmanship of the Courtauld Institute, my
co-chairmanship of the Prime Minister’s Council for Science and
Technology and my membership of the board of the Royal Opera
House. I will make four short points.
First, the arts do not exist in isolation. Rather, they are a
prism through which everything else in our world can be viewed.
That means that they must feature much more prominently in
education and outreach programmes. Successful examples can be
found and built on—for example, at the Royal Opera House and the
Courtauld Institute, which remains faithful to its founder’s
vision of art for all.
Secondly, the arts lift our eyes up, out of our day-to-day
preoccupations, towards the broader human condition. For many
years, I have been a patron of Paintings in Hospitals, a charity
which loans artworks to health and social care organisations,
where they are displayed, reducing anxiety and therapeutically
benefiting patients, staff and visitors. I will never forget,
when I served as chairman of the Donmar Warehouse, speaking to a
group of young people who had been invited to the all-women
performance of selected works by Shakespeare in a warehouse near
King’s Cross. They had never experienced the power of
Shakespearean verse before and they found that it spoke to them
in a commanding yet fresh way about their own lives and the lives
of those around them. We must do much more to open the arts to
new audiences, widening access and, in the case of visual arts,
expanding public display.
Thirdly, we should remember that the arts always give more than
they take. The question of public funding should always be tested
against the backdrop of the significant value that the arts add
to the UK economy—approximately £50 billion gross, a figure
similar to that of the food and beverage service sector. This
must be recognised, with commensurate levels of public finance,
but more philanthropy must be encouraged. For example, there must
be scope for additional tax relief for smaller donations—commonly
called individual giving—and for the lifetime donation of works
of art, which should be incentivised and made much more tax
efficient without a limit on total value. We should be
recognising and encouraging generosity, not stifling it.
Fourthly, the arts are instrumental in creating our future. The
research and development growth potential of the world-class
creative industries is enormous. Yet they are often overlooked
for investment. In the autumn, the Council for Science and
Technology made a series of recommendations on how further to
incentivise R&D activity that will have benefits across the
arts, the creative economy and beyond. We called for increased
levels of public finance, further tax relief opportunities,
renewed efforts to value and digitise our cultural assets, and
greater copyright protections for creative content in the face of
AI deployment. We look forward to the Government’s full
response.
I am a firm believer in and a supporter of the arts in this
country, but those of us who play an active role know that we
cannot take their continued contribution for granted. The
benefits that they bring to individuals, to society and to the
economy of today and of the future must not be overlooked, even
in challenging economic times.
1.32pm
of Burry Port (Lab)
My Lords, this the view from street level of someone who has
never chaired very much or run huge organisations.
The late, revered once declared that of
all the interviews he had done, his favourite was the one he did
with Jacob Bronowski. Most of us will remember Jacob Bronowski’s
ground-breaking television series “The Ascent of Man”, which was
broadcast almost exactly 50 years ago. Here was a scientist of
the first order who was marinated in the arts. Human values, a
fascination with the work of William Blake, a writer of poetry
himself and such an engaging personality—what a cocktail of
qualities he possessed. He championed the idea that the best
science was simply the material and physical outworking of deeply
implanted human instincts. The arts were as important to him as
his science.
Moving from then to now, Jamie Brownhill is the headmaster of the
Central Foundation Boys’ School, a magnificent inner-city
comprehensive in Islington. I was involved in its governance for
20 years, 10 of them as chairman of its trustees, but that is as
grand as it gets. Ask Jamie about the history of his school and
he will be bound to tell you how Jacob Bronowski is its most
admired former pupil. This recognises the important place that
Bronowski plays in the school’s past, but it is equally an
indication of the spirit of the man still hovering over a
community of learning which, for all the problems in our national
education referred to by previous speakers, continues to live out
the ideals of its former pupil.
I visited an exhibition of paintings done by the school’s pupils
and put on by the Wellcome Foundation. I sat proud as punch at a
concert in the Guildhall, where a range of musical skills were on
display. Our trustees kept agreeing to buy pianos for rehearsal
rooms and music lessons, and the drama put on by the pupils was
wonderful. How can I ever forget the way that a 17 year-old
Macbeth, just after stabbing the king, with the same facility of
utterance that he might have shown in wiping his hands after
consuming a burger at McDonald’s, lamented:
“No, this my hand will rather
The multitudinous seas incarnadine”?
The arts must surely be at the very core of our curriculum so
that one generation after another can bring their creative,
cultural, emotional and imaginative selves into the mix of their
developing minds. It is vital for the well-being of society, as
others have said, and for building the kind of world that we all
want to live in. Again and again, Jacob Bronowski made reference
in his great work to poets, musicians
philosophers, artists and dramatists. He ended one of his
chapters with a favourite quatrain of mine from William Blake. He
wanted people to be able:
“To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour”—
or as I, in a pathetic contemporary version, might have it:
“To build a culture that is steeped in the arts
Where STEM plus A equals STEAM
Where the whole is more than the sum of its parts
And life rich beyond our wildest dreams”.
I salute my noble friend, a true Companion of Honour, and thank
him for giving us the opportunity to discuss this important
subject today.
1.36pm
of Hardington Mandeville
(LD)
My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, , on securing this important
debate and on his excellent and powerful introduction. We have
heard some very knowledgeable contributions today. Mine is very
different.
Small children can express themselves through art with paper and
crayons. A roll of lining paper and a pot of felt-tip pens and
they are away. Do not ask, “What is it?” but try, “Tell me about
your picture”. Have at least one contribution pinned up around
the home somewhere. Plasticine and FIMO are also great starting
tools to encourage children. If talent is there, nurture, develop
and encourage it. Art therapy and the use of drawing is often
used in cases of children’s bereavement or abuse, to help them
express what they are feeling and to say what happened when they
do not have the words to do so.
The digital age and the computer have moved the pace on
significantly towards graphic design. Advertisements and
packaging are there to sell us something that we did not know we
needed or wanted, but this all helps the economy. The cultural
aspect of the creative industries is unquestionable. From
deciphering the contributions of a four year-old to standing in
front of a work of art from a grand master, our hearts and
spirits are lifted, making us smile and sometimes cry. Art
improves our mental health, keeping us going and economically
active.
Whether inside or outside, art has a part to play in the economy.
We flock to see a play in a theatre; we save up to visit the
Royal Opera House to see ballet, which is so transporting, or an
opera, which is so dramatic; we visit galleries, which are
calming and thought-provoking. A visit to the cinema gives a much
better experience than viewing on the small screen at home, more
convenient though this may be for many. Music calms the troubled
soul and there is nothing that comes close to the experience of a
live concert.
I return now to the younger generation, the classroom and the
national curriculum, which other noble Lords have referred to.
Art is squeezed out. Visits by theatre groups to schools lift the
children out of their routine and give them a different aspect on
life. Playing an instrument gives a great sense of achievement.
Some art forms are more squeezed than others: music, for
instance. Drama, acting and painting get a reasonable allocation
of time. Ballet tends to be after school and at weekends.
Sculpture is not so good. For ceramics or craft pottery, it is
reasonable, but if you might be the next Grayson Perry someone
will need to keep a foot in the door for you.
Art foundation courses give limited time to various art forms.
Two weeks for clay is insufficient to discover if it might be
your medium. All art forms need space on curriculums at all
education stages to ensure they survive. There would undoubtedly
be an effect on the economy from their disappearance, but the
effect on the mental health of us all would be very significant
if our art choices were restricted and some forms disappeared
altogether.
1.40pm
(Lab)
My Lords, I thank my fellow Peer and noble friend for introducing this debate. He
is not in the Chamber at the moment; I think he is out in the
Lobby being interviewed for television. He cannot spread the
message too far and too fast. I support his proposition that the
economy of this country and the well-being of its people benefit
both in money and in spiritual well-being from the flourishing of
the arts. As the BBC’s arts correspondent for 10 years, I
documented week by week the talent and success, reputational and
financial, of our outstanding arts community. I will be repeating
a lot that has already been said, but repetition shows only how
universally these important views are held.
State funding since the war by central and local government has
underpinned much of our success and it continues to be subject to
the vagaries of political volatility. That is a word we should
not need to use. Before that, I should mention the consistent
donations made by private individuals and families in the UK. The
Blavatniks, the Ruddocks, the Rausings and the Sainsburys, and
indeed the noble Lord, Lord Browne, who has just spoken, are some
of the most generous but, taking the broader picture, the UK arts
depend on the state as both central and local government.
Arguments in their favour are consistent and enduring. At the
risk of repetition, here are some of them. The arts make money.
They employ some 2.46 million people and train generations to
follow. The UK has some 275 arts colleges and arts courses at
further education institutions. Many of their talents go on to
enjoy international reputations in the world’s galleries and
museums. There is soft power: the range of Britain’s writers and
its flourishing publishing industry, as we have already heard,
support our reputation in universities and in cultures around the
world. Our musicians and
composers—a number of them have seats in this House—and the
popular music industry more than hold their own in concert halls
and on stages. Our established artists, who trained at any one of
our 275 arts colleges, command huge rewards on the booming UK
arts market, currently worth £9.7 billion. For example, the
paintings of the Scottish artist Peter Doig, who studied at
Central Saint Martins and Chelsea, currently command prices
towards £30 million per painting at auction.
Then there are the personal and social benefits, which your
Lordships have already heard spoken of several times. Millions of
people visit hundreds of the UK’s museums and art galleries. Post
the pandemic, theatregoers are now back to a number of around 16
million. More recently, research at Exeter University found that
playing a musical instrument or singing in a choir can promote
better memory skills and hence brain health in older age. Music
is being used to help those with dementia.
The House has already heard and will hear more arguments and
examples of how the arts benefit the UK economy, its
institutions, its communities and its individuals. The arts are
not a fringe activity for randomly filling in our leisure hours.
Although they may do that for us individually, they are an
ongoing conversation that this culture has within itself. The
Government must take notice of that conversation, back it and
support it. How that culture comes to define its identity and
nourish the lives and happiness of all who live here depend on
the arts, and the arts depend on the Government.
1.45pm
(Con)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady
Bakewell, who has done so much for the arts over such a long
period of time; and equally, to thank the noble Lord, , for securing this debate.
Again, he is a national treasure, a hero and a legend of our arts
in this country. In doing so, I declare my interest as set out in
the register as a member of the board at Channel 4. The arts
excite, entertain, amuse, intrigue, shock and, yes, offend us,
and all to the good. I will talk briefly about the arts’
potential to make the difference—not a difference but the
difference—and to cause change.
I am reminded of a programme that the noble Lord, , made decades ago, which
affected me then and is still seared into my consciousness. It
did not have a big blockbuster budget; it was not filmed on
location; it was across the way, in a non-dressed empty studio,
with two cameras and two chairs. The noble Lord, , was on one chair and Dennis
Potter, his life fading from him, was on the other, with a
morphine flask in his hand. In that moment, with no set or and no
need for graphics or any other staging, two humans discussed the
power of art to change, transform and make the difference.
I have tried to take that essence into some of the things I have
been fortunate enough to be involved in. When I led the team that
planned and delivered the London 2012 Paralympic Games, I was
absolutely seized of the necessity to drive the artistic as well
as the sporting—not least because, for decades in this country,
probably up to that point, sport and art had been put in some
pathetic opposition where, if you funded one, you could not have
the other. Like oil and water: never the twain shall meet. What
nonsense. I hope that, in our small way, in 2012, we helped drive
that point home, so that they would never be seen by any future
Government as opposing forces.
We put on Unlimited, the largest deaf and disabled arts programme
ever staged on these shores. There were great shows and
exhibitions, with stand-up comedians and performers, many of whom
then led or were part of the opening ceremony of the 2012
Paralympics—so perfectly put together by its directors, the
sensational Jenny Sealey and Brad Hemmings. Shakespeare’s “The
Tempest” ran right through the ceremony, with modern music and
the national anthem—signed as well as sung. In the midst of all
of that, Professor Stephen Hawking talked about possibilities not
just beyond ourselves but beyond our universe. What
gravity-defying, attitude-altering and opportunity-creating art
and sport it was—all of it inclusive by design and accessible for
each and every person who experienced it.
This leads to my one question for my noble friend the Minister,
of which I gave him prior notice. How many of our cultural
institutions—our museums and galleries—currently in receipt of
National Lottery and/or grant in aid funding are not accessible?
They are putting on inaccessible exhibitions and shows, for the
want of simple accessible services such as audio description. It
does not make a difference; it makes the difference between
somebody being able to experience that art or exhibition or being
effectively and completely shut out. As I am talking about making
the difference, I ask not only how many institutions are
currently putting on inaccessible shows but what my noble friend
will commit the Government to doing to put an end to this.
The arts, accessible for all, is what we should all be aiming
for. Accessible for all or not at all; “accessible for all” is my
clarion call.
1.50pm
(Lab)
My Lords, it is a great pleasure to take part in what has been a
great debate. I particularly welcome my noble friend Lord Bragg’s
powerful and penetratingly relevant speech on the arts today. He
referred, quite rightly, to the chaos caused by the former
Culture Secretary and Arts Council England to the English
National Opera.
I will refer to opera outside London, which has equally been
affected by the decision of the Arts Council to reduce funding.
The Arts Council was given 9% more funding in the last settlement
but has cut opera by 22%. The effect in England and Wales,
outside London, is on touring opera. My noble friend referred to Mid Wales Opera and
the work that it does. I want to refer to just three companies,
because that is all we have, in England and Wales which deal with
touring opera: Glyndebourne, Opera North and—inevitably—the Welsh
National Opera. Despite its name, the Welsh National Opera does a
great deal of work in England and a big part of its funding comes
from the English funding council as well as the Arts Council of
Wales. As a consequence of those cuts, we have seen cuts in
performances.
On the touring aspect of opera, those three companies go to 13
cities in England, including Plymouth, Hull, Newcastle, Bristol,
Southampton, Birmingham, Oxford, Milton Keynes, Canterbury,
Nottingham, Liverpool and Manchester. In all of those cities, we
have now seen a reduction in performances. The year before last
there were 146 performances, but now there are 87; 10 years ago,
there were 250 performances throughout England and Wales outside
London. The figures speak for themselves. Take two continental
European countries as a comparison: in Germany, there are 78
companies, and in France, there are 17 companies. You can go
through all the countries in Europe, and the Scandinavian
countries, and find that they serve their people better in opera
than we do.
If we make opera less accessible, with performances reduced and
production ceasing in various parts of the country, we will make
it elitist. But it should not be; it should be for everybody. As
a consequence of that decision by Arts Council England, we are in
dire trouble, and touring opera in England and Wales now faces a
crisis. It is the opposite of levelling up.
I hope that the Minister will refer to my remarks in his wind-up.
I ask him two things. First, I ask him to liaise with his
counterpart in the Welsh Government to ensure that the Welsh
National Opera receives proper funding. Secondly, before Arts
Council England’s next funding round—I think it is in three
years—and to save opera in our country, I ask for this crisis to
be dealt with directly and not left in the hands of Arts Council
England, which is not doing opera any good at all.
1.54pm
(CB)
My Lords, I echo the observation of the noble Lord, Lord Holmes,
on the contribution of the noble Lord, , to all our individual
experiences—recalling, for example, his interview with Dennis
Potter. I think everyone in the Chamber can probably recall an
experience where he made a real difference.
I urge noble Lords to reach in their pockets—they may still find
some coins there. Yes, we do still use coins. When you hold a
coin in your hand, you have a visible example of how the arts,
design and innovative production methods contribute to the
economy and reflect our society. Tokens that represent a value
and underpin the assets of a nation, and that display the effigy
of the sovereign, have a long history. In this country, the Royal
Mint has not only a proud past but a promising future. This may
be a fitting moment to declare an interest: I chair the Royal
Mint’s advisory committee on coins and medals, as well as being
president of the Birmingham Bach Choir—so there is a resonance of
music.
The advisory council includes practising artists and designers,
and we make suggestions on lettering, heraldry, images and
themes. Together with the in-house designers and their team, we
aim to improve the design standards of our nation’s coins and
medals. The next time Members handle a coin, they may have one
that has the new effigy of King Charles III. The effigy was
designed by Martin Jennings and, even if you have not seen the
coins yet, you have probably come across one of his public
sculptures: John Betjeman—incidentally, he was a previous member
of the Royal Mint’s advisory committee—at St Pancras station,
George Orwell at Broadcasting House, or the “Women of Steel” at
Barker’s Pool in Sheffield.
The Royal Mint also encourages young talent. One-third of its
design team is under 30. One of the earliest coins celebrating
the King’s Coronation—a 50p coin—was designed by Natasha Jenkins,
one of the local designers. There are several initiatives to
support craft skills and encourage the design and manufacture of
the Royal Mint’s jewellery range, which will be made in
Britain.
The first definitive set of coins of King Charles’ reign was
issued towards the end of last year. The coins feature flora and
fauna, celebrating the King’s passion for sustainability and love
of the natural world. The £2 coin has floral emblems; the £1 coin
has an industrious honeybee; the 50p has an Atlantic salmon; the
20p has a puffin; the 10p has the capercaillie, a woodland
grouse; the 5p has an oak tree; the 2p has a red squirrel, so it
was helpful that it was a copper coin, making it clear that we
were celebrating the red, not the grey, squirrel; and the 1p has
a dormouse.
The Royal Mint is a significant direct employer in Wales. It
supports its local area and the Welsh tourist industry through
its award-winning visitor attraction, the Royal Mint Experience.
But the main thing I stress is that it promotes, protects and
champions British craftsmanship and works with the Heritage
Crafts Association, issuing bursaries for precious metal workers,
for example. It is a major contributor to exports, producing over
a billion pieces for 22 countries.
The Royal Mint’s success is based—this is the point about the
arts—on the simple fact of excellent designs, high-quality
craftsmanship, innovative manufacturing and the use of new
technologies. The Royal Mint expects that it will be the first
world pioneer in green technology, which recovers gold from
discarded electronic devices such as mobile phones and laptops on
an industrial scale.
I wanted to take part today simply because we should not overlook
the importance of making things and valuing those things. When
they are artistic, we should appreciate them.
2.00pm
(Lab)
It was good to see the Minister on his first visit to Liverpool
in November last year. I was surprised to hear it was his first
visit to Britain’s premier city.
Noble Lords
Oh!
(Lab)
I am sure he will have been thrilled to find such a fine, vibrant
city, with deep cultural and artistic traditions that have given
rise to a business community of talent across all the arts. The
message from Liverpool is that you do not need to go to London to
experience artistic excellence. Liverpool is set on reversing the
gravitational pull to the south.
However, let us not forget the need for investment in
infrastructure: the failing historic buildings still need central
funding. The port city and its maritime industry were
revolutionised through the creation of the Albert Dock and, after
falling into dereliction, the area was transformed into a
renowned cultural destination that has become a model of
successful regeneration. But the fabric is now outdated.
Liverpool Museums boasts National Museum Liverpool on the
waterfront, the Walker Art Gallery, World Museum, the Lady Lever
and the Williamson on the Wirral, along with Tate Liverpool.
These are homes of national art collections as well as modern and
contemporary art in the north. Liverpool was recently voted the
seventh best city of the world and tourism accounts for roughly
48% of the local economy, with a majority of visitors citing the
dock and the museums there as the main reasons to visit. But cost
rises present huge challenges: wage rises are 14% and energy
bills have increased by 100%, while DCMS grants have grown by
4%.
However, great things are happening. Liverpool is committed to
its waterfront transformation project. Both the Tate and National
Museums Liverpool have received £10 million each of levelling-up
funding. Yesterday, the Wolfson Foundation announced a fantastic
£1.25 million award for the transformation of Tate Liverpool. But
certainty is certainly needed for the waterfront project. From
the Minister’s visit in November, can he say how his department
is assessing financial support for the development of the
International Slavery Museum and the Maritime Museum of National
Museums Liverpool? Here I want to mention the bees project, which
is a very innovative and immersive educational project outlining
the importance of conservation and pollination that needs funding
certainty, looking naturally to DCMS and Defra to contribute.
I want to mention the Liverpool Film Studio, rising from the
regeneration of the iconic Littlewoods Edge Lane building. It is
the Minister able to encourage this in any way as the new home
for film in the north?
Finally, I mention the John Moores modern art prize at the
Walker, the longest running art prize open to all painters,
trained and untrained, that has brought prominence to
professional and emerging talent alike. I declare my interest as
a trustee of this charity. Being at the leading edge, the show
demonstrates the breadth of work across the UK in contemporary
painting. I was glad that my noble friend Lady Bakewell mentioned
Peter Doig, who was a past winner of the prize in his earlier
years. All this provides excellence, along with the musical
tradition of the Philharmonic and the Mersey sound,
revolutionised in the hosting of the Eurovision Song Contest last
year in place of Ukraine. This all provides evidence of the GVA
to local enterprises through the promotion of the arts, and I
wish the noble Lord many more happy visits to Liverpool.
2.04pm
(LD)
My Lords, I add my thanks to the noble Lord, Lord Bragg—I hope I
can say my noble friend Lord Bragg—for this debate. I draw
attention to my interests as declared in the register.
All who have spoken, led so eloquently by the noble Lord, , have expressed a clear sense of
the true value of arts and culture, and of the creative
industries they support. What is needed, as the noble Lord,
, said, is to ensure that this
value is properly woven into government policy, and it is
certainly not at the moment. The funding system for the arts is
broken at central, local and Arts Council levels. Central
Treasury funding for culture has seen a 40% reduction since 2008.
Alongside this, local authorities have also been subject to a 40%
real-terms reduction which means, due to the necessary
prioritising of statutory responsibilities, that cuts have fallen
disproportionately on arts organisations.
Supporting local culture is not a cost; it is an investment.
Having listened to the noble Lord, Lord Vaizey, I have jettisoned
the figures I was going to express as he said that they were not
to be listened to. Then there are the less tangible and less
measurable contributions, as mentioned by my noble friends Lady
Miller and Lady Bakewell. Engaging in culture enhances
individuals’ lives, providing young people with opportunities to
channel their creativity and energy. It combats loneliness and
both physical and mental health issues, as the noble Lord, Lord
Howarth, so eloquently put it.
Many people need statutory services because they have been
deprived of what makes them feel good, and of what the arts can
provide. Cutting funding for the arts is a false economy, in
every sense of the word. I cannot make a speech about the arts
without mentioning Peter Bazalgette, the former chair of the Arts
Council, who said:
“The arts create empathetic citizens, putting us through
storytelling in the shoes of others, and is society’s glue,
urging us to positive action”.
Witness “Mr Bates vs The Post Office”, as the noble Baroness,
Lady McIntosh, mentioned,
I am a trustee of the Lowry in Salford, a prime example of the
important contribution that local culture makes to a community.
Not so long ago, the Salford Quays was a place of derelict,
disused docks. Now it is a thriving, creative hub. What was
behind this regeneration? It was an artist who inspired a
gallery, and a performing arts centre with a great building and
with a mission to involve, include and inspire the local
community. Most importantly, the city council had the foresight
and commitment to support this vision. Over the years, the Lowry
has forged almost 30 community partnerships across Salford and
Greater Manchester, and has contributed a deep, diverse and
long-lasting impact on local lives through educational
volunteering and community-engagement programmes. Will the
Minister please take note of the excellent LGA report
Cornerstones of Culture,which recommends a return to local
decision-making when shaping cultural provision?
The point about the importance of listening to local government
and local institutions is exemplified by what happened in the
latest Arts Council funding round. The Arts Council, set up by
John Maynard Keynes—a very good Liberal and a very good
economist—had, as its first priority, that while money for the
arts came from the public purse, the independence of artists and
arts organisations would be protected at all costs. As the noble
Lord, , so forcefully explained, this
arm’s-length principle was destroyed by this Government when ACE
was issued a directive by a recent Secretary of State to
redistribute funding from London to the regions, as a part of the
Government’s agenda for levelling up.
Let us go back to the Lowry. The National Theatre’s commitment to
touring and the Lowry’s role as its home venue in the north-west
have meant that local audiences have experienced some of the most
celebrated theatre productions of the last 20 years. But what is
happening now? Exactly what those who run provincial arts centres
predicted. Deprived of resources, our national arts organisations
have got rid of their touring commitments, so they will
inevitably become more entrenched in their London bases. The
result could not be further away from levelling up. Does the
Minister not agree that it is essential we return to the
arm’s-length principle?
As so many noble Lords have said, the arts must be returned to
centre stage in our education system. STEM, not STEAM, has been
the Conservative mantra, and as the noble Lords, and Lord Wood, said, the
Government persist in supporting the EBacc, ignoring the fact
that there should not be a choice between arts and science.
Interestingly, the DfE recently announced that James Dyson has
made a £6 million donation to build a science, technology,
engineering and arts centre in a school in Wiltshire. Note the
inclusion of arts—he is supporting STEAM. It is curious that in
celebrating this in her press release, the Secretary of State
welcomes only that it is STEM. James Dyson was educated at the
Royal College of Art before becoming one of our most successful
inventors, success that lies in the fusion of his creative and
technological skills.
To pick up on the point that the noble Lord, , made about the Industrial
Revolution, it was this very fusion that the Victorians
understood. They had a Science and Art Department. I have just
learned about Sir Humphry Davy, one of the most extraordinary
scientific minds of that time, who discovered nine elements of
the periodic table and was a pioneer in the field of electrolysis
but also a poet. In his fascinating notebooks, his poetry and
scientific explorations are all muddled together, influencing
each other. He lived in a time when there was no dividing line
between the arts and science. There still should not be. Does the
Minister agree? On which point, will he let us know when the
cultural education plan, the panel on which is chaired by the
noble Baroness, Lady Bull, will be published, and will it have
financial backing?
On the matter of skills, the creative industries are a world of
freelancers, and in some sectors this is as high as 80%. However,
the UK’s tax and social security framework is not set up to
effectively support freelancers, which means that an alarming
number of people are leaving the sector. It exacerbates
inequalities in the industry, and in particular the loss of
diverse talent. Does the Minister agree that what is needed is a
freelance commissioner, as recommended by the Creative Diversity
APPG, of which the noble Lord, Lord Vaizey, and I are both
members?
Finally, there is the calamitous consequence of Brexit, as
mentioned by my noble friend Lady Garden and the noble Earl,
. There have been issues with
complicated paperwork, carnets, cabotage—new words—visas, and
costs, costs, costs; music touring has gone up by 30% to 40%, and
theatre by an average of 20%. Visual artists—not often heard—are
also experiencing problems, as is fashion. It is all the same
story: so much red tape involved in moving goods, in sales and
exhibitions, and in the freedom of movement of people. Does the
Minister agree with the noble Lord, , our chief Brexit negotiator,
that his trade deal
“failed touring musicians and other
artists by inflicting punishing costs and red tape”?
Like the noble Lords, and , I despair of this Government,
although not of the Minister. Whoever the next Government are,
they need to be as bold as Keynes was in 1946 with the Arts
Council; as bold as Jennie Lee in 1964, the first Minister for
the Arts; as bold as John Major in 1992 with the Department of
National Heritage and the first Cabinet post for an Arts
Minister; and as bold as Chris Smith—now the noble Lord, Lord
Smith of Finsbury—in 1997, with free museums and galleries. They
need to stand up for the arts and culture, for all the reasons
the many speakers in this debate have mentioned. We need
joined-up education and skills development, the reopening of
negotiations with the EU, and joined-up funding and a return to
the arm’s-length principle.
John Maynard Keynes said:
“the work of the artist in all its aspects is, of its nature,
individual and free, undisciplined, unregimented, uncontrolled …
But he leads the rest of us into fresh pastures and teaches us to
love and to enjoy what we often begin by rejecting, enlarging our
sensibility and purifying our instincts”.
Long may the creative industry that is the noble Lord, , lead us in debates such as
this.
2.14pm
(Lab)
My Lords, I thank my noble friend , first for his choice of subject
today, secondly for his excellent introduction, and thirdly for
inspiring what has been a truly fantastic debate from across the
whole House.
I suspect that his career is not one that he ever envisaged as he
was growing up. We all remember the “South Bank Show”, but when
he joined your Lordships’ House in 1998 it was felt that there
could be a conflict of interest so he should be sidelined into a
quieter radio slot, with a new programme called “In Our Time”.
That worked, did it not? It is a wonderful programme,
delightfully curious about everything and anything and, however
intellectual the subject, it is never pretentious or boring—just
like him. He is not pretentious and boring, I hasten to add. For
more than 1,000 episodes, it has gently educated through
conversation on the widest range of subjects.
The strength of this debate has been its depth, its breadth and
the range of cultural issues that we have debated. I have to
confess that I have never enjoyed opera, but that is despite the
best efforts of my comprehensive school, which gave us the
opportunity to experience the arts, and I retain a love of music,
drama, theatre and literature. It was a bit harsh that when I
became the culture Minister in Northern Ireland, the Irish Times
wrote—and I paraphrase only gently—“What hope was there when her
favourite programme was ‘Coronation Street’?”.
This debate is everything I thought it could be, covering
everything from music to theatre, TV and film to museums,
libraries and galleries, books, poetry, dance and drama. The
ability to give expression to emotions, to educate and inform and
to reach beyond superficial divisions allows us to unite and
bring communities together. Never to be underestimated, these
industries give us pleasure and support our well-being.
Also, as my noble friend Lady McIntosh said, they bring power to
move us. Why was it that, after years of campaigning—including
Questions and speeches in Parliament, some brilliant journalism
and an excellent BBC documentary—it took an ITV drama about the
Post Office scandal to capture the imagination of the public and
force action in a way that the totally committed efforts of
others had not? Partly, it was because of the brilliant writing,
production and acting. It made us invest our emotions in those
characters. We empathised, we were outraged, it gave us insight
and it led to action. It was not for the first time, but it was
on an extraordinary scale, as was Jimmy McGovern’s “Hillsborough”
drama and, as my noble friend said, “Cathy Come Home”.
Telling a true story through drama can breathe life into
something we know about but we have not felt.
This debate has raised a wide range of issues; lots of concerns
have been raised about both funding and the pipeline of talent.
My noble friend Lady Thornton spoke about how young people can be
engaged and enthused by museums and theatre. We heard a lot from
the noble Lord, , the right reverend Prelate
the and others about the
role of music in health—for example, the growth of community
choirs and how they are bringing people together. I am one of
those people who benefited from school music lessons. I am not
sure that my neighbours agreed, as I was allocated the trumpet to
play at the time. Those opportunities are fewer and farther
between today.
I was really struck by the comments from the noble Lord, , and my noble friend Lady
Rebuck about books and libraries. The figure she gave of £14
million to reinstate school libraries in primary schools is one
that we should all heed. I am sure I am not alone and many of us
still recall going to the local library from an early age and
having to beg the librarian to be able to use the adult library,
because we had read all the books in the junior library. Today,
one of my great pleasures at weekends is browsing around
bookshops. As much as I love my Kindle, nothing replaces that
hard copy of a book, and they all contribute. My noble friends
Lord Bassam and and others commented
about the role of the arts in regeneration for our communities.
That economic role is vital. How many other industries have this
reach across so many other areas of society? It is hard to think
of anything else.
As we have heard from many, but we too often underestimate, the
arts and culture industry is probably the most highly productive
non-financial sector in the economy. Book publishing and artistic
creation lead the way, but our museums and galleries and
performance arts make a significant contribution.
We have heard that the industry receives some public funding, but
it more than pays that back. The Centre for Economics and
Business Research calculated that a total of £3.4 billion was
paid by the industry in VAT, corporation tax, income tax and
national insurance—many times more than the just over £400
million that some cultural organisations received from Arts
Council England. Such funding has to be seen as an investment. It
is not just a grant, as the noble Lord, Lord Vaizey, and my noble
friend said.
The TV and film industry certainly plays its part. The 2023
annual census by the Producers Alliance for Cinema and Television
revealed that, as they recovered from the pandemic, TV sector
revenues increased by more than 20% in 2022 to nearly £4 billion,
despite the difficult economic challenges faced. That is largely
due to the world-class skills of our production teams.
In celebrating that contribution, which inspires and entertains
us, we have a duty to look at how we can support and protect
those working in the TV and film industry. There are many issues
affecting those who work in the wider creative arts industries. I
know from the 10 years when I chaired the Production Exchange
charity that few earn large salaries; that self-employed and
contractual work can be erratic; and that, for many, there is
little job security. There are also serious health and safety
issues to be addressed.
I thank the TUC, as well as the trade unions BECTU and Prospect.
I am especially grateful to the Mark Milsome Foundation for the
information and advice it has provided. Mark Milsome was well
known in the film industry as an experienced, inspirational,
innovative and talented cinematographer. The films on which he
worked—“Little Voice”, “Four Weddings and a Funeral”, “Brassed
Off”, “The History Boys”, “The Constant Gardener” and many
more—are known to us all. In 2017 he was killed in Ghana when a
stunt he was filming went horribly, tragically and fatally wrong.
Three years later, in his ruling of this as an accidental death,
the coroner declared that
“the risk of Mr Milsome being harmed or fatally injured was not
effectively recognised, assessed, communicated or managed”.
That is shocking. It is also devastating as it is clear that this
could and should have been prevented. For many in the film and TV
industry, their work may also be their passion, but it is still a
job and they deserve no less consideration because of that.
Mark’s case is not an isolated one but it is one of the most
serious. I pay tribute to his family, his colleagues and his
friends, who have set up a foundation in his name to help protect
others. Three-quarters of those who work in this industry have
said that their safety or that of a colleague had been
compromised. Most who had reported incidents wanted to remain
anonymous for fear of losing future employment, and too many
people who have responsibility for health and safety do not have
the necessary qualifications or experience. Yet, because of cuts,
the Health and Safety Executive has 500 fewer inspectors today
than in 2010, so there are fewer inspections and the issuing of
fewer notices that would lead to improvements being made. That
has a direct and possibly disproportionate impact on the arts
sector, where there is unlikely to be an HR department on
specific projects and it is unlikely that producers have the
training to be fully competent to do risk assessments. Those who
work in this industry, which brings us so much pleasure, deserve
better.
Sometimes, small changes can bring about great improvements. We
need to ask ourselves some questions; I hope to discuss them
further with the Minister. Could this issue be addressed through
more effective monitoring and inspections, or are fresh guidance
and legislation needed? Are the existing training requirements
adequate and how are they assessed? Why can this not apply to UK
staff who are employed in the UK but work in other countries? It
is not just about money; so much effective work could be done on
the above issues. The will, commitment and support from both the
industry and government could make a real difference and save
lives. I hope that it will be possible for the Minister and I to
meet campaigners to discuss this.
This has been an amazing debate, but we expected nothing less. At
the beginning, my noble friend made it clear that our support
and the contribution made by the arts are not just the cherry on
the cake but are integral and central to all that we do. My noble
friend Lord Wood talked about public good, and my noble friend
warned us against national
cultural complacency.
Today we have heard, across the House and from all corners of
this Chamber, the ambitions we have for our British artists, our
performers, writers and painters—a whole range of areas. I was
asked earlier today what I hoped for from today’s debate, and I
said that I would like to see us kickstart a new national renewal
of commitment to how we use the arts across every part of
society, whether it is in regeneration or in drama, ensuring that
in every way we contribute to well-being and the economy and
moving away from warm words and simply saying that we want an
analysis of what is good. We can use this debate to kick-start
that, to have a real sense of what we can achieve from the
ambition of those who work in our creative arts, with our
support. The noble Lord, , has done this House a great
service with this debate today.
2.25pm
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for
Culture, Media and Sport ( of Whitley Bay) (Con)
My Lords, I happily join in with the tributes that have been paid
to the noble Lord, , not just for securing this
debate in the way he introduced it, but for a life and career
devoted to championing the arts and their transformative power.
The noble Lord’s contribution to the arts in this country is,
indeed, unparalleled. His work on “The South Bank Show” has left
an indelible mark on our cultural landscape, and he has inspired
legions of people, through more than one thousand episodes of “In
Our Time”, about topics they did not even know that they did not
know about. The noble Lord is a living embodiment of the power of
the arts, in the way that he sets out in the terms of his Motion
today, but also directly on people’s lives. They are what have
borne him, as the BBC profile of him on his 75th birthday put it,
from Wigton to Westminster and how glad we are that they have.
The great turnout that we had today is another recognition of
that.
Another noble Lord who I know would have joined us, had she not
lost her voice, is my noble friend Lady Sanderson of Welton.
However, her voice is certainly heard loud and clear through the
independent review of libraries that was published last month,
which I commissioned from her, and which I hope the noble Lord,
of Knighton, the noble
Baroness, Lady Rebuck, and others who rightly mentioned the
importance of literacy and reading have had the chance to see. It
will inform the Government’s strategy for libraries for the next
five years.
It is important to start by reflecting on art for art’s sake.
When I go to the theatre, to the opera or to a gallery, I rarely
take my seat thinking of the social benefits accruing to me by
being there, or of the economic impact of the drink I buy at the
bar or the magnet that I buy in the gift shop. I am thinking
about what I have seen and witnessed, and how I have been
challenged, moved and changed by the experience. The noble
Baroness, Lady McIntosh, rightly extolled the power of “Mr Bates
vs The Post Office”, a TV drama that has moved and motivated us
in a way that so many column inches and debates in Parliament
have not. Although the economic and social impact of the arts is
vital, the reason that I am proud of the way this Government
support the arts and culture is because they are an essential
part of what makes life worth living. Governments should be
confident in helping people experience that. It is also why, for
me and the Secretary of State, excellence in the arts is so
vital. We believe that the unique and life-enriching quality of
the arts are at their most potent when they combine creativity,
talent, skill and rigour to create truly excellent cultural
experiences. Undoubtedly, excellence comes in many forms and can
look different in different places but, whatever the context, we
should never be ashamed of aiming high. To that end, I agree with
what noble Lords have said about the English National Opera and
the Welsh National Opera and the excellent work that they do on
and off-stage.
I will not go all the way that the noble Lord, , advocates and tell
the Arts Council, in either England or Wales, precisely which
organisations they ought to fund. When I became Arts Minister, it
was impressed on me, very clearly, how important the arm’s-length
principle is, and I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady
Bonham-Carter about its importance: Ministers should not decide
who gets what, no matter how deserving. That unenviable job is
done by the Arts Council, which does the micro while the
Government do the macro. I have acknowledged before that the
instruction that we gave the Arts Council before the last funding
round, to ensure that its funding was more equitably spread
around the country, made its job harder and presented it with
some invidious choices. However, I am proud that it has resulted
in a record number of organisations being funded in more parts of
the country than ever before, including, as the noble Lord,
, rightly mentioned, in rural
parts of England. I visited Pentabus theatre company just outside
Ludlow, which does brilliant work in telling the stories of rural
England to audiences around the country.
Our forthcoming review of the Arts Council allows us to ask some
important structural questions about how it makes its decisions
and sets its strategy, how it measures them and the timeframes by
which government asks it to do it. I hope that noble Lords from
all corners of the House help us to inform that review.
Notwithstanding the inherent cultural value of the arts, their
economic and social impact cannot be ignored. At a time when
decision-makers are looking at budgets in all sorts of contexts,
be they philanthropic givers, corporate sponsors or colleagues in
the devolved Governments and local authorities, they would all do
well to be mindful of the benefits that have been set out so
clearly today. I spoke to a number of local authority leaders
about this matter only yesterday and I pay tribute to groups,
including the Campaign for the Arts, which keep them and us on
our toes.
As the noble Lord, , did in his opening, I turn to
the economic role of the arts. It is not by chance that economic
growth is one of the key things identified by the Government’s
Creative Industries Sector Vision, published last summer. As we
set out in that document, over the past decade, the creative
industries’ output has grown more than 1.5 times as quickly as
the economy overall and its workforce has grown at almost five
times the UK rate. The first goal set out in that vision is for
the creative industries to add an extra £50 billion in gross
value added by 2030. The second goal addresses one of the key
enablers of that growth—its workforce. The vision makes it clear
that we want to ensure that our creative workforce embodies the
dynamism and talent of the whole UK, while addressing skills gaps
and shortages. The arts are a vital part of that mission.
In 2022, the arts sector contributed £9.5 billion in output to
our economy; that was a sharp rise from £7.4 billion the year
before. We also saw increases in the workforce of the arts
sector, which has grown at over 3.5 times the rate of the UK as a
whole over the last decade. However, there are important skills
gaps and shortages that we must address to optimise its
productivity, including in technical roles across our creative
and cultural venues. In part, that is because of the great demand
for prop makers, set designers and technical professionals of all
sorts in our booming film and television sectors, but these
people are vital to our live performing arts. The Department for
Education skills bootcamp funding, both nationally and locally,
is one part of our work to address this; another is our work to
ensure that parents, teachers and guardians have access to
helpful and up-to-date careers guidance to inspire people to
pursue these enriching careers.
During the pandemic, as my noble friend set out, the culture
recovery fund of more than £1.5 billion supported thousands of
organisations and venues across the land, helping to preserve the
environment in which so many creative professionals work. The
evaluation of that unprecedented fund estimated that
organisations supported by it worked with more than 200,000
employees and freelancers. The impact on growth goes further:
creativity might not be unique to arts and culture, but it is
certainly where it is most prized and cherished. Creativity is at
the heart of innovation across our economy, as the noble Lord,
, rightly said in his
contribution. Skills and attitudes to innovation, which are
incubated in the arts, can spill over happily into the rest of
our economy, so we should applaud the arts and creative
industries not only for their own output but for how they make us
more creative, productive and globally competitive in so many
other industries. As the noble Lord, , said, they are not the cherry;
they are the cake.
As many noble Lords pointed out, the impact of the arts goes far
beyond their pure economic value. That is why the third goal of
the Creative Industries Sector Vision is to maximise the positive
impact of the creative industries on individuals, communities,
the environment and the UK’s global standing. We start from a
good foundation: people engage with the arts in the UK on a very
wide scale. According to the DCMS’s participation survey, more
than four in five adults engaged with the arts in the previous
year—a powerful demonstration of how the arts remain an integral
part of our national life. It is clear that this engagement has a
positive effect on people’s lives, improving their health,
education and well-being.
A key social impact of the arts is its positive impact on our
health and well-being, including its use as a non-medical
intervention through the growing work on social prescribing. A
recent study involving more than 1,100 people aged 40 and above
by the University of Exeter found that playing a musical
instrument or joining a choir is linked to better memory and
cognitive skills in older age, particularly for those suffering
with dementia.
Just a couple of weeks ago, I had the opportunity to attend a
reception for Paintings in Hospitals, hosted by the right
reverend Prelate the here in your Lordships’
House, in the Cholmondeley Room. The noble Lord, , was there, and
spoke proudly today of his role as a patron. I am glad that the
noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell, recognised his great generosity,
not just financially but through the time and expertise that he
brings to so many organisations in the arts in this country.
Paintings in Hospitals does wonderful work, loaning artwork to,
and running art projects and workshops in, health and social care
organisations across the country. Likewise, Arts Council England,
in partnership with the National Academy for Social Prescribing
and others, set up the thriving communities fund, which has
supported many initiatives to increase social connectedness and
provided a great boon to many during the pandemic.
Many more arts organisations across the country are doing
fantastic work in this field. The noble Lord, , talked about the transformative
impact of the arts on my home city, Newcastle. I had the pleasure
of admiring the Laing Art Gallery’s work in 10 Downing Street
earlier this week, as it is this year’s museum in residence at
No. 10. It delivers a hugely powerful service to the community on
Tyneside through its Meet @ the Laing project. The sessions that
it runs offer an opportunity for people to socialise, overcome
loneliness, and boost their well-being every month by exploring a
different aspect of the art in the gallery over a cup of tea. On
the other side of the Tyne, I visited Northbourne care home in
Gateshead during Arts in Care Homes week, in September. Over a
delicious cup of coffee in its pop-up coffee shop, I saw how arts
and creativity were helping the residents and their families,
both physically and mentally. Last year, we saw the launch of the
national creative health associates programme, supported by the
Arts Council and the National Centre for Creative Health—and I am
glad that its chairman, the noble Lord, , took part in our
debate today.
Many noble Lords spoke of the powerful impact that the arts can
have on children and young people. That is why it is so important
that we ensure that children and young people have access to
high-quality cultural education and creativity, inside and
outside school. I am one of the 93%, and very proudly, educated
in the state sector, which is why I want to ensure that everybody
has access to the opportunities which are so often illustrated in
the posters and adverts for private schools.
The Government’s refreshed national plan for music education, The
Power of Music to Change Lives, informed by a panel chaired by my
noble friend Lady Fleet, aims to level up music opportunities for
all children and young people. As part of the commitments that we
made alongside that plan, £25 million of new funding is being
made available to purchase hundreds of thousands of musical
instruments and equipment for young people, including adaptive
instruments for pupils with special educational needs or
disabilities. The refreshed plan also renews our commitment to
the music hubs programme, delivered by the Arts Council,
providing £79 million a year.
Looking ahead, we intend to increase the opportunities for all
children and young people in culture more broadly, including, as
the noble Baroness, , rightly
highlighted, in heritage crafts and skills. In the coming weeks,
the cultural education plan, being shaped as we speak by a panel
chaired by the noble Baroness, Lady Bull, will set out a
blueprint for the way in which government and its partners can
work together to improve cultural education across the country
for all children and young people. The plan is intended to
highlight the importance of high-quality cultural education and
promote its social value, support career progression pathways,
address skills gaps, and tackle disparities in opportunity. I
have attended a number of the panel’s discussions so far, and I
am grateful for the work that it is doing to encourage us to be
ambitious for the lives of young people.
An arts education fosters creativity, critical thinking and
emotional intelligence. It cultivates a space where young minds
learn to express themselves, develop a sense of self and
appreciate diverse perspectives. Moreover, arts education
nurtures the skills essential for a dynamic workforce, producing
minds capable of critical thinking and adaptability. These are
things that no country should take lightly, and certainly should
not take for granted, which is why cultural education is such a
priority for the Secretary of State and for me.
While an arts education plays an important role in developing
individuals, we know that it has a wider impact on society. For
example, the Arts and Place Shaping: Evidence Review,
commissioned by Arts Council England and published in 2022,
points to a body of evidence that demonstrates how arts and
culture-led regeneration and investment can help to promote
social cohesion and civic pride. Alongside this study, other
research, including the McKinsey study mentioned by many noble
Lords today, has testified that cultural participation can
contribute to social relationships, community cohesion, and
making communities feel safer and stronger. Its impact depends
not only on the individual efforts of artists and arts
organisations but on the whole ecosystem: creators, educators,
distributors and promoters, suppliers, funders and audiences.
To that end, and in line with the challenge rightly posed by the
right reverend Prelate the , we are delivering a
number of programmes to help communities across the country to
extend and improve their arts and cultural offerings. The £4.8
billion levelling up fund, for example, invests in local
infrastructure projects that improve life for people across the
UK, focusing on regeneration and transport, and supporting
cultural, creative and heritage assets. The second round of the
fund, announced last January, included over £500 million of
support, awarded to 31 culture and heritage-led projects.
The noble Lord, , was right to talk about the
infrastructure of live music venues. My colleagues and I have
been pleased to meet with the Music Venue Trust. I hope that the
noble Lord has seen that £5 million was given, alongside the
creative industries sector vision, to support grass-roots
music.
Since its launch in 2019, over three rounds of funding so far,
the cultural development fund has supported a number of other
culture-led regeneration projects. The successful recipients of
the third round, totalling over £32 million, were announced last
March. Recipients were spread across the country, from Yorkshire
to Devon, fuelling projects that will make a real difference to
local people. Just yesterday, I launched the fourth round of the
cultural development fund, with another £15.2 million available
to support transformative projects across England. I warmly
encourage people to apply.
My noble friend spoke proudly of
his role during London 2012 in fusing sports and art, and he
spoke passionately about making sure they are open to people,
whatever their needs and background. I am grateful to him for
doing so. My department and the Arts Council are committed to
ensuring the accessibility of our culture and heritage across the
UK for everybody, whatever their background or needs. The Arts
Council has done excellent work in recent years to widen access.
As part of its national portfolio, it supports a range of
organisations striving to improve access, from Attitude is
Everything, which seeks to connect people with disabilities with
music and live events, to VocalEyes, which works with arts
organisations across the UK to remove barriers to access and
inclusion for blind and partially sighted people. More broadly,
in its new portfolio, the Arts Council is supporting an increased
number of organisations—32 of them—led by people with
disabilities. The Government’s museum estate and development fund
supports physical adaptations to buildings to make them more
accessible to everybody.
I am grateful to the noble Lord, , for recording my first
visit to Liverpool. I am ashamed that it took me 40 years to make
it, but I was delighted that when I went the Beatles were at No.
1. It was a delight to see him at National Museums Liverpool. I
know he supports that DCMS arm’s-length body wholeheartedly. My
officials continue to talk to the team there about their exciting
plans, which I was delighted to see for myself, with our
colleagues from the Department for Levelling Up and from the
Treasury.
I am very happy to meet the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of
Basildon, and the campaigners she mentioned who are working to
ensure that everybody can play their full part in the arts and
creative industries, and to do so safely.
We heard a great number of thoughtful views from noble Lords. I
do not think that we are in any disagreement about the inherent
power, economic value or social impact of arts and culture in the
UK. Happily, this has been, for the most part, a non-partisan
speech, as exemplified by the pantheon of cross-party heroes
listed by the noble Baroness, Lady Bonham-Carter, in her
winding-up speech.
I must take slight exception to what the noble Viscount, , said. We have had a number of
exchanges before about the increased grant in aid provided by the
Government to Arts Council England. I hope noble Lords know that
I would never seek to insult their intelligence, and I certainly
would not get away with doing so. I have acknowledged that the
increase of more than £43 million that we provided to the Arts
Council in the most recent spending review is hampered by the
rise in inflation. That is why the Government are working to
bring inflation down and why we have halved it. It stands in
stark contrast to the cut in arts funding proposed by the Labour
Government in Wales, of nearly £3 million and more than 10%. I
hope the noble Viscount will take exception to that.
of Hudnall (Lab)
My Lords, I can tell that the Minister is coming to a close, and
there are a couple of minutes left. I would very much appreciate
it—and I am sure that his noble friend Lady Hooper also would—if
he would, in passing at least, address the question of theatre
tax relief. It is a very serious matter for the arts sector, and
I hope he will address it.
of Whitley Bay (Con)
I certainly will; I have it next on my list to do. I talked about
it with orchestral leaders and the Association of British
Orchestras in Bristol last week; we speak about it regularly with
museums and theatres as well. But my noble friend is right to
talk about the importance of the way that it is encouraging
innovation, risk-taking, and new writing, productions and tours.
We are very glad to have secured the extension we did at the last
Budget. We continue to feed all the evidence of shows such as
“Black Sabbath—The Ballet”, which, like my noble friend, I had
the pleasure of seeing, to our colleagues at the Treasury to show
the impact that that is making—the new productions, the new jobs,
and the new enjoyment it brings—and to measure that in a Green
Book-compliant way, so that we can make the strongest case for
those tax reliefs and their impact.
I hope noble Lords will see that those extensions secured at the
last Budget, the funding through the levelling up fund, the
cultural development fund, and the work we are doing through the
cultural educational plan and the national plan for music
education are parts of the way that the Government, like all
noble Lords who have spoken in today’s debate, agree
wholeheartedly with the sentiments the noble Lord, , put forward in his Motion. We
are very grateful to him for giving us the important opportunity
to have today’s valuable debate, and I am grateful to all noble
Lords who have taken part in it.
2.46pm
(Lab)
I will make a very short speech; I have a very small amount of
time, and that suits me, because I have enjoyed listening to
other people. The support for the arts all over the House has
been such a pleasure. There has been well-thought-through
information; people are coming at it not with swipes of
prejudice, but having looked at their own experience—personally,
in the places where they live, and historically. If we know one
thing after this debate, it is that the House of Lords is firmly
on the side of the arts: of digging into them, developing them
and seeing them in their rightful place in society. All we have
to do is convince the rest of the country.
I just had a good time. You do not often go down a street and see
so many people you admire and like saying all the things you want
to listen to, but I had that experience today. I will single out
one person: my noble friend Lady Smith, who encouraged me to do
this. I was very nervous, as I had not been in the House for one
reason or another, but she could not have been more helpful—or
more firm. Right up to the last minute, I felt I was almost going
to be pulled into the Chamber. It was wonderful working with
her.
I thank everybody. It is a great thing noble Lords have done for
the arts, and I think it will move things forward. I hope so.
Motion agreed.
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