Arts

Lord Aberdare Excerpts

Thursday 1st February 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Aberdare (CB)]

My Lords, I am delighted to speak in this important debate, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Bragg—whose status as a national treasure I am delighted to endorse—reminding all of us, not least the Government, of the importance of the arts. I will focus on music and its contribution to society.

So many of the events that define us as a society have music at their heart. Hatches, matches and dispatches all feature music—we sang some splendid hymns at Lord Judge’s moving thanksgiving service last week. Music figures at national occasions, such as the Coronation, Trooping the Colour and Remembrance Sunday. Music festivals, whether pop, rock, jazz or classical, are important to many of us, as are eisteddfodau in Wales. We express our affiliations to our country, religion or football team in songs and anthems. Where would we be without our choirs, orchestras and ensembles, including the Parliament Choir, my own contribution to which may or may not qualify as artistic? We even learned this week that singing or playing music might help to ward off dementia.

Like the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, I agree with everything that has been said so far, and probably with everything that will be said. I will highlight two challenges facing music, both of which have already been mentioned.

Last week, I attended an event hosted by the Music Venue Trust, representing grass-roots music venues across the UK. I was shocked to learn that, as we have heard, the number of such venues shrank by more than one a week in 2023, with 42% of these closures resulting from financial problems. The trust does a great job of making music available locally through such venues, but much more help is needed, both nationally and locally. I hope that the Minister might consider what steps the Government could take to ensure a more sustainable ownership and business model for grass-roots music venues. Might he consider a ticket levy, with tickets for large-scale music events including a small contribution towards supporting grass-roots venues? There are other actions government might look at, such as reducing the burden of VAT or business rates on small venues.

As we have heard, issues around music education raise even greater concerns. The number of pupils taking music GCSEs and A-levels has been steadily declining. Art and creative subjects are excluded from the five EBacc subject groups, causing some schools to drop them altogether, particularly state schools, as we have heard. The Independent Society of Musicians highlights a teacher recruitment and retention crisis: targets for recruiting music teachers have been missed, and some schools may have to rely on non-specialist teachers or none at all. As the noble Lord, Lord Bragg, told us, the local music education hubs set up under the original national plan for music education have been consistently underfunded. They are currently preoccupied with a major reorganisation to reduce their number from almost 120 to 43—and will still be underfunded. How do the Government intend to assure that the excellent aims of the refreshed national plan—led by the noble Baroness, Lady Fleet, who cannot be with us today—will be met, for the benefit of children across the country? What will the Minister do to blow the trumpet for music education and sing the praises of all those who contribute to it, so that music’s absolutely vital contribution to our society is sustained into the future?

Without music education, the music could stop. So come on, Minister. We recognise his personal commitment, and he has an excellent and ambitious plan to work with—why not give it a bit more welly?

Arts and Creative Industries Strategy

Lord Aberdare Excerpts

Thursday 8th December 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Aberdare (CB)]

My Lords, this is a timely and important debate. I congratulate the noble Viscount on obtaining it and on his powerful opening speech. Like many others, I shall focus on music.

A government strategy for the music sector might have been less necessary in the past, but it is much needed now. In 2019, the industry contributed £5.8 billion of gross value added to the UK economy, with exports worth £2.9 billion and 197,000 jobs supported. Of course, that is without taking any account of the industry’s incalculable value to health, quality of life, and the UK’s global reputation and soft power. All this was achieved without a specific strategy; it was driven by the skills, talent and entrepreneurship within the industry. Music is one of the UK’s great strengths, with world-class talent and expertise not just among musicians and performers but in all the technical supporting roles needed to support them.

Since 2019, the sector has been hit by a perfect storm of challenges, arising from Brexit, Covid and, most recently, rising energy and living costs. These not only reduce the industry’s economic contribution but make it harder to attract audiences when people are seeking to reduce spending. Ticket sales at music venues are down 28% since 2019. So there is a real need for government to be clear about its role in enabling the industry to return to its world-leading position as

“a true engine of growth in the UK”,

in the words of the Secretary of State for DCMS, Michelle Donelan, last October, and in ensuring that the talents and skills which underpin its success are not lost.

That might avoid the kind of deeply unsatisfactory situation resulting from the recent Arts Council England proposed future funding allocations, which other noble Lords have mentioned. They remove all funding from the English National Opera and severely cut funds for other major, highly regarded and successful opera and music organisations, including the Welsh National Opera, the Glyndebourne touring opera and the Royal Opera House. These are all organisations with a national remit, providing top-quality music and opera to diverse audiences and in many cases touring to cities and regions that otherwise could not enjoy large-scale musical performance. This evening I shall go to a performance of Britten’s “Gloriana” at the ENO, the cast of which includes my godson, Charles Rice, in whose developing career the ENO has played a key part, as it has for so many other young artists. I am clearly far from alone in seeing the Arts Council allocations as the exact opposite of “levelling up”. The cuts seem arbitrary and lack any discernible consistency or direction—in other words, they lack a strategy.

One key element of a strategy should address the skills needed to maintain the value of the UK music sector. Many of these skills are in high demand from employers across numerous sectors, not just the arts. They include creativity, entrepreneurship, communication skills, teamwork and resilience. They are often termed “soft skills”, but they are far from soft for the businesses that need them.

Despite the Government’s good work in many aspects of education, the number of students taking formal music education has plummeted over the past decade, with declines of 31% in A-level music entries and of 17% for GCSEs. The alarming gap between independent and state schools is widening: 50% of privately educated children get sustained music tuition, but only 15% of state school pupils. It is surely time to rethink the focus on the EBacc and Progress 8 measures, which have had such a damaging impact on music education.

UK conservatoires are recognised world leaders. They play an essential role in maintaining the pipeline of talent and skills, and ensuring that they can continue to do so and attract top talent from abroad, both students and teachers, should be central to a strategy. The new national plan for music education is welcome, but the funding currently available will not be enough to implement its ambitions and there is insufficient emphasis on ensuring the availability of the music education workforce needed to deliver it—perhaps through restoring bursaries for training music teachers. Of course, one important way for young musicians to hone their skills and broaden their experience has traditionally been through touring and performing overseas, above all in Europe, so the sooner exchanges of this sort can be restored, the better.

I hope the Minister will say something about whether he expects public funding for the arts to remain at current levels. If not, there is surely a need for the Government to think about other ways of boosting funding, whether from fiscal incentives, as in other cultural sectors such as film and TV, as mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Foster, or by encouraging more individual giving. The Charities Aid Foundation’s latest UK Giving Report found that:

“Fewer people are giving—and those who do continue to give on a regular basis tend to be older.”


So there appears to be considerable scope for improvements in encouraging individual giving. What consideration are the Government giving to providing greater tax or other incentives for individuals to make donations to good causes, including the arts?

For all the reasons I have stated and more, an arts and creative sector strategy, including the music sector, is urgently needed to give clear guidance about the resources the Government expect to be able to commit to these sectors and their priorities in deciding how to allocate them. A proper strategy would play an important part in enabling the arts and cultural sector to rebuild the leading contribution to our economy and culture which it has shown it can deliver. It would also give the Arts Council a clear strategic framework in which to make decisions—the experience of the English National Opera and other bodies that have suffered arbitrary funding cuts shows just how not to go about this. I hope the Minister will confirm the Government’s intention to produce such a strategy with cross-departmental coverage, as demanded by the noble Lord, Lord Foster, and with a much shorter timescale than “in due course”.

Music Education

Lord Aberdare Excerpts

Wednesday 9th November 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Aberdare (CB)]

My Lords, I start by declaring my interest as chair of Berlioz 150, a charity developing classical music teaching resources for schools. I also congratulate my noble friend Lady Fleet—as I think of her—both on obtaining for a second time today’s debate, which she introduced so powerfully, and, above all, on her sterling work in chairing the distinguished expert advisory panel that oversaw the development of the plan itself.

I very much the welcome the new plan, which is ambitious, comprehensive, well targeted, much needed and long overdue. Above all, it acknowledges the real importance of music education and its value for all our schoolchildren, and I applaud its overall vision. The previous plan, published in 2011, was equally well intentioned but it has not delivered on all its high aspirations, so I will focus on three areas relating to whether, this time round, the plan will actually deliver what it sets out to do. My theme could be described as “deliver, deliver, deliver”, although I hope that it will have a greater prospect of success than that of the last person to use that catchphrase. I will mainly reinforce points already made—rather more powerfully than I can—by other noble Lords in this debate.

One element missing from the previous plan was an effective process of monitoring progress and outcomes. There was supposed to be a board or panel to oversee this but, if it was ever set up, it was disbanded before making any impact. So I hope the Minister can assure us that the proposed new national plan for music education board will play a more effective role. Will it be able to recommend changes where needed if parts of the plan are not working or some hubs are under- achieving? How will underperforming areas or schools be helped to improve? Above all, how will disadvantaged children and schools—which I know from our own experience are always particularly hard to reach—be engaged, as envisaged in the plan? Something that might have helped in that area was the promised arts pupil premium; is the intention that that be resuscitated? Not that it ever came to life, but there we are.

Why is the plan not statutory? As other noble Lords have asked, what role will Ofsted have in assessing implementation? Surely, no school without a strong music education programme consistent with the plan should be rated good or outstanding. As most noble Lords have mentioned, there is also the vital issue of funding, given the widespread concern that the money promised to the hubs will not be enough—even before inflation. There is also the requirement for the hubs to engage in a competitive bidding process, leading to fewer hub lead organisations. What impact will that have on hubs and their staff?

Making promises in the plan for which there is just not enough funding to deliver can only lead to more deplorable situations such as Arts Council England’s peremptory removal of funding from English National Opera, which, despite its past problems, has been doing a great deal of good work, much of it benefiting performers, schools and audiences outside London. The idea that a complex, century-old opera company can just be pulled up by the roots, replanted in Manchester and expected to thrive makes no sense. The Arts Council’s real intentions might have been clearer if it had just suggested sending it to Coventry. One of the other big losers in the Arts Council funding is of course Welsh National Opera, one of whose notable features is that it brings first-class opera to some seven cities in England that otherwise would be without.

Figures published in August by the Cultural Learning Alliance show that the number of music GCSE entries dropped by 27% between 2010 and 2022, and music A-level entries by 40%. It is hard to see how the national plan will succeed unless something is done to counter the damaging impact of current accountability measures, in particular the EBacc and Progress 8, on the amount of music education being delivered in schools and the number of children taking exams as a result. Tackling those things would represent real progress.

Another aspect less fully addressed by the plan relates to the music education workforce, including vitally important peripatetic music and singing teachers. Again, the plan will not deliver unless there are enough adequately paid, well-trained, enthusiastic and motivated teachers to provide the level of education and achievement to which it aspires. It is no answer to say that these issues are outside the remit of the plan. What is the point of a plan if it does not address how the resources needed to deliver it will be provided? How will the current national shortage of music teachers be resolved? What role is envisaged under the plan for non-specialist music teachers to help with its delivery and for them to be supported in doing that? There is clearly a strong feeling among music teachers themselves that they should have been more engaged and consulted in the process of developing the plan.

While I welcome the emphasis in the plan, and in the Model Music Curriculum that accompanies it, on including a broad range of music genres, it is important to ensure that all children have opportunities to experience and learn specifically about Western classical music, which is not only a central part of our own culture but requires a level of understanding and familiarity that takes time and focus to learn. I recently learned from Aurora, an orchestra which I greatly admire, about its new Magical Toy Box initiative, which provides an impressive range of music teaching resources for early years, key stage 1 and SEND students, with numerous activities and ideas for teachers to use. Will there be a mechanism for adding first-class classical music teaching resources such as these to the list of resources linked to the plan, and for helping schools access them?

Despite all the questions that I have raised about the plan’s delivery, it is a good plan, and I wholeheartedly wish it success. It has laudable goals and many good ideas on how to pursue them. One aspect that I particularly applaud is its focus on careers and progression: on ensuring that music education includes making young people aware of the broad range of career options available in the music world and of what skills they need to grasp such opportunities. The plan is commendable, and what matters now is its delivery—I am looking now at the noble Baroness. I welcome the Minister back to his place. I was delighted to see that it was his signature on the introduction to the plan and I hope that gives him a real incentive to reassure us about how delivery will be pursued. I also hope, of course, that the noble Baroness, Lady Fleet, will continue to be intimately engaged with making it happen through her role on the new board.

Creative Professionals: EU Tours

Lord Aberdare Excerpts

Monday 21st February 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

The noble Baroness is right to point to the importance of freelancers in these sectors. Through my discussions personally with representatives of the music industry, including classical music organisations and orchestras, we have discussed the challenges faced by freelancers and the support that many organisations were able to give them, thanks to what went to them from the Culture Recovery Fund. As I say, GOV.UK makes clear the rules for travelling to each member state. Our own approach is very welcoming: we want people from around the world to come to the UK and perform here. The information that the noble Baroness seeks is on GOV.UK, listed by individual country.

[Lord Aberdare (CB)]

My Lords, this is the time of year when major, high export-earning European tours are planned, featuring performers such as Ed Sheeran and Harry Styles, but the current rules, particularly relating to cabotage, make the transport and logistical arrangements for such tours impossible. What are the Government doing to address these issues, which are both urgent and specific to the creative performing sector, so that tours such as these can go ahead this year?

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

We do not believe that an EU-wide agreement would be feasible; instead, we are addressing each area in turn, including those mentioned by the noble Lord, working to provide clarity to the sector and implementing unilateral measures where relevant. For instance, on haulage, the Government are in the process of implementing dual registration to support specialist concert hauliers; and, on carnets, we have clarified that portable musical instruments, carried or in a vehicle, can be transported cost-free and should not require carnets.

Creative Sector

Lord Aberdare Excerpts

Thursday 4th November 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Aberdare (CB)]

My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Featherstone, has done well to obtain this debate and to introduce it so powerfully at a very timely moment to address the challenge of reviving the creative sector following the impact of Brexit and Covid. I welcome the noble Lord, Lord Spencer of Alresford, to the House. I was particularly struck by his commitment to CSR and his connections in Kenya, with its mountains whose name I am proud to share.

The Chancellor was recently cited as saying:

“For us, in the UK, the creative industries, arts culture is something we are genuinely world-class at.”


The creative sector makes a significant economic impact, is faster growing than most other sectors and calls for skills that are increasingly recognised as essential for business. That is without saying anything about its huge importance to our quality of life as individuals and our soft power. Its success has been based on a strong national ecosystem of talent, skills, experience, facilities, institutions and resources, built up over many years.

I will focus on music and the performing arts. They have been badly hit by Covid-19, as we have heard. I will not repeat the statistics mentioned by the noble Lords, Lord Clement-Jones and Lord Foster, and others. Many schools have cut back on their arts and music teaching, reinforcing an alarming drop in pupils taking music GCSEs and A-levels, especially in state schools.

Government has played an important role in helping the sector to stay just about above water. Its task now is to maintain and enhance the ecosystem on which the sector depends, while continuing to repair the damage done since 2019. Above all, it needs to ensure that the education pipeline of creative skills and talent is expanded, not disrupted or blocked, and that the sector receives the support and investment it needs to complete its recovery and return to growth. I have a fusillade—perhaps it is more like a scattershot—of questions for the Minister about some of the actions that I believe are needed, which I hope he will address either in his response or subsequently.

The Government have promised to

“publish a refreshed national plan for music education next year”,—[Official Report, 25/10/21; col. 516.]

which is welcome—particularly as the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, indicated during Oral Questions last week that it would “focus on disadvantaged children”. What more can the Minister tell us about how the Government have consulted about the plan and how they will seek to bridge the alarming and growing gap between the state and independent sectors in music and arts teaching? For example, will they ensure that funding for music education hubs is on a more secure and predictable basis, rather than putting them in a situation where they have to look at whether they can re-employ their staff on an annual cycle? How do the Government plan to ensure that the laudable aims of the plan are met, unlike those of its predecessor?

There seems to be a disconnect between performing arts education in schools and the work of awarding organisations, such as those accredited by the Council for Dance, Drama and Musical Theatre, offering graded examinations in the performing arts through their own networks of specialist teachers. More than 1.1 million such examinations were taken in the UK in 2019, as against 110,000 entries for GCSEs in dance, drama and music, and 17,500 for A-levels. Might the Minister look at how these two approaches could better reinforce each other and increase and maintain the sector’s access to teaching resources, perhaps by expanding the role of music education hubs to cover this?

How will he ensure that careers advice and guidance fully reflect the opportunities available in the creative sector? When will the Government finally get to grips with the damage done by the EBacc to music and arts teaching in schools? These are questions that other noble Lords have asked. What can he say about the promised arts premium for secondary schools, assuming that this is not another manifesto commitment that the Government plan to abandon?

More broadly, how will the Government ensure that the creative sector as a whole receives the focus, support and investment that its significance and potential deserve? What plans are there to scale up the creative cluster approach? Will the Minister look at updating research and development definitions to enable more R&D funding for the creative sector, as countries such as France, Germany, Italy and South Korea have done? We have fintech and edtech; we also need createch. Will he seek to increase the number of creative apprenticeships available and to provide targeted support for the small firms and freelancers so prevalent in the sector?

I could ask many more such questions—I have not even mentioned touring—but they all point to the need for a comprehensive, integrated policy and spending approach to the creative sector as a whole, joined up across all the government departments involved, to address the Government’s agenda so powerfully set out by the noble Baroness, Lady Featherstone, and to ensure a healthy and vibrant ecosystem within which creative individuals and businesses can have the freedom and opportunity to do what they do best: innovate, invent and create.

EU: Musicians

Lord Aberdare Excerpts

Thursday 28th January 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Aberdare (CB)]

My Lords, 76% of musicians in a recent survey by Encore Musicians said that Brexit restrictions would stop them performing again in Europe. In the light of this, and in the apparent absence of any movement through the open door, will the Minister say what specific help the Government might offer to musicians to help them cope with the new challenges that they face in order to tour in the EU, including administrative support with obtaining work permits, carnets and other requirements, and financial support to offset some of the extra costs involved?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

The noble Lord makes a serious point. In relation to the first part of his question, he will be aware that the arrangements are different in different countries. For example, the requirements to tour France are much more straightforward than some other countries. Obviously, musicians may choose to adjust to that. I cannot give him the detail of what will be proposed. What I can say is that the round table that the Secretary of State held with the industry on the 20th of this month was extremely constructive in tone in addressing all those points.

European Union: Visa-free Touring for Musicians

Lord Aberdare Excerpts

Tuesday 19th January 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My noble friend raises a very important point. There are two different issues here: on going back to the negotiating table, as I said to the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, our door is absolutely open but, in the short term, understanding the picture for students and how we can support them is part of our work—if there are specifics my noble friend would like to share with me, I will endeavour to make sure that fellow Ministers are briefed on them.

[Lord Aberdare (CB) [V]]

It has been disheartening to hear the UK and the EU blaming each other for the failure to reach agreement on this. Does the Minister agree that a more constructive approach would focus on how a deal could be fashioned on the basis of the positive ideas that each side has put forward? How soon might the Government initiate such a process and, rather than just having an open door, knock on the door of the EU to pursue it?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I am sure the noble Lord is right that mutual blame probably does not get us much further forward. However, as I said, in the meantime we are doing everything we can to try to simplify the procedures now in place and to understand the needs of the sector so it can continue to flourish and thrive.

Covid-19: Arts Sector

Lord Aberdare Excerpts

Tuesday 15th December 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

We would accept that some freelancers have either believed that they are not eligible for these schemes or are not eligible. But we have announced considerable funding, and £378 million was claimed by freelancers in the arts, entertainment and recreation sector under phases 1 and 2 of the scheme.

[Lord Aberdare (CB)]

With the Covid-19 rules changing almost on a weekly basis, many music and culture venues which took the Government at their word and tried to reopen in a socially distanced way between lockdowns have now found themselves having to refund tickets already sold because of a reduction in the audience numbers allowed, even before going into tier 3. What specific plans do the Government have to help venues in this position, for example in the form of an indemnity scheme so that they are able to insure against this kind of eventuality?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

The Government recognise the tremendous efforts that many venues have gone to and we have a venues steering group, which is working through a number of these issues. We are looking at options around insurance and indemnity and are very happy to have conversations with the Treasury about this, but we need evidence that that is the only barrier to reopening.

Arts, Culture and Heritage: Support Package

Lord Aberdare Excerpts

Wednesday 8th July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran]

My noble friend makes a most persuasive case for the pantomime. I absolutely agree that it brings value. We will be driven by safety considerations but will move as quickly as we can within those constraints.

[Lord Aberdare (CB) [V]]

My Lords, it is good to welcome a package that actually exceeds expectations, in scale if not timing, but there is still plenty more to do. How will the package help new entrants into the profession, particularly those who have just graduated from the conservatoires and music and art schools, who may be worried about their career prospects turning to dust?

[Baroness Barran]

Not only is it good to announce a package that exceeds expectations but it is very nice to respond to one as well. The noble Lord raises a critical point as regards new entrants. Obviously, the fabric of the grants that we give out will need to reflect not only the ecosystem of our arts and heritage and culture but its future, of which new entrants are a critical part.

EU: British Musicians

Lord Aberdare Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd June 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran]

My noble friend is right that the carnet can be expensive, particularly for individual musicians. That is why we are trying to negotiate a reciprocal deal, which may mean that there are new processes that musicians will have to comply with. But we hope that they will be practical and workable for them.

[Lord Aberdare (CB)]

My Lords, the London Symphony Orchestra is one of the world’s leading orchestras and a globally recognised UK brand, making a significant contribution to the UK’s soft power. No less than 45% of its income comes from international touring. Can the Minister tell us a little more about what specifically the Government are doing to set up mutual arrangements with overseas Governments, including in the EU, to allow a return to international touring for all UK orchestras as quickly and safely as possible?

[Baroness Barran]

The noble Lord is right that organisations such as the London Symphony Orchestra are crucial to our soft power. We are doing everything in these negotiations, and more broadly, to build the UK’s presence globally, with help from organisations such as the Creative Industries Council and others. In relation to the particular strains due to Covid he will be aware that we have announced a cultural renewal task force, which is already busily looking at all these issues.