Economy: Culture and the Arts

Baroness Wheatcroft Excerpts

Thursday 13th June 2013 Lords Chamber

Moved By

[Baroness Wheatcroft]

To move that this House takes note of the importance of culture and the arts to the economy.

[Baroness Wheatcroft]

My Lords, it gives me huge pleasure to be here to introduce this debate on the importance of the arts and culture. I am absolutely committed to that cause and I am delighted to see so many of you here at this stage on a Thursday afternoon to discuss this important subject. I am also delighted to see that my noble friend Lord Gardiner of Kimble will be responding and I hope he will not mind if I remind the House of his response to a Question for Short Debate earlier this year. He said:

“The role of art and culture in the wider economy cannot be overstated”.—[Official Report, 29/1/13; col. 1531.]

They are wise words. I completely agree.

At this stage, I should declare my interests in this subject. I am a deputy chairman of the British Museum and a member of the board of the Association of Leading Visitor Attractions, and for quite a while I was a trustee of the Albert Hall. I take this subject very seriously and in this country we have the most amazing and bountiful supply of arts and culture. At every level and for every taste, this country has something to offer.

Last summer, alongside an extraordinary sporting triumph, our country put on a glittering display of drama, music and exhibitions that would have done any nation proud. We had theatre productions in every language you could possibly think of and a few more besides and what is more, they attracted great audiences.

We do culture well. That is why I am really quite surprised that earlier this week the brilliant architect, the noble Lord, Lord Rogers, was quoted as saying that in the UK:

“We haven’t quite got culture as a concept”.

I beg to differ and I am absolutely convinced that this afternoon that you will all show him that we have indeed got culture. We appreciate his architecture, but we appreciate a lot more besides.

I look forward to some fascinating contributions from such a mix of people with backgrounds in various industry and arts organisations. I am sure that they will all come from different angles, because culture is a broad umbrella. The critic Raymond Williams suggested that it was a “structure of feeling”. I would not dare to go into definitions such as that, and it is probably better not to try. All I know is that you can listen to a Beethoven symphony, which you can hear played to perfection in this country, go to a Mozart opera, which will be done as well as anywhere else in the world, go to an extraordinary exhibition, whether of art at Tate Modern, antiquity at the British Museum, or in a modern gallery—each to their own. Your particular brand of culture may even be Coldplay or Blur, or jazz, but you will find it all in this country, and done to perfection. We are incredibly lucky to have that, and we have to nurture it.

We have a very successful film industry, one of the best in the world, which produces serious and art house films. We have broadcasters—I see my noble friend Lord Grade here, who knows far more than I about that sector—and we can export their productions and earn huge amounts of money for this country. My noble friend who is responsible for Downton Abbey cannot be with us this afternoon, but we all know what he has done for drama on TV.

Today, however, we are not here to extol the mere beauty and enjoyment of the arts, but to celebrate what the arts and culture do for our economy. Therefore, I will begin by wholeheartedly endorsing the view of Ed Vaizey, the Minister for the Creative Industries. In March, he said,

“our creative and cultural sector is such a vital element in delivering economic growth, by encouraging economic investment through tourism and business”.

More wise words from our Ministers, and at such an important time, too. Our arts and culture benefit the economy in so many ways. They create jobs, provide training and are innovative, and the innovations they make often transfer into industry and export for the service sector. Of course, the arts also provide an enormous stimulus for tourism. I will give a few statistics. The numbers in tourism are huge. Inbound tourism is the UK’s third-largest earner of foreign exchange, according to DCMS. Tourism contributes £115 billion to UK GDP. It employs 2.6 million people, of whom 27% are under 25. We cannot overestimate the importance of those young people having jobs. When half the youth in Spain are now out of work, how important it is that we keep our young people working.

Why do tourists come to Britain? Anyone who has been outdoors today knows that it is not because of the weather. They come because we can offer a unique experience. We have heritage which nobody can better, and, as I have said, we have arts on a phenomenal scale. According to the Arts Council, culture and the arts support a creative sector that by 2020 will have grown by 31%. The UK has the largest cultural economy in the world as a proportion of its GDP, and that brings in the tourists. The National Brand Index survey, which covers 20 countries, found that 57% of respondents said that history and culture would be a motivating factor in their decision about where they would go. Half of them said that they would be sure to go to a live music concert if they came to Britain, and 38% said they would go to an opera, a ballet or the theatre. Museums and galleries were a huge draw: 48% of international holiday visits within England include visits to the museum, and 25% go to an art gallery. They come to Britain because of the arts and culture we can offer them.

Museums and galleries are the most popular visitor attractions. There are 50 million visits a year to our national museums alone. According to the Association for Leading Visitor Attractions, more than half the UK’s adult population—many of whom are tourists, of course—visited a museum or a gallery during the past year. That is a very cheering statistic. Remarkably, the cultural Mecca that is Exhibition Road receives more visitors in a year than Venice. The wonderful museums that we have there—the Natural History Museum, the Science Museum, the V&A—bring in tourists in numbers that beat Venice.

At Oral Questions yesterday, we heard of the delights of the nation’s regional museums. There was a spirited defence of the museums that the Science Museum is suggesting might be in danger if it sees its grant cut. Our museums and galleries have learnt to be innovative. Look at what the V&A is exhibiting today—David Bowie’s costumes. It is a brilliant exhibition and is bringing in a completely different audience. Look at Tate Britain and its new hang, looking at paintings chronologically; making more sense to a new generation of visitors. We have learned to approach culture in new, innovative ways.

Noble Lords will have noticed the timing of this debate. It is of course important that we are having it 260 years after the start of the British Museum. It is even more important that we are having it just days before the announcement of the next spending round. I am no spendthrift. I do not want to depress you on a Thursday afternoon, when it is miserable outside and we are having such an uplifting talk, by mentioning the deficit—but it hangs there over all of us. It is hanging now over the arts and cultural sector.

I do not envy my noble friend and his colleagues in government in having to try to deal with that. I support their efforts wholeheartedly. There is, however, time for special pleading. Before those spending cuts are finalised, I want to make a plea for our greatest institutions—our greatest drawers of tourism. If there is little cash to be shared around, sometimes the more deserving cases have to be favoured. In the interests of tourism, we have to be brave and favour the centres of excellence.

Of course, many will take exception to this. They can all argue their case, but from the statistics that I have given it is unarguably the case that it is the major attractions in London that first of all draw in the tourists from overseas. They can then encourage those visitors to go elsewhere once they are here, but London is where they come first. Those institutions in London do more than their fair share for the regions and the economy of those regions.

As I mentioned, I am a trustee of the British Museum. The British Museum is an extraordinary asset for any country to have. I would argue that it is unique in the world. It has 6 million visitors a year, with another 13 million visitors through its website. Its role is not just to exhibit, although its primary role is of course the conservation of that extraordinary collection. It is there also to work on soft power. The museum is doing amazing work all over the world. In Basra, it is helping to create a national museum from the remains of one of Saddam’s many palaces. In India, it is working with local curators to teach them, to learn from them and to build bridges. In Abu Dhabi it is working with the locals who are building their own museums. Wherever you go in the world, the British Museum and our other arts institutions are building relationships that are hugely important in the role of the UK in the developing world and the world at large.

Arts and culture are for all. They are for all internationally and for all in our country. Last year, organised school parties took 240,700 children into the British Museum, and many more into other museums and art galleries throughout the country. Unorganised—probably in every sense of the word—parties took many more children into these museums. Family parties constitute a big part of the audience. It is not just a select, elite group who go to these institutions. When the museum staged its Hajj exhibition, 48% of the visitors were Muslims, largely from this country. As I say, our arts and cultural institutions are for all—and, of course, they are for all because they are free.

I am sure that, like me, your Lordships are committed to our great museums being open to members of the public, wherever they come from, free of charge. There will, however, be a struggle for some of these institutions to remain free if they see their grant-in-aid cut, cut and cut again. Already, in real terms, many of them have seen their grant reduced by 25% in the past few years as spending cuts have hit. Some of them would claim that they are close to the breadline.

To wind up, I can probably best cite a recent article in the Spectator which quoted one man’s view on the charging issue. He said:

“Suppose a Chilean tourist arrives at the British Museum to inspect some of his cultural treasures. He gets in for free and he’s got plenty of cash in his pocket so we can fleece him later at the café”.

The British Museum would never fleece anybody; our cultural institutions do not behave in that way. However, of course, they take the opportunity when they can to make money on their own account. In closing, I should tell you that the gentleman who made that observation was the Culture Minister himself, Ed Vaizey.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Wheatcroft]

My Lords, we are into extra time already so I will be very quick. I thank my noble friend for his reply, best described as very sympathetic and non-committal. I also thank everybody who has taken part this afternoon. The extraordinary variety of expertise that has been exhibited demonstrates what a very special place this is. I thank noble Lords from my heart.

Motion agreed.