Arts and Creative Industries Strategy

Baroness Wheatcroft Excerpts

Thursday 8th December 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Wheatcroft (CB)]

My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Viscount for securing this debate. I am even more grateful to him—although I did not realise it at the time—for allowing me to say that it was in preparation for this debate that I found myself on Saturday night at the opera in Naples, where they take their opera very seriously. The performance of “Don Carlos” started at 7 pm and finished just before midnight. Opera does of course lift the soul—and at the moment one can do with that.

I take the opportunity to congratulate the extraordinary Wasfi Kani, who raised the money and built a new opera house, starting I think in 2017, for Grange Park. She had no public funding; she went knocking on doors and got the money. Through Pimlico Opera, she also takes opera into prisons, where it has an extraordinary effect on the inmates. I am not sure how musical they were when they started, but they are a lot better when they finish.

I should declare an interest as the chairman of the Association of Leading Visitor Attractions. I want to interpret this debate in the widest possible way, because the arts and creative industries operate in a holistic manner—they all feed off each other. Even the remarkable success of our video games industry depends on having people who can soak up what goes on in music, the arts and the creative world generally.

Like the noble Lord, Lord Foster, I congratulate the Government on what they did with funds such as the Culture Recovery Fund, in looking after our arts and culture during the period of the pandemic. But the problems remain. According to the Society of Independent Theatres, theatre ticket sales this year will be £845 million lower than they were before the pandemic. That is a lot of money if you are trying to run a theatre on a proper basis.

Classical music, in particular, is the real victim because it would appear that the older audience, who tend to be the ones who go to classical concerts, simply have not come back after the pandemic. There is a genuine threat to some orchestras, particularly in London, where we are blessed to have several, but also in the regions. So, I beg the Minister to contemplate what might be done to help the classical music industry.

That takes me on to the first of two specific points that I wish to raise. Classical music needs to have a new audience all the time, and that depends on music education. The noble Lord, Lord Foster, spoke about the need for education to include far more emphasis on the arts generally, and I echo that. Who knows a toddler who is not keen to draw all the time, often where they are not supposed to, or to make music? They love to, yet when they get to school, these two traits are not fostered. I commend the work of the noble Baroness, Lady Fleet, who is working hard to get more classical music, and music generally, into schools. But even though the Government have now adopted a strategy, it is measly—an hour of music a week in schools, and it is not part of the curriculum. It should be.

The Gulbenkian Foundation produced a report 40 years ago extolling the virtues of what the arts, and music in particular, could do for children, and thus for the economy in general. It was included in the first national curriculum in 1988. We have gone backwards, not forwards, and given that our creative industries are renowned and world-beating, we need to foster the talent that will feed them in the future. In particular, we need to foster a love of classical music, so that the audience will be there to continue to allow our orchestras to thrive.

My second point is about tourism, because we know that it is the arts and culture that bring tourists to this country. Overwhelmingly, when they are asked what they are here for, it is not the weather, the beaches or the sewage; it is the arts and the culture. But what are we doing to encourage tourism? Not nearly enough to encourage creative tourism. The OECD produced a report, several years ago now, in which it talked about the instant effect that concentrating on creative tourism could have:

“Integrating creative content with tourism experiences can add value by reaching new target groups, improving destination image and competitiveness, and supporting the growth of creative industries and creative exports … Developing creative tourism has implications for national tourism administration, regional tourism authorities and destination marketing.”


I absolutely agree, but we need our tourism organisations to actually start being creative and making the most of the creative industries. There are so many packages that could be offered to people interested in coming here, and they would support our creative industries.

Finally, I beg the Minister, as others have done on other occasions, to get the Government to reconsider their position on VAT for tourists. It is mad to deter people from coming here and to send them to Paris or Milan. Retailers have already been saying this, and my members in ALVA know their visitor numbers are down because tourists are being deflected because of VAT. In that brief moment when Kwasi Kwarteng was Chancellor, the VAT holiday for tourists was coming back; sadly, it vanished again. If the Minister could put in a plea, it would be really useful.