Baroness Jolly
Main Page: Baroness Jolly (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Baroness Jolly (LD)
My Lords, I declare my interest as a trustee of the charity Help Musicians UK. I am pleased to answer this Question for Short Debate in regard to which everyone has paid tribute to the tenacity of the noble Earl, Lord Clancarty. There has been a fascinating and broad collection of responses. I confess that I will have trouble responding to all of them within the time that I have available, so I think that I will be writing a substantial letter to all those who have contributed to ensure that all the queries are replied to.
The Government are committed to supporting the arts to provide culture for all, ensuring that the economic, social and intrinsic benefits are available to everyone. During the life of this Parliament, almost £3 billion will have been provided to Arts Council England by the Government in grant in aid and National Lottery money. Supporting individual artists is central to the Arts Council’s 10-year strategy, Great Art and Culture for Everyone.
The Arts Council supports individual artists to develop their careers at various stages through three main funding strands: Grants for the Arts, the Artists’ International Development Fund and national portfolio organisations funding. The noble Earl, Lord Clancarty, asked me about the Paying Artists campaign. Arts Council policy states that workers must in accordance with the law be paid at least the minimum wage. Arts Council guidance to organisations hoping to be portfolio organisations says that they must pay interns and other workers fairly. Arts Council England requires all portfolio organisations to operate “bridges” in which artists’ fees are in line with relevant codes of practice from all the sector organisations. These Arts Council national portfolio organisations take a proactive role in supporting contemporary artists and makers, enabling their artwork to reach a wider audience, and will be supported over the next three years to implement fair pay to all artists.
The aim of the Arts Council is to nurture artistic excellence by investing in organisations that develop and showcase talent. It provides support to individual artists through various funding partner organisations, such as the 111 national portfolio organisations that work in visual arts nationwide.
One issue that the noble Earl was concerned about was space to work. The Arts Council is working to make the arts and the wider culture of museums and libraries an integral part of everyday public life. As part of that, it has a number of studio providers among its national portfolio organisations, such as Bow Arts, Islington Mill, ACAVA and ACME, which advocate for access to good-quality, affordable space and facilities. ACME is a good example of a studio organisation that has achieved self-sustainability, in part due to public investment as an Arts Council portfolio organisation over many years, but also due to its sound financial and commercial planning. The Arts Council also has partnerships with studio organisations including the Essex Network of Artists’ Studios and the Greater London Authority.
There are new artist-focused partnership programmes and networks in the national portfolio for 2015 onwards. These include support for the Syllabus, a partnership with Wysing Arts Centre to enable it to deliver an initiative to support individual artists. It will work with New Contemporaries, S1 Artspace and Studio Voltaire to support early-career artists who cannot afford the costs of higher education. Many of the Arts Council’s portfolio organisations devote their resources to supporting artists and the production of new work. I give a name check to a few: Artangel, Forma, the Crafts Council, Artsadmin, and Arts Catalyst.
The Arts Council supports the Contemporary Visual Arts Network so that visual arts organisations across all the regions, including the BALTIC in Newcastle and the Arnolfini arts centre and gallery in Bristol, can work together to adapt to develop resilient business models and ensure sustainability. The Arts Council also works with galleries, including the South London Gallery, to ensure consistent provision of arts opportunities for children and young people, so that all can benefit from the excellent practice that currently exists in the visual arts.
I turn to literature. Poetry and literary translation are championed. The Arts Council provides funding for writers at various stages in their careers, working in new forms and connecting with readers through live and digital events. Nearly £20 million is being invested between 2015 and 2018 to fund organisations nationwide offering high-quality creative and professional training to writers; 46 literature organisations are involved in this as part of their national portfolio, including Comma Press in the north-west, New Writing North in the north-east and the Poetry Archive in the south-west.
Creative writing opportunities are funded by the Arts Council—for example, through the Ministry of Stories, SLAMbassadors and the National Literacy Trust’s 21st Century Author scheme. The Grants for the Arts funding supports a wide range of literature organisations to develop their work, including independent publishers, literature festivals, writers’ networks, spoken word events and community reading projects. Recent examples include Brighton and Hove City Reads, the shared reading of one novel across the city each year; Mouthy Poets, a young poetry collective of up-and-coming talent; West Midlands Readers’ Network, a project bringing together 14 public libraries, readers’ groups and writers across the region; the Creative Future Literary Awards, promoting the work of disabled and marginalised writers; and festivals as far apart as Huddersfield, Kirklees, Much Wenlock, Maryport and Swindon. Grants for the Arts also funds a range of writing projects, including research and development, mentoring, residencies and opportunities to collaborate and to work creatively with new technology.
We must not forget musicians. The Arts Council champions new music and the work of British composers and artists, seeking to ensure that they are at the heart of cultural life and enjoyed by many. It currently funds 93 music national portfolio organisations, including the big names such as the Hallé in Manchester, the Birmingham Contemporary Music Group, London’s Philharmonia Orchestra and the London Symphony Orchestra, whose Discovery programme hosts the Panufnik Young Composers scheme as well as the LSO Soundhub, a platform for emerging composers.
The Government’s work on cultural education continues to make good progress. The DCMS, the DfE and the Arts Council have worked together to increase the opportunities and support for any young person who wants to get involved with the arts. The Government are making a substantial investment in music education, including £246 million for music education hubs, which are managed by the Arts Council. These aim to improve access to music education for all, especially those from disadvantaged backgrounds.
I shall pick up on the points made by noble Lords during the debate. The noble Earl, Lord Clancarty, asked a number of questions about the artist’s resale right. One of the advantages of the royalties generated by the artist’s resale right is that artists or their estates are able to benefit whenever their work is resold by a dealer or auctioneer. ARR is an EU competence that is relatively new to UK law. The European Commission has a commitment periodically to review the implementation and effects of the directive governing the resale right. In formulating any contribution to the Commission’s review, the Government will take due account of a range of available evidence from artists, their representatives and art market professionals. I have more in my brief, but I shall write to the noble Earl, giving him full details. He also raised issues about the dispute between DACS and CLA. Again, we note the suggestions, although we see this as essentially a private commercial matter between the relevant parties. Again, I have a level of detail in my brief that time prevents me from going into, but I shall write.
My noble friend Lord Patten queried government support and asked about the possibility of an equivalent of Gift Aid. The Government are boosting philanthropy through the introduction of tax incentives and Arts Council England is supporting the professionalism of fundraising through the Catalyst scheme. Again, I will put the detail in the letter.
I thank the noble Lord for giving me advance notice of a question about the Town and Country Planning Act, because I was able to get detail on that. The Arts Council has taken three initiatives in that regard. It supports local authorities in using Section 106 by publishing guidance on developing a standard charge approach for levying developer contributions for the arts. It has also published guidance on the community infrastructure levy for culture on the Town and Country Planning Association’s culture and sport planning toolkit website. The toolkit was developed in 2009-10 with support from the non-departmental public bodies for culture and sport. In 2013 the Arts Council provided a small grant to refresh the toolkit.
My noble friend Lady Bonham-Carter asked about increasing access to the arts beyond the private sector. The Arts Council firmly believes that careers in the arts should not be limited to the privileged few and advises all portfolio organisations to pay artists in line with best practice to enable the fairest rates for people across the sector.
During this Parliament, the Government have worked to support individual artists and to help everyone in the UK achieve access to great art and culture and they will continue to do so.