Budget: Arts, Heritage and Cultural Organisations
Debate between Baroness Bottomley of Nettlestone and Lord Vaizey of Didcot
Lord Vaizey of Didcot (Con)
My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Sater, on securing this important debate. I am a member of not nearly as many arts organisations as she is, but that is partly because I remain the king of the freebie—and in that sense I am completely aligned with government policy.
As I have said before, it always surprises me that the Tories get such a bad rap when it comes to the arts, compared to the party opposite. We created the DCMS, put in place the National Lottery as well as the museum and theatre tax relief—and there was also the superb support given by the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson, and his colleagues during Covid. Yet here we are today with only one Labour speaker on the Back Benches, and no Minister in the Lords who is in the actual department. The Budget has seen a real-terms cut to DCMS, a cut to the levelling-up funding, the removal of planned capital funds for the national museums of Liverpool and York and the Victoria and Albert Museum. I should declare that I am a trustee of the Tate—although maybe not for much longer after this speech.
With the ongoing impact of the Budget, the national insurance hike, the removal of business rates relief and the war on non-doms, many of whom give to arts organisations, it is not exactly what one would call a refreshing time to have a Labour Government in place for the arts. There have been some bits of good news hinted at in the Budget. The cultural infrastructure fund was mentioned, but we have no detail on that. As the right reverend Prelate pointed out, the listed places of worship scheme is so important, and we need its future to be guaranteed and established. There is, of course, some increase in grant in aid to the national museums, which it would be churlish of me not to recognise.
I give the same speech in this Chamber every time we have a debate on the arts, because securing the future of the arts in this country is such a simple and easy thing for any Government to do—believe me, I have fought those battles as well—by giving long-term and generous funding, which is still a rounding error on the overall budget of government, for all our national and regional institutions. It may be the time to experiment with some other form of funding. As somebody who believes in simplifying the tax system, it is perhaps counterintuitive, but I am interested in Manchester’s experiment with a tourist tax and whether that can make an impact. It is perhaps something that cities should be thinking about to embed the arts in health and education. Of course, we also talk about soft power and diplomacy, and the arts play such a vital role in that.
It is not a one-way street. There has to be some give and take for the arts. I became increasingly frustrated as Arts Minister that we lived in a world where no museum or no theatre should ever close. We celebrated the openings of numerous theatres and museums, which were never covered. The minute that one was under threat of closure, it was supposed to be a disaster for the arts. There should perhaps be more M&A in the arts and more co-operation.
Finally, I think that the national museum should be given independence and that the Parthenon sculptures should be returned to the Greeks—I give way to my noble friend.
Baroness Bottomley of Nettlestone (Con)
Does my noble friend agree that, in these difficult times, waste is to be avoided at all costs? We have the wonderful Imperial War Museum with the Holocaust galleries. The last thing that anybody wants is to waste over £30 million on a memorial museum in the beautiful Victoria Tower Gardens when that money could be spent—