Creative Industries

Baroness Jones of Whitchurch Excerpts

Thursday 3rd November 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Bonham-Carter, for initiating this debate. She has been a tireless and vocal agitator for greater prominence for the arts and has once again made a compelling case today. I would also like to add my welcome and congratulations to the noble Viscount, Lord Colville, who has demonstrated today that he is going to be a talented and effective new recruit to the growing band of us who care about the arts.

As I reflected on what I might say today, it occurred to me that I had not read or heard much from Jeremy Hunt on this issue for a while, so I thought that I ought to check. I looked on the DCMS website under the creative industry section and there was nothing. There were no speeches or press releases from the Secretary of State celebrating the arts, no messages of congratulation to our film-makers, our actors, our playwrights, our authors or our artists for their recent successes. There was nothing to welcome the blockbuster achievements of exhibitions at our great museums and galleries, no words of encouragement and nothing to thank the sector for the continuing contribution being made to the economy at this difficult time.

To be honest, I was not surprised because that is what it feels like on the ground to those of us that take an interest in, and support, the arts. The sector feels unappreciated and unloved. Regrettably, the Secretary of State has pursued a single-minded agenda of cuts at the expense of any other considerations. He was, of course, one of the first Cabinet Ministers to seek the favour of the Chancellor by offering up cuts in his own department of 20 per cent. This has been followed up by a rushed financial squeeze on the BBC, the axing of the much respected UK Film Council and the closure of hundreds of libraries around the country. As we know, he wants the sector to stand on its own feet, backed up by private giving where necessary, without fully understanding how central the arts are to the future growth of the economy.

The noble Baroness, in her opening speech, quoted some figures on the creative industries’ economic contribution. There are a number of ways of calculating this, but even the DCMS website acknowledges that they contributed 5.6 per cent of the UK's gross value added in 2008 and exported over 4 per cent of the total goods and services. Under the previous Government these figures continued to rise. In addition, undoubtedly the main motivation for many overseas visitors coming to Britain is the theatres, concert halls, museums, country houses, festivals and historic buildings. These visitors bolster our economy and create jobs, not only for those employed directly in the sector, but for the hundreds of thousands working in hotels, restaurants, transport and retail outlets.

However, this is not just a debate about visitor numbers and export successes; it also raises issues about the sort of country we want to inhabit. We are all rightly proud of our cultural history, but a vibrant culture is more than just history—it is about the way we live now. Our lives are enriched by the artists, designers, writers and composers who are working today. As my noble friend Lady McIntosh highlighted, these are not born successes but need opportunities to build and develop from small-scale local theatres, galleries, studios and publishers. They often need grants or loans or funds to help them break into the sector, and they need encouragement from a young age to develop their imagination and creativity.

A number of noble Lords have referred to education in the debate. There is nothing I have read in the Government's education plans that leads me to believe they understand the need for creativity in education. Michael Gove prefers formal teaching and a concentration on learning facts and dates. As several noble Lords have said, the English baccalaureate does not include one creative subject: art, design and music studies are sidelined. It was reported in the press at the weekend that applications to do creative art and design courses are down 27 per cent, and universities report that many of their humanities courses are under threat of closure. We are in danger of squeezing out the creative forces that make Britain unique.

It is time that we took a cold hard look at what the UK economy will look like in 10 or 20 years’ time. What will be our unique selling point? What will be our fields of excellence in the global economy? Many of our industries and services can no longer compete with the continuing expansion of the Asian economies. What will we have left to sell? We cannot assume that the UK will always maintain its reputation for creative excellence in the world. Other countries are waking up to the need to invest in the creative industries, particularly around design and innovation. It would be all too easy to lose our edge in the global market, and we will not be able to retrieve it.

Meanwhile, for example, we know that the Chinese look upon our culture with respect and admire our heritage and our artistic tradition. Over 100 million students are learning English in Chinese schools. A colleague who is a second-hand book dealer says there is now a vast demand for English textbooks in China. Meanwhile, India has the second-highest number of English speakers of any country in the world. We need to capitalise on these trends so that we have something of value to exchange in the global marketplace of the future. I hope the Government wake up to these needs and demands.

A number of noble Lords talked about needing to avoid shopping lists in the debate, so I have a simple request—a simple expectation—which is that I hope the Minister will agree to have a word with her boss about how he might signal to the arts in this country that, belatedly, they are loved and valued again.