Budget: Arts, Heritage and Cultural Organisations
Debate between Earl of Clancarty and Baroness Fleet
Baroness Fleet (Con)
My Lords, I too thank my noble friend Lady Sater for securing this important debate. I declare my interests as listed in the register.
Arts organisations were so full of hope when Labour came to power and there is now just profound disappointment and disbelief. As the esteemed critic Richard Morrison said:
“So much for Labour’s arts-friendly Budget”.
Theatres, orchestras and museums worked so hard to emerge from the dark days of Covid and, thanks to the previous Government’s £2 billion culture recovery fund, distributed by the Arts Council, most were on their feet again with ambitious ideas and programmes. They desperately want to contribute to economic recovery and growth. They are now reeling, with the minimum wage up and employer national insurance up. This is a tax on jobs, work and growth. It is a tax on talent, creativity and ambition.
In the music world, where I have a particular interest as co-founder and chair of the London Music Fund, providing scholarships for pupils from low-income backgrounds, organisations—music charities, music venues, music colleges, conservatoires, opera companies and music hubs, too, which are central to the delivery of music in schools—will be clobbered. At least the national plan for music education, which I chaired for the previous Conservative Government, was embedded in the nick of time, with funded streamlined music hubs, plus £25 million for musical instruments and a £5 million pot for music progression.
The noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, referred to the schools in the Government’s music and dance scheme. I hear different things from what he has heard: incredibly, I am told that they will be affected by the VAT on school fees. That would have a profound effect on the future viability of MDS schools. At the Yehudi Menuhin School, where I was a governor, for example, over 75% of its exceptionally talented pupils receive MDS funding or school bursaries. How can parents with an income of £45,000 or even £60,000 find up to £10,000 a year for VAT? If the school absorbs the costs, it will run out of funds within a few years.
This pernicious tax is a tax on just those young people who we want and need in orchestras and the music industry—young people from diverse backgrounds who have been selected for their talent and potential, not on their ability to pay. They are the sons and daughters of teachers, truck drivers, care workers and refugees. Why should they be punished? I look forward to an update.
As my noble friend said, DCMS real-terms funding for day-to-day spending next year will go down. No doubt the Minister will enlighten us on how this will affect many of the arts institutions. Four months after the election, with all its broken promises and massive tax increases, is the Minister aware that many of our cherished arts organisations, right across this country, are now in peril?
The Earl of Clancarty (CB)
The noble Baroness, Lady Fleet, has just mentioned the specialist schools. Like the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, I have heard something that was completely the opposite. I wonder whether the Minister could clarify the latest situation on that.