Arts Sector

Earl of Clancarty Excerpts

Monday 30th June 2025 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[The Earl of Clancarty]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the value of the subsidised arts sector.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Culture, Media and Sport (Baroness Twycross) (Lab)]

The Government strongly believe in the benefits of publicly funded arts. The arts are vital to the UK’s economy and our well-being and fundamental to our cohesion as a society and our national story, fostering pride and earning global recognition. A recent report for the Arts Council by the Centre for Economics and Business Research estimated that its national portfolio alone accounted for 7% of the gross value added of the sector, equivalent to £1.35 billion.

[The Earl of Clancarty (CB)]

My Lords, at its best, the ecosystem of the arts and creative industries is a dynamic combination of the non-commercial and commercial, a point well made by the noble Baroness, Lady Debbonaire, in her excellent maiden speech last week. Does the Minister agree that there would be no Steve McQueen, the commercially successful director, without the experimental visual artist supported through the Arts Council by the DCMS? The sectoral plan is a plan principally for the already commercialised creative industries; it is not a plan for the subsidised arts. Is there a plan for the arts and, if so, when will that happen?

[Baroness Twycross (Lab)]

Everything we do at DCMS centres around this point, if you look at the work that Arts Council England does in terms of the huge spend on its programmes. I am happy to have a longer conversation with the noble Earl, but the Arts Council England review will look at the whole piece, and the conclusions of the review and the Government’s response will be published next year.

Live Music Industry: Support

Earl of Clancarty Excerpts

Monday 23rd June 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Twycross (Lab)]

I cannot think of anyone better than my noble friend to carry out this work. We welcome the launch of Parliament’s fan-led review of the live music industry and look forward to considering its findings. From the industry’s own recent fan-led review, we know that fans are deeply invested in supporting live music, particularly local artists and independent venues, but rising financial pressures, dynamic pricing concerns and the closure of beloved venues threaten long-term sustainability. We recognise those same challenges, which is why today, as I mentioned previously, we have announced a major investment to drive growth in the UK music industry.

[The Earl of Clancarty (CB)]

My Lords, will the Government, particularly in the light of the Planning and Infrastructure Bill, ensure that existing music venues are fully protected in areas that face redevelopment? If the agent of change principle were to be incorporated by government into primary legislation, that would be very welcome.

[Baroness Twycross (Lab)]

The National Planning Policy Framework is clear that new developments should be able to be integrated effectively with existing businesses and community facilities such as music venues. Existing businesses and facilities should not have unreasonable restrictions placed on them as a result of development permitted after they were established. We want to enable new developments such as housing to coexist with culture and infrastructure such as music venues.

Craft Industry: Support

Earl of Clancarty Excerpts

Thursday 12th June 2025 Grand Committee

[The Earl of Clancarty (CB)]

My Lords, I declare an interest as the vice-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Craft. I congratulate my noble friend Lord Freyberg on securing this debate and on his excellent opening speech. I thank Patricia Lovett for her excellent briefing on heritage craft and, indeed, whose expertise in this area informs us all. I thank the Minister for the helpful meeting she had with my noble friend Lord Freyburg, the noble Baroness, Lady Warwick of Undercliffe, and me.

I am a fine artist, so my view of craft is that of a close and equally significant next-door neighbour; indeed, there is considerable overlap in our practice. Yet, whereas we have debates and Questions in this House on many of the creative industries—many on music—I cannot remember the last time we had a debate on craft, so this one is especially welcome, since the infrequency of such debates is sadly also indicative of a public perception about craft that is entirely at odds with the reality of the importance of this area, not least financially.

It is worth repeating the statistic that heritage craft alone contributed £4.4 billion GVA to the economy in 2012, which is about five times more than fishing, which contributed £862 million in 2023. Unlike the fishing industry, it receives no funding from government, while contemporary craft, which is funded through the Crafts Council, still receives nothing like the investment that is made in the fishing industry. I do not want to press this comparison too much, not least because some of the ancillary activities connected with fishing, such as net and withy pot making, are themselves crafts. We should be on the same side, but the Government need to think seriously about a more equitable distribution of direct investment, particularly as they rightly identify the creative sector as a growth area. While it is good that, through the spending review, heritage venues will be better supported—perhaps the Minister can say something about that—the overall cuts to DCMS funding are worrying and deeply disturbing.

I will concentrate the remainder of my remarks on the effects of Brexit on the craft sector. That effect is profound. Europe is the most significant trading partner for craft goods. However, Brexit is not behind us: as in all the creative industries, artists and artisans have to live with it daily. Most immediately, it makes us face enormous concerns over paperwork, costs and delays, but the exchange of ideas, tools, materials, teaching and training between the UK and the EU in the craft industry has all but stopped, including the display of work at European craft fairs and exhibitions. The shop window that such exhibitions afford, even when no work is sold, is hugely important in terms of initial cultural engagement as a precursor to trade. Will the Minister look at this?

Will the Minister consider expanding the list of eligible occupations in the creative sector to include heritage craft practitioners? This would enable knowledge exchange for residencies and collaborative projects under the PPE visa. Will she look at the huge challenges faced by journeymen and apprentices in such areas of itinerant work across Europe due to both Brexit and funding, which is either scarce or non-existent due to rigid eligibility criteria tied to fixed business premises?

Finally, I make a plea that the Government reinstate tax-free shopping for tourists, which would benefit both high-end fashion and craft goods. The Centre for Economics and Business Research found that its removal has deterred 2 million tourists a year from visiting the UK and is costing £10.7 billion in lost GDP, with much of that loss, of course, being the EU’s gain.

Lord Byron: 200th Anniversary

Earl of Clancarty Excerpts

Tuesday 16th April 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

I hope that the campaign to move the statue into Hyde Park, where it can be seen and admired by more people, will help to inspire people into art, whether that is sculpture or poetry, and to investigate history. The efforts of the Byron Society to promote this legacy are important. Many towns in Greece have an Odos Vyronos—that is, a Byron Street. He is perhaps better commemorated in Greece than in the land of his birth. I hope that this bicentenary will help inspire new generations of admirers.

[The Earl of Clancarty (CB)]

A wider concern here is the protection and conservation of all our public sculpture and heritage, from ancient to contemporary, including concerns over stone and metal theft. Has the Minister seen the excellent recent report by the APPG on Metal, Stone and Heritage Crime and the important recommendations it makes in relation to heritage crime? Is the department working closely with the Home Office in this area, as well as with Historic England?

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

I am happy to reassure the noble Earl that, yes, we are. Historic England does a great deal of work, working with police forces across the UK on this important issue. We have to protect our public statues from, alas, vandalism and theft, and from the challenges of climate change. On this, the department, Historic England and many others work closely.

Regional Arts Facilities

Earl of Clancarty Excerpts

Wednesday 27th March 2024 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[The Earl of Clancarty]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to protect regional arts organisations and facilities funded by local authorities, particularly where those local authorities are facing financial difficulties.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Culture, Media and Sport (Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay) (Con)]

My Lords, we recognise that local authorities face challenges. That is why we have announced an additional £600 million to bolster our existing support, alongside our £64 billion local government finance settlement. We have also made permanent the increases to cultural tax reliefs and provided support for energy bills over the past two years. DCMS continues to advocate for and help local decision-makers understand the full value of culture, including through our culture and heritage capital programme.

[The Earl of Clancarty (CB)]

My Lords, local government funding has been the foremost means of support for our arts and cultural services. How then will the Government address the significant underfunding which, over so many years, has deprived organisations across the country of the core investment essential to the day-to-day running of our museums, galleries, libraries, theatres and orchestras? Does the Minister accept that tax relief and the kind of capital investment the Arts Council announced this week, though welcome in themselves, are not the solution to a problem now driving our arts and cultural services to the point of collapse?

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

The noble Earl is right to point to the importance of local government, which is a bigger funder of the arts than national government or the Arts Council. It is a really important partner. He points to the things that the Government have done through the cultural tax reliefs—making them permanent is an important part of the help, alongside the support we have given to organisations in the face of rising energy costs. But, as I said in my initial answer, my department advocates for the importance of cultural spending, not just because it is a good in itself but because it is a way for local authorities to deliver many of their other statutory obligations in education and in health and well-being. That is why we capture the data and measure it in a Green Book-compliant way, so that we can have the conversation with our colleagues at the Treasury and bring the successes that we saw in the Budget, but also so that we can make that case clearly to our colleagues in local government.

Charities: National Minimum Wage

Earl of Clancarty Excerpts

Thursday 29th February 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

The noble Lord is right to point to the important contribution of civil society and charitable organisations—the Government recognise that. We saw that very clearly during the coronavirus pandemic, when we pledged £750 million to ensure that voluntary and civil society organisations could continue their vital work supporting the community during the pandemic. As I have pointed to, we see that in the face of the rising cost of living now.

[The Earl of Clancarty (CB)]

My Lords, can the Minister say whether he has had representations from museums and galleries about this? If so, what steps will the Government take to support them in the light of this change?

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

Yes, I have discussed the same issue with museums and arts organisations. The rise in the national living wage has implications for employers of all sorts. Through our increased grant in aid, Arts Council England is supporting a record number of organisations in more parts of the country than ever before. I continue to discuss these issues with organisations of all sorts.

Arts

Earl of Clancarty Excerpts

Thursday 1st February 2024 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Clancarty (CB)]

My Lords, I too congratulate the Government on deciding to ratify the UNESCO treaty on intangible cultural heritage. I thank Patricia Lovett, who has campaigned on this for so many years. I also applaud the Government’s stated commitment to negotiate the artist’s resale right with other countries, which is much appreciated. However, the triumvirate of crisis areas—arts funding, arts education and Brexit—is now causing firefighting on a daily basis in terms of cost, red tape and feasibility.

An artist’s work is primarily a contribution to society, which is why public funding is so important. Visual artists, for instance, should be properly remunerated for participation in public exhibitions on the kind of scale that, for example, Stuttgart has recently announced for artists there. Compare that progressive model with Suffolk and Nottingham, which are the latest councils to announce zero funding for the arts. There will be no exhibitions, let alone payment for artists, and theatres are now in danger of losing much of their total funding, as the excellent introduction by the noble Lord, Lord Bragg, made clear.

I read with horror this week of the possible plans for a fire sale of public assets to deal with local authorities’ financial woes, including buildings that might be used for arts and cultural purposes. This is so short-sighted. Councils have already lost many precious buildings that cannot be recovered. Local authorities ought to be part of the solution, rather than hindering the provision of, for example, our increasingly scarce music venues, which were mentioned earlier.

The Arts Council and local authorities are blamed, but ultimately the long-term cuts to central government funding are responsible. The key to arts funding lies in reversing the cuts to local authorities, particularly as through the “Let’s Create” strategy the overstretched Arts Council has taken on the kind of community projects that used to be funded by local authorities.

Brexit has yet to be properly addressed for the arts. While much can be done to ameliorate the situation, including renegotiating the deal the EU originally offered us, in the end the real solution must be to rejoin the single market. I say this particularly because many of the jobs that used to be on offer in Europe to performers as an accepted part of their career path are now advertised only for those with European passports. We will always remain at a disadvantage to our European neighbours in the creative industries until we are an equal member of that market again.

One specific thing the Government could do to help touring musicians would be to speed up and reduce the red tape on the issuing of A1 forms. I have an Oral Question on this on 12 February, to be answered by the Treasury, but I take the opportunity here to ask DCMS to impress on the Treasury the importance of addressing this concern.

The third main area of concern is arts education, with GCSE arts entries falling by a massive 41% since 2010. The key issue here is the accountability measures, with their built-in hierarchy of subjects. Look to the recent report by the Lords Education for 11-16 Year Olds Committee that recommends the EBacc be scrapped and Progress 8 reformed. One should bear in mind that the EBacc was set up to cement the then Education Secretary Michael Gove’s vision of a narrowly academic bias to school education, not the properly rounded education that all students deserve and that would most benefit society.

BBC Funding

Earl of Clancarty Excerpts

Tuesday 12th December 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

The review aims to ensure that the BBC’s funding model is fair to licence fee payers, sustainable for the long term and supports the BBC in the vital work it does, including its important role in growing our thriving creative industries. We know that, if we want the BBC to continue to succeed, we cannot freeze its income but, at the same time, we cannot ask households to pay more to support the BBC indefinitely. So, the review will look at a range of options for funding the corporation, including looking at how the BBC can increase its commercial revenues to reduce the burden on licence fee payers.

[The Earl of Clancarty (CB)]

My Lords, I am not against a review of the funding model, but that is a completely different matter entirely from the long-term squeezing of funds available to the BBC—which is surely, as has just been said, the central problem. One problem should not be used as an excuse not to solve the other problem.

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

As we know from previous exchanges, there is the immediate decision about licence fee increases and the settlement that the Government reached with the BBC at the beginning of 2022—which saw the two-year freeze to help house- holds at the time—and the longer-term questions which are right to ask to make sure that we are funding the BBC in a sustainable way, so that it can continue to do important work in the decades to come, which are going to look very different from the BBC’s first century.

Classical Music

Earl of Clancarty Excerpts

Thursday 7th December 2023 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[The Earl of Clancarty]

To ask His Majesty’s Government whether they intend to take steps to improve support for classical music, particularly for orchestras and opera companies.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Culture, Media and Sport (Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay) (Con)]

My Lords, opera, orchestras and classical music enrich our lives. Through its investment programme, Arts Council England is spending almost £60 million per year on classical music and opera. More opera organisations are being funded than previously, and support for orchestral organisations has increased in both number and value, with nearly two dozen sharing over £21 million a year. We have also extended the higher rate of cultural tax reliefs, including orchestra tax relief.

[The Earl of Clancarty (CB)]

My Lords, many of us will no doubt have had recent listening experiences which give us hope that there is a future for classical music in this country. But will the Minister accept that this excellence does not describe the wider narrative of declining educational opportunities and funding cuts, which have led inevitably to a necessarily costlier art form being under considerable threat wherever it is located? Among numerous concerns, can a way can be found to retain orchestra tax relief claims on EEA expenditure as, on top of Brexit, this may otherwise prove disastrous for touring in Europe?

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

Since it was introduced in 2016, £75 million has been paid out through orchestra tax relief. We have extended it at the headline rates for another two years and are grateful to the Association of British Orchestras and many others who have joined the consultation since that was announced in the Budget. Since our departure from the EU, we are of course bringing our tax reliefs in line with World Trade Organization rules. I am grateful for the collaboration we have had. We have made changes on connected party transactions and the going concern rule, and we are keen to continue discussion with orchestras to ensure that they know that only 10% of orchestral output needs to be produced in this country; they will still be able to tour around the world, so that people overseas as well as here may enjoy their brilliant work.

Creative Industries (Communications and Digital Committee Report)

Earl of Clancarty Excerpts

Friday 7th July 2023 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Clancarty (CB)]

My Lords, this is an important report and I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Stowell, on her introduction to it. The report divides into two parts. The first concerns the problems facing creators when they are already creating—IP and tax relief are just two examples—and the second explores how to get creators to that point when they are having to deal with those problems; the chapter on skills is about that. There is a horse-and-cart aspect to this, although skills are also needed to sustain the industry as well.

I will pick out a couple of things that the report highlights, one from each of those areas. While bearing in mind the technological/business bent of the report, I will try to explore the idea of the arts as a thing in itself—a kind of missing key for the Government in the puzzle about how we drive forward these industries.

First, there has clearly been some success in drawing the Government’s attention to some of the concerns raised by the report. For instance, one issue I raised in January in an Oral Question referencing this very report was the concern over a broad copyright exception for text and data mining, which the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, talked about in some detail. Can the Government update us as to where things currently stand with the IPO on this? Have the Government asked the IPO to pause the originally proposed changes, as they said they would in response to the report? Importantly, how much are interested parties, such as the music sector, being kept in the loop on this? I look forward to, I hope, a detailed response from the Minister on that.

Secondly, the statement on higher education in paragraph 158 in the chapter on skills says:

“The Department for Education’s sweeping rhetoric about ‘low value courses’ is unhelpful”.


Other noble Lords have referred to that. This concern was raised by my noble friend Lady Bull today, as well as in an Oral Question on higher education on 28 June, in which she made the point that

“individuals can and do choose to pursue careers that earn lower salaries but have vital social and cultural value”.

One might add artistic value, an aspect of work that makes it a valid contribution by an individual to society, irrespective of the economic value of that work.

Artists, as we discussed in the debate on freelancers recently, want to be paid. Artists and technicians want to be paid more, but they should not be penalised if that is not achieved. The Minister’s reply to my noble friend’s question was that

“it is … important that students are really well informed and understand the choices they make when they opt for one qualification or another”.—[Official Report, 28/6/23; col. 700.]

That is perfectly right, but what the Minister did not say is that universities can now be penalised for what are wrongly regarded as low outcomes, and courses can be withdrawn. In this case, the Government’s response to that recommendation was, frankly, more than unhelpful.

The cutting of arts courses in universities pre-dates this new policy, as the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, referred to, since cutting arts courses has been perceived over a period as an easy option when a university has got into trouble financially. It is perhaps better if financial problems can somehow be avoided altogether. In this sense, too, there is an analogy with schools today and their arts offer, which is hugely important for the creative industries. In a sense, the new regulation acts as a further turn of the screw.

The University of East Anglia has suggested something that the DfE could do that is a relatively small change but could make a difference to finances: to drop the metric that separates Russell group applicants from other universities so that there is more of a level playing field and application interest is better shared across the university landscape. Many of the problems that have occurred are to non-Russell group universities. In very general terms, that is perhaps indicative of the conflict between the academic and the creative that is bedevilling education more widely. This would be in line with the egalitarian principles of the DfE’s lifelong learning policy. It would also fit with Robert Halfon’s assertion in his speech to the Higher Education Policy Institute’s annual conference on 22 June that universities should not exist to reinforce privilege. I ask that the Minister pass this suggestion to the DfE. It might well help save further cuts to creative courses.

On school education, the obstacle of the EBacc is rightly highlighted in this report, as is the current emphasis on STEM rather than STEAM in schools—although I note that careers advice is given rather more space. The fact remains, however, that the erosion of an arts education in schools is now an urgent matter. Why does it matter? It matters both to the arts in their own right and to the creative industries as a whole. One has only to think of our great designers in so many areas, as the noble Baroness, Lady Rebuck, pointed out, for whom an arts education was key.

Another question is how those who are to take up a T-level in a creative subject are to be enthused in the first place. If one considers the talent pipeline or training pathway most practically as a series of stages—one might almost say key stages—the Edge Foundation, with its particular interest in technical education, is entirely convinced of the importance of arts subjects in schools as a crucial stage along the way. It has to be art and design as well as design and technology, as well as other arts subjects. If the Minister doubts the urgency I refer to, I ask him to look at the new Art Now report, produced by the All-Party Group for Art, Craft and Design in Education, of which I am a vice-chair, which finds that 67% of teachers surveyed are thinking about leaving the profession, with well-being and workload cited as major reasons.

There is a case to be made that as technology changes, other new media can and should be introduced in schools, but, most usefully, this should be as part of an arts education. In drama in schools, for example, we should think not just about acting and directing but about lighting, sound, set design and digital input. All these technical jobs are much-needed skills in theatre and the performing arts in general, but it needs investment, and what hope is there at present for that additional investment in schools if we are not even reaching first base in our arts education offer? Private schools are streets ahead.

This report is called At Risk: Our Creative Future. Three things threaten our creative future. One is the erosion of our arts education, the importance of which I have just outlined and to which this report refers. The second is the huge fall over the past 13 years in public funding for the arts, which has clearly reached a crunch moment this year. The Arts Council’s grant in aid has shrunk by 47% in the past 15 years. Perhaps I should add that the most startling observation I have heard recently in this House was made by the noble Lord, Lord Razzall, in the recent local government debate when he observed that Stuttgart’s arts funding is

“greater than the whole of the Arts Council budget”.—[Official Report, 15/6/23; col. 2181.]

That is very much food for thought.

The arts are separate from the rest of the creative industries but, paradoxically, are their beating heart. Harm the arts and you harm everything, because of the dependency of the creative industries as a whole on the arts sector, which, as the great research project that it is, inherently needs the public investment that has been steadily removed in recent times. It should be emphasised too that the amount of money that should be afforded to the arts is a drop in the ocean in Treasury terms. Cuts are a political decision. Public funding of the arts has consciously not been addressed in this report but business cannot do everything.

Finally, the third major threat to the creative industries is Brexit, as the noble Lord, Lord Vaizey, talked about. We have talked quite a bit in Parliament about music touring, but Brexit is affecting every part of the creative industries and we do not talk enough about that. I will give just one example: architecture. In a survey conducted this year, Dezeen found that 84% of the architecture studios surveyed

“would rejoin the EU if the option was available”,

with many citing

“higher construction costs, difficulties attracting European talent and additional administrative burdens”.

The founder of one Somerset-based studio that is now thinking of leaving the UK said:

“Brexit has been a catastrophe … The barriers are obvious but it is the cultural loss that is even greater. Architecture depends on cross-cultural exchange of ideas and benefits from free movement. It is staggering how diminished the UK scene has become post-Brexit”.


These are the challenges. The solutions are obvious—increasingly so in the case of Brexit—although it would take some political bravery to effect them. I hope that a Government do.