Performing Arts

Lord Berkeley of Knighton Excerpts

Thursday 30th March 2023 Grand Committee

[Lord Berkeley of Knighton (CB)]

My Lords, I cannot demur from anything I have heard thus far. I thank the noble Baroness for instigating this debate. I declare my interests as a composer, a broadcaster and—the right reverend Prelate will be pleased to hear—an ex-chorister at Westminster Cathedral.

Drawing on my broadcasting experience, at least 50% of the people who come through my door, as it were, to be interviewed were turned on to music by an inspired teacher at school. A lot of young people go on to be choral scholars, for example, or to play in pop groups, which brings in incredible revenue.

When we have mentioned our concerns about the lack of music in schools, the Minister has always in the past quite rightly talked about the hubs. I accept that they have done a great job but, if they are going to be cut, our concerns will increase still further. Musicians at the moment are beginning to feel as though they are at the wrong end of a coconut shy: so many things have hit us. I understand that, in order to level up, as the noble Baroness and I would like, it is terribly important that we take the arts to underprovided areas. People will have to suffer; there will have to be cuts. It is true with the BBC as well, but the problem is that the arts are somehow always the first port of call for people wanting to make cuts.

With great respect to the right reverend Prelate, I will say one thing about money. It is important that we get into context that we are not asking for charity. Of that £11.5 billion that has been mentioned often, the Government’s stake, as an investment, was 4%—my very kind accountant worked this out for me this morning—and, even with the National Lottery money, it becomes 6%. So investment in the arts is very profitable for this country, which is why I worry about the future of music, if young people will not be there to people our choirs and orchestras and to become teachers.

The noble Baroness mentioned an important point: in schools, you now tend to get peripatetic teaching for an instrument, or music classes, if you are well off. If you are not, you will probably not get anything. I subscribe to various charities, such as the London Music Fund and Future Talent—I have even provided instruments—and one realises what a difference it makes. I remember going into Wormwood Scrubs prison and places like that, as a member of the Koestler Trust—I mentioned this in my maiden speech in 2013. I managed to get a guitar for a prisoner, who wrote to me afterwards and said, “You’ve no idea how this transformed my life. To be honest, if I’d had this means of expression when I was 19, I don’t think I would now be serving life for murder”. I realise that that is a rather dramatic point, but it is important if you broaden it, because there is a social dividend. It is not just about money, as the right reverend Prelate mentioned, although obviously that is important; it is about having a more cohesive society. The arts bring us together and make us listen to each other. If we are singing in a choir or playing an instrument, we have to listen, which is one of the first ways of getting young people to behave well and understand the nature of listening and giving.

I will say a little about why we are all so worried about certain groups such as the BBC Singers and the ENO—Sir James MacMillan has written about this. Nowadays, we do not think that the visual arts—Francis Bacon, Jackson Pollock and Mark Rothko, for example—are terribly difficult to process; we all love them. Millions of people go to Tate Modern. New music is more difficult: as it moved away from tonality—although it has moved back in many ways—a lot of people felt totally out of touch, which is why you need expert groups such as the BBC Singers, the BBC Symphony Orchestra, the London Sinfonietta and the Britten Sinfonia, because they are the adventurers that are pushing the way forward.

I will make two points, which are more about asking the Minister to pass this on to his colleagues. First, in order to take the arts wider, somewhere like Reading Gaol is a wonderful example of a place that could be used as an arts centre. People have marched locally. This was Oscar Wilde’s great triumph in adversity, which he overcame by writing the wonderful “Ballad of Reading Gaol”. The area around there cannot be developed, for lots of architectural reasons. So that is a question for the Ministry of Justice.

Secondly, cabotage means that, if people have the visas, which are beginning to come through, they can arrive at a third location and have no instruments to play. I wrote to the office of the noble Lord, Lord Ahmad, about this and I was promised a written reply that I have not received yet. If the Minister could chase that up, I would be very grateful.