Arts

Lord Berkeley of Knighton Excerpts

Thursday 1st February 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Berkeley of Knighton (CB)]

My Lords, we are indebted to the noble Lord, Lord Bragg, for securing this necessary debate. It is necessary because, notwithstanding the Minister’s undoubted love of the arts and the money secured during Covid, we find ourselves currently in the midst of a crisis—a crisis brought about largely by ill-considered decisions whose ramifications reach deep into the cultural fabric of our society. Should we make a special case for the arts? Yes, on so many levels, including the return that they bring to our economy, our well-being and our standing in the world.

Out of deference to the gifts of the noble Lord, Lord Bragg, let me start with literature. Books are provided, as they should be, for those detained at His Majesty’s pleasure. However, I am reliably informed that, in areas of deprivation such as Haringey, primary school libraries have bare shelves compared with our prisons. That is shocking. The Minister may say that this is a matter for the Department for Education, but I suggest that it falls well within the area of our debate today because, if young children do not have sufficient access to reading, what chance do they have of becoming literate and, ultimately, potential writers—an area where we are world leaders?

It is this failing at the most basic educational level that so worries me, be it in literature, music, art or drama. Yes, there has been some improvement in music in schools but, essentially, most state schools—as opposed to private ones—are miserably catered for, with hardly any peripatetic teaching and often a dearth of instruments. The DfE admits that there are recruitment problems in this area. Do local performances provide exposure and opportunity? Sadly not. As we have just heard, in 2023 in the UK more than one music venue a week closed permanently.

We know now that it is not just the very young for whom exposure to music is beneficial; research published this week shows how it benefits older people too. In fact, engaging in music throughout your life is associated with better brain health, according to a new study published by experts at the University of Exeter. Noble Lords advancing in age may like to know that the study found that, if you continue to play the piano into great old age, your brain will benefit enormously.

A few weeks ago—here I should mention my interests as listed in the register—I was working with the BBC Singers. I was amazed by their legendary ability to sight-read new scores. The fact that the axe was poised over their heads because of the cuts that the BBC has been forced to make by government was shocking, as were the ill thought-out and nonsensical Arts Council cuts to the London Sinfonietta, the Britten Sinfonia and the ENO. I concede that that there was mismanagement in the past but, in recent years, the ENO has fulfilled its outreach ambitions and the bringing in of a young audience. The fact that its music director, Martyn Brabbins, felt it necessary to resign over cuts to these musicians is a matter for which we should all feel shame.

Sheku Kanneh-Mason, on the other hand, is a young musician for whom we can all feel pride. But his family say that they would not have prospered under the current provision of music in schools. When Sheku dared gently to suggest that “Land of Hope and Glory” made him feel uncomfortable, he was subjected to racial abuse; when I supported him by recalling that Elgar himself hated the jingoism attached to a piece originally written purely for orchestra, I, too, received abusive comments. Here, at least, in our condemnation of that sort of behaviour and of racism, I suspect the Minister and I will be as one.

Classical Music

Lord Berkeley of Knighton Excerpts

Thursday 7th December 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

We are tripling funding for the Music Export Growth Scheme to more than £3 million over the next two years, which will enable more touring artists to break into new international markets. We are also expanding our Export Support Service to further help creative exporters, including touring musicians. We want our musicians to tour the world so that their work can be enjoyed overseas, just as it is here in the UK—including in Yorkshire.

[Lord Berkeley of Knighton (CB)]

May I ask the Minister to comment at a more grass-roots level? In the last few months, we have lost the Dartington summer festival, which is educational as well; we have lost Oxford Brookes University teaching music; and we have lost a lot of the Cheltenham Festivals’ work. I declare my interest as an ex-director of the Cheltenham international festival of music. I was there for 10 years and commissioned works—more than 100—as my successors continue to do. Not only are we losing this commissioning opportunity, which is so important for young composers, but local audiences in places that identify as being under-resourced in music are losing out.

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

On a recent visit to Devon, I had the opportunity to meet the new chief executive of Dartington Trust. The noble Lord is right to point to the brilliant work done by Cheltenham Festivals in his time and subsequently. Arts Council England has maintained its level of funding for Cheltenham Festivals at £217,000 per year, but I would be very happy to meet people from Cheltenham Festivals as well as others.

Creative Industries (Communications and Digital Committee Report)

Lord Berkeley of Knighton Excerpts

Friday 7th July 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Berkeley of Knighton (CB)]

My Lords, like others, I welcome this report. I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Stowell, and her colleagues on the many cogent and important points that they make. Likewise, but to a rather lesser degree, I welcome the Government’s response. It acknowledges some of the failings identified in the committee’s report but does not satisfactorily deal with some of the more profoundly serious problems facing the creativity of this country and its future, as identified in the report.

Being a report from the Communications and Digital Committee, there is naturally considerable stress on technology. But, in today’s world, everything is to a greater or lesser degree wrapped up in the hungry but enabling embrace of technology. I remember Brian Eno showing me, about 15 years ago, how he had managed to create sounds on video games that would change every time somebody put in an input. In other words, you would never get the same piece of music twice; every fresh input would create a new sound. This defies the imagination. That was 15 years ago, so that gives you an idea of the way technology is beginning to frame things and the skills we need to continue it.

Whether it be the electronic creation of film and pop music, journalism, computer-controlled lighting for dance and theatre, or the streaming of live concerts from Wigmore Hall, the Barbican or venues up and down the country, technology is at the heart of creative thinking and creativity. I welcome the fact that a lot of the money that goes into concerts, theatre and ballet now enables the wider public—the people whose taxes pay for it—to see these things. That is a huge step forward.

We have heard of the pre-eminent role that creativity plays, both financially and socially, in our lives. In this regard, it is held highly by the Government. At least, that is what they repeatedly tell us, but it does not always seem that the Government understand the sector’s problems. When they do—here I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Vaizey, that we must salute things that have been done well—we have welcome results, such as the extension of VAT relief for orchestras and theatres for another two years. I compliment my co-chair on the APPG for Classical Music, Barbara Keeley, for pursuing this successfully in the other place. I too acknowledge the support for much of the sector during the pandemic; we must not take that for granted. I do not overlook the plus side. Necessarily, though, to be of any constructive use, it is the downside to which we must address ourselves.

I do not apologise for repeating the committee’s ominous conclusion that the Government’s current policy towards the sector is “complacent” and “risks jeopardising” its commercial potential. The sector “scarcely featured” in the 2022 Autumn Statement and was not identified as one of the Government’s five priorities for growth. The report said the sector should

“sit at the heart of the UK’s future growth plans”.

I could not endorse that more.

The Government have rejected the committee’s suggestion that tax relief should be applied to those areas where innovation is born and developed. This is surely an error, since future success, and therefore economic prosperity, depends on innovation and new ideas. A lack of R&D is inimical to future development.

As a composer, I should declare an interest where intellectual property is concerned, but I would like to share the experiences of some of my colleagues. I think we all feel torn by the dilemma of, on the one hand, wishing to see music—this applies to other art forms and journalism as well—disseminated as widely as possible so that the greatest number of people can enjoy it, but against that is the problem that, if you can access intellectual property for free or for very little, the creators become disfranchised. It is not just the creators: as we heard from the noble Baroness, Lady Rebuck, publishers and record companies become disinclined to invest in music that is widely available.

I will give an example: if you have to realise a one million streams to earn just touching four figures, you will begin to see the problem. Furthermore, the illegal reproduction of sheet music only compounds the problem. I have a friend who has just released a song for a very worthwhile charity, but all it can really achieve is to draw attention to the cause, because the income stream, whatever the degree of success, will be negligible.

On the other hand, these are the norms in an ever-changing world that is now, to a degree, beyond our control. So, rather than complaining, we must take advantage of the many opportunities while safeguarding as far as possible current and future IP protection. On that note, the committee’s concerns over data mining, IP and AI seem extremely serious, and I am glad that the Government have decided to pause deliberations in this area for further reflection.

Having formed a cultural attachment to the University of East Anglia a few years ago, I, like the noble Baroness, Lady Rebuck, was dismayed to hear of the threat to the stunningly successful and highly regarded writing course. Thanks to the input principally of Malcolm Bradbury, among others, it has produced writers such as Angela Carter, Ian McEwan and Kazuo Ishiguro. However, I was not entirely surprised: a few years ago, the vice-chancellor wrote to congratulate me on receiving an honorary doctorate of music. Six months later, he wrote to say that the department of music, which was giving me the honorary doctorate, was closing. I just could not believe it. There are things that we have to protect; we cannot take for granted things such as the UEA writing course. The music has gone—let us not allow that writing course to go down too.

The University and College Union recently said that 31 of 36 cuts at UEA’s faculties would fall on the arts and humanities. I fear it was ever thus; that is why this report warns the Government that they must take care to protect creativity in this country and invest further in it. Whenever savings have to be made, it tends to be the arts and humanities that are the first to suffer. I understand why people are reluctant, for example, to look towards the NHS or education. It is always the arts and humanities which suffer, and we have to protect them. I would argue that they promote a more cohesive society as well as being a sound investment, as Treasury receipts demonstrate.

I was very interested when the noble Baroness, Lady Stowell, said that we sometimes do not serve our own cause well in the way that we talk about receipts and things like that, and that things should change. I would welcome hearing from her the ways in which we could improve that dialogue. After all, whether you are a composer, a writer or a Peer in the House of Lords, we are here not just to scrutinise but to learn. So, if there are things we could do better, I would be interested to hear about them.

The downgrading of our skills development goes back to the loss of arts in state schools, which means, for instance, that instrument tuition and provision has become the preserve of the affluent. The noble Lord, Lord Vaizey, is right in saying that the individual headmaster can make a huge difference, but if there are no peripatetic teachers or instruments, even an enlightened head is going to be up against it. This was a point that the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, reiterated when I asked her about how we are going to find more skilled teachers for music in schools. She conceded, as I think the Minister has, that there is a real problem here. It is something the Government need to address.

If it is only the affluent pupils learning the violin, the clarinet or the guitar, what does that say about levelling up? I know, like others, that the Minister is deeply committed to music, and I apologise for repeating ad nauseam my concerns in this area. However, the fact is that exposure to music and the arts at an early age is, to my mind, the overriding issue in the creative health of our nation. After all, these are the artists and the teachers of the future. As we have just heard, the decline in the number of students taking arts in schools is therefore desperately worrying. Goal two of the Government’s Creative Industries Sector Vision aims to:

“Build a highly-skilled, productive and inclusive workforce for the future, supporting million more jobs across the UK”.


How do the Government reconcile that aspiration with the lack of arts opportunities in state schools, which is where it starts?

Let us suppose that despite these difficulties you make it as, for example, a performing musician. The lack of royalties from the dissemination of your ideas, which I have already mentioned, will mean that you or your group, be it pop or classical, will need to tour to make ends meet. Here, as the noble Lord, Lord Vaizey, mentioned, you will encounter further obstacles in terms of the time and money required for visas in Europe and the lunatic rules of cabotage that will affect the transport of your instruments and staging, even if you yourself manage to get there.

I think the Government need, as many people have said, to think as though they are an orchestra. You have the brass there, the strings here—you have education here and you have business here—and they need to join up to make a synchronous sound. I know the Prime Minister is looking at the desperate pleas of the science community in relation to the Horizon program. I think we should link these endeavours in the light of the progress made with the Windsor Framework. Even committed Brexiteers acknowledge that there is much to sort out in order to create a better exchange of scientific and artistic ideas. That exchange—that curiosity—is the daily bread of progress, whether it be in the arts or business. The secret to writing a great book, or composing a piece of music or a dance, is the ability to refine, to hone, to improve and to admit that something is not quite right. That is what we need to do in relation to our cultural life and its relation to our nearest neighbours.

Finally, despite all the problems that the creative industries face, we will go on creating and performing. That is the nature of the creative imperative, but it is not something we should take for granted or take advantage of. There is so much, as the Minister will doubtless acknowledge, to build on. I hope that he and his colleagues will hear the concerns outlined in this excellent report because, I assure him, they reflect wide concern and fears on what you might call the shop floor of our creative industries. They are full of ideas, but they really are struggling.

Arts and Creative Industries: Freelancers and Self-employed Workers

Lord Berkeley of Knighton Excerpts

Thursday 15th June 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Berkeley of Knighton (CB)]

My Lords, I must declare my interest as a freelance composer and broadcaster. Freelancers are, as we have heard from my noble friend Lord Clancarty, the backbone of the UK’s art forms in the cultural industries, which raise £109 billion. Without them, film and television production would quite simply collapse so, as I think the Government recognise, we must nurture them. I welcome the new paper that the Government have come up with. Yet Covid, Brexit’s effect on EU touring, particularly in cabotage, and the drawing in of the economy have meant a terrible lack of security for this sector. Despite the Chancellor’s generous help during the pandemic, many freelancers fell through the net, especially the disabled. Could the Minister and his colleagues look at this in case, God forbid, there is a repetition of the pandemic so that we are in a better place should that happen?

In doing so, the Minister will doubtless talk to his esteemed colleague, the noble Baroness, Lady Barran. On Monday, she said in reply to me that there is a problem in getting recruits for training musicians and for teaching. This impacts on schools because it is where the next generation will come from—the next players in our orchestra and the next teachers in our schools. We need to make sure that we nurture them. After all, if we cannot, we will be encouraging migration, because we will have to import teachers and musicians for our orchestras from abroad. That surely runs counter to the Government’s policy.

BBC: Appointment and Resignation of Chair

Lord Berkeley of Knighton Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd May 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

The process for appointing the chair of the BBC is set out in the BBC’s royal charter. It requires an appointment to be made by Order in Council following a fair and open competition. By convention, the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport recommends the appointment to the Lord President of the Council, and the Prime Minister recommends the appointment to His Majesty the King. It is important that the process be followed and that all public appointments be set out and conducted in accordance with the Government’s code.

[Lord Berkeley of Knighton (CB)]

My Lords, I declare my interest as a freelance broadcaster for the BBC. Does the Minister agree that there is a parallel here with your Lordships’ House? For example, we read endless headlines about prime ministerial appointments to the House but very little about the hours and hours of scrutiny that go into legislation. So it is with the BBC, but this has very little to do with the workforce, who produce programmes day in, day out. It has more to do, as we heard from the noble Lord, Lord Birt, with the selection and appointment process.

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

I agree with the noble Lord. Indeed, Mr. Sharp pointed in his own resignation statement and letters to his regret at the distraction this has caused to the corporation. We are very lucky indeed to have the BBC in this country, producing the world-class television and radio content I mentioned in my first response.

BBC: Future Funding (Communications and Digital Committee Report)

Lord Berkeley of Knighton Excerpts

Friday 16th December 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Berkeley of Knighton (CB)]

My Lords, I must declare an interest, having suddenly realised on the way here that I have been broadcasting on the BBC since the early 1970s. I say this with some embarrassment, as well as pride. I am not approaching Sir David Attenborough yet, but the word veteran seems to focus.

Mentioning Sir David Attenborough leads me to say that he is a great advocate of the innovative, the educational and the entertaining. When he was controller of BBC2, he was insistent on those qualities and on the commissioning of new work. We should listen to people like him. How fortunate we are that we still look at and listen to Sir David Attenborough, because he presents us with the kinds of things that the BBC initiated, such as programmes on nature, which have had such an extraordinary effect.

I am really thrilled that the report has come out. I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Stowell, and her Select Committee. As my noble friend Lord Hall mentioned, it offers precisely the kind of scrutiny we must give that vital subject—the kind of scrutiny we completely failed to give the Arts Council cuts we debated yesterday—because so much is at stake. There is an analogy here. The things at stake for the BBC are exactly the same as those we might have discussed, given the opportunity, about the Arts Council cuts; namely, the preservation of the commissioning of new work and of certain qualities and people who are doing work which is perhaps not universally popular initially but still terribly important.

I speak as a composer who has been commissioned by the BBC, for which I am very grateful, but my comments apply to an enormous number of other people, given the amount of music being commissioned. Just recently, the BBC has done quite a sterling job—perhaps travelling a mile to achieve an inch—in patronising women artists, women composers and people from different ethnic backgrounds; it is all there to be seen in the wonderful festival that is the Proms. When I ran the Cheltenham Music Festival, I was always able to ring up a producer at Radio 3 and say, “We want to put on a concert with works by Elliott Carter and Sir Harrison Birtwistle. To get the artists who can do that work from abroad, it would help enormously if I were able to say that Radio 3 would be interested in broadcasting it.” They would often reply, “That sounds like a fabulous programme; yes, we would like to take it.” That is the way in which the BBC and the creative industries can hold hands to make things happen.

Technology has been mentioned. In many ways, noble Lords would be surprised to hear that the BBC is still using some technology which is about 50 years old. When we do outside broadcasts, we use a handheld mic that football commentators have been using for years. That led me to a very awkward situation. When I was introducing a new piece by John Tavener at the Roundhouse in Chalk Farm—another progressive series that the BBC put on—and telling the audience that it was all about the immaculate conception and the blessed Virgin Mary, I suddenly heard dialogue in my headphones: “Is that you, Bert?” “Yeah, how are you, Fred?” “Well, the wife’s up the spout again.” I suddenly thought: is my discussion about the immaculate conception being broadcast with a conversation between two taxi drivers going on in the background? Of course, the technology was such that I could not stop to ask the outside broadcast van whether they were picking up that conversation like I was. I had to soldier on about the blessed Virgin Mary and the immaculate conception while those two taxi drivers discussed a definitely maculate conception.

I will now discuss the World Service, as, in the past, I travelled in Czechoslovakia while the Russians occupied it and in Russia itself. The Ukraine situation focuses our minds on that subject. I do not think that the man in the street here realises how colossal the soft power of the World Service is or how vital it is to people who are living in a world of oppression and extreme violence to hear what else is going on in the world. As my noble friend Lord Hall said, the bedrock of democracy is news. To be able to share news with the rest of the world is so important. I know that the Government appreciate that soft power and realise that the World Service is important, but we could do more to make our own population realise what they are paying for, because it is such a valuable thing for those who are living under persecution. That is another element that I would very much like to see preserved.

One of the important things about the report is that it does not pull its punches; it is right about many things. When I was on the BBC General Advisory Council—a rather thankless task, in some ways, because the BBC was simply not interested in criticism—I always felt that people were giving lip service by saying, “Oh yes, thank you. Well, we can tick that box; you’ve been here with three bishops, four ex-cons and whoever else, so we have done our job of consultation.” I felt that it did not mean anything. So the BBC must open up in that way and become more open to criticism.

Overall, the report is a launching pad for looking at how to fund the BBC in future. There is no easy way to do that—there is no obvious solution—but we have heard some suggestions which make eminent sense, so I commend the report and congratulate the people who put it together.

Arts Council England: Regional Distribution of Funding

Lord Berkeley of Knighton Excerpts

Thursday 15th December 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Berkeley of Knighton (CB)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Mendoza—although, listening to him, I imagine many organisations feel, “Why are we worrying? Why are we upset by what has happened?” I hope to point out exactly why that might be.

I want to start by looking at this problem from the Government’s point of view. I am a fan of levelling up. I agree that we need to get more funds around the country, and the noble Lord, Lord Storey, pointed out exactly the kind of things. In fact, from my experience as a composer—having worked with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, Opera North and festivals such as Aldeburgh, Bath and Presteigne—I realise what this brings to local communities. They always especially say, “I can’t get to London”, so it means even more to them. I can also see, from the Government’s point of view, how difficult it is to recut the cake and redistribute the money at this sort of level. I think the Arts Council made some serious errors; I will come to that in a moment, but I hope in a constructive way.

The background of Covid and Brexit, as mentioned in the debate last week that both noble Lords referenced, is a telling factor. A lot of these companies were on very tricky ground before the cuts were announced, so you have to add to that what this will mean. On the shop floor, I am hearing from organisations, orchestras, theatre companies and dance companies that—despite the reassurance given last week by the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson, that work is being done to assist touring—they are very nervous about the prospect of affording touring because of the incredible complications and expense of sorting out visas.

I again ask the Minister a question that he must be bored with hearing me ask, so I apologise. Given that the noble Lord, Lord Frost, who represented the Government in these negotiations, has admitted that the Government got this wrong, why will they not put it right? Nobody is saying we are going to cancel Brexit—I realise that is not a possibility—but fine-tuning must be possible. I get the sense that there are people in Downing Street who would like that, but I dare say they are up against those who will not give an inch as far as Brexit is concerned. That is something the entire creative industry would love to see, and I do not think it too big an ask.

In some senses, in order to rob Peter to pay Paul, we have robbed them both. On many occasions in this House, I have commended the help that Rishi Sunak gave the creative industries, and I reiterate how grateful we were for that. But it seems crazy that the future of some of those big organisations, which received large amounts of money, is now in doubt because we are going to take such large amounts back. That surely has to be looked at.

On touring, I was on the Arts Council committee that identified areas of the country that were underprovided for in terms of opera. We came up with a list. The problem is that these cuts undo some of the very work that the Arts Council did. Glyndebourne Touring and the Welsh National Opera go to the places we identified. There has to be a continued line of thinking here.

I come to one or two of the other groups that have suffered. Here is an example of what we might do: why did the Arts Council not talk to the ENO, without uprooting it to Manchester? Anybody who has worked in an opera house—I was on the board of the Royal Opera House and have written three operas—will tell you that you cannot uproot an opera company and put it somewhere else, especially when something like Opera North is already there.

I was on the board of the Royal Opera House when it shut down for refurbishment and it was seriously suggested that we should shut the Royal Ballet for two years. Luckily, I was able to get in touch with one or two funders, such as Lord Sainsbury and Vivien Duffield. When I told them that this was being planned, they rang up and said, “You can say goodbye to all our funding”, because anybody who knows anything about art knows you cannot just stop training. Like an Olympic athlete or the England football team, you have to train all year round. What about all those young dancers coming through? That idea was scotched very soon.

May I draw a medical analogy? While I completely agree that we need funds around the country, there are specialist groups which earn their money. Take the London Sinfonietta, which has lost 41% of its grant. You could say that the work it commissions is niche or the high end of contemporary music, but this is the one company doing it. In my mind, this is not unlike how, in London, we need one or two centres of excellence, because you cannot have that excellence around the country. Think of neurosurgery, for example; many cases will be referred to the hospital in Queen Square, which is so good at it. A child with a terrible paediatric problem will be referred to Great Ormond Street. There is nothing against having one or two centres of excellence that specialise, such as the London Sinfonietta.

Many companies, such as the Britten Sinfonia, cannot understand why they have been cut, given that they have made huge efforts to do what the Arts Council said it wanted. Britten Sinfonia has involved 8,000 children in the east of England and commissioned more than 250 works. It travels to Addenbrooke’s to play music to patients, and it travels to His Majesty’s Prison Whitemoor. What more do you want? That is going out of London, making a base in Cambridge and involving the local community.

We really have to be careful—rather as with our debate tomorrow about the BBC licence fee—that we do not throw the baby out with the bath-water. This is what I fear about one or two aspects of this. I would like to quote my fellow Cross-Bench Peer, my noble friend Lady Bull, because she made a very telling point about the Arts Council redistribution in the debate last week. She said:

“My view is that this rethinking should not have been demanded within the short timeframe of a single funding round. In doing so, the February directive from the then Culture Secretary gnawed at the fingers of the arm’s-length principle. Planning for such a fundamental shift requires a much longer horizon if it is to avoid destabilisation, particularly within a sector still recovering from the pandemic, and if it is to lead to sustainable and positive change that delivers for all communities across all parts of the UK.”—[Official Report, 8/12/22; cols.286-87.]


So, yes, let us level up, but with rather more caution than has been shown so far, and more planning and more dialogue with the people concerned.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Clement-Jones (LD)]

That is because I have not received it, but I look forward to reading my text.

The noble Lord, Lord Vaizey, paid tribute to Darren Henley, as do I, but he did not say that he now pays tribute; he paid tribute to Darren Henley in the past. This has been a bungled funding round with what I fear will be very adverse consequences for the UK’s creative community. I liked the phrase from the noble Baroness, Lady Fox: forced through at speed.

Last week, the Minister talked about cherishing the arm’s-length relationship, but there is very little evidence of that. Arts Council England is clearly having to work to the Government’s strategy and timing, as Darren Henley said in his evidence to the Communications and Digital Committee, and as was referred to by the noble Earl, Lord Clancarty, and the noble Lord, Lord Freyberg:

“We were asked by the Government to move some money out of London”—


it sounds almost illicit, does it not?—

“£16 million in year 1 and £24 million by the end of year 3.”

[Lord Berkeley of Knighton (CB)]

I am so sorry to interrupt the noble Lord as he is in full swing, but I think the phrase was that they were “instructed”. That is very important when we are talking about the arm’s-length principle.

[Lord Clement-Jones (LD)]

We may have to correct the record because I looked at the transcript and it did not say “instructed”. I am willing to look again at that, and I am sure the Minister will have a quick google and see whether or not that is the case.

Sir Peter Bazalgette, the former chair, makes the same point in his November letter to the FT:

“Ace had been gradually moving resources outside London for some time. In my time as chair we shifted both grant-in-aid and lottery funding by 10 per cent, without suddenly cutting off major institutions.”


He goes on to make exactly the same point about the fact that this really was an instruction from Nadine Dorries to make a larger and sudden distribution. What kind of independence is that? Many noble Lords have made that point.

I am afraid the only conclusion is that the Minister has to accept that he and his colleagues are presiding over the settlement and should take full responsibility for this very crude and destructive form of levelling up, rather than hiding behind the Arts Council.

Music Education

Lord Berkeley of Knighton Excerpts

Wednesday 9th November 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Berkeley of Knighton (CB)]

My Lords, I should mention my interests as listed in the register as a composer, broadcaster and trustee of various musical organisations, including festivals.

I commend both the previous speakers and agree with most of the sentiments we have heard. I very much congratulate the Government and the noble Baroness, Lady Fleet, on the attention that we are now focusing on music and music education. This is surely one of the most important aspects of childhood, the future of our country, and its musical and musical economic stability. What is at stake here is to do with our heritage and out future musical and musical economic prosperity, and the extraordinary social dividend, as we have already heard, that music can bring to the young: the ability to articulate emotions, often violent ones, through the outlet of music. This therefore leads to social cohesion.

As I am sure the Minister knows, and as many noble Lords have already mentioned, many regret that music is not part of the curriculum of the mainstream assessment process—the baccalaureate—and that therefore the serious, continued and ongoing study of music has been somewhat sidetracked in favour of other subjects. I still hope and pray that this might change.

Exposure to music at a young age has meant that many artists, be they classical, jazz or pop, have taken their first steps towards careers that have hugely enhanced the reputation of this country and its economy. They took those steps at a very young age thanks to the music that was provided, as the Kanneh-Mason family have said. They have also said that they are worried that the opportunities that they had which allowed them to develop their careers no longer exist. I completely agree with the noble Baroness that we have to do more, and that is a prime example.

Music, as one of the arts that brings in a great deal of money to the Treasury, has suffered a great deal over the last few years. I apologise for being more contentious than the previous speakers, but we must think of not only the education but the aspirations of children. What are they going to do if they become musicians? With the Arts Council dissemination of funds as it currently stands, we are beginning to lose the opportunity for these companies to go into underprivileged areas, introducing children to music and works that they had not previously encountered. I have looked at this carefully in the last 48 hours and have noticed remarks such as those from Sir Nicholas Kenyon in the Telegraph—not the Guardian—pointing to the companies that are really suffering, such as the WNO, Glyndebourne Touring and the ENO. This is interesting; is there a hidden message in them all being opera companies? These companies, strangely, are those which have delivered the Government’s desires. They have increased accessibility and taken music and composition into schools. It is extraordinary that they have been semi-castrated at this stage. Is there really a possibility of having another opera company in Manchester? In which case, what about Opera North?

I would be the first to admit that the ENO has been badly managed in previous years. I say that as somebody who was an adviser to one of its appointments. But things are looking up because it has embraced outreach and the kind of work that the Royal Opera House cannot do. It is good to have these two arms—one doing top-flight performances of top-flight works, and the other exploring the byways that are left untrodden. With these cuts, we are in great danger of throwing the baby out with the bath-water.

Take an organisation such as the Britten Sinfonia, which is based not in London but in Cambridge. It concentrates on commissioning new work. If one were looking at theatre, one could say that about Donmar, and one could find other organisations that encourage new work. New work is the lifeblood of music and of any art form. It is dead without it. The vibrancy of music and of theatre depends on new writing.

That brings me on to another subject, composition, which is slightly underplayed in this plan. It quite rightly talks about mentors and visiting musicians, but composition tends to be slightly lower down the scale than the performing side of music. This is a bit like saying that you are going to teach children art but not encourage them to paint or draw. It is as simple as that: we need composition to be taught, as much as we need people to paint and draw. When I talked to David Hockney on my programme “Private Passions”, he said, “Before you get on to oils, before you break the rules, you have to know them”. The way to do that in art is to draw before you paint. The way to do that in music is to write, to create pieces. We have heard examples of that and how it enlivens people’s lives. I have now departed so far from what I was going to say by extemporising—which is a form of creation in a way—that I have slightly lost the plot of this and where I was going.

My basic premise is that we need to do more. I want to mention some of those things which I think affect prospects. Touring in Europe is one of them. I wrote to Rishi Sunak before he became leader and said that since the noble Lord, Lord Frost, has admitted—that is really important—that the Government got these negotiations wrong when it comes to touring in Europe, would they do something to put it right? I got a very sympathetic response from Rishi Sunak. He was not then Prime Minister, but I say to the Minister, given his enthusiasm and infinite wisdom, that he might care to pass this back to No. 10 Downing Street as something which should be looked at. It is one of the aspects of the all-around musical world we live in that at the moment has had a severe blow dealt to it by musicians not being able to tour. When I talk to committed Brexiteers about this problem and the admission by the noble Lord, Lord Frost, and ask them whether there is a remedy they can think of, I am greeted with a prolonged and rather embarrassed silence.

I am not going to stand here and say we must row back and join the EU tomorrow—I know that is not going to happen—but it is perfectly reasonable to say to a new Administration, “How about looking at the real problems and sorting some of them?” That is what we must do. I enormously welcome the noble Baroness. Everything she said is right. Music is something that I think all of us in this Chamber today really love. It informs our lives. We should give this great privilege of music to the next generation and try to encourage people to be able to share it.

I just want to say one last thing about instruments, because peripatetic teachers and instruments are very important. I recently gave a saxophone to a young player whom I found, and I was astonished to hear the progress they made on it. It was somebody who could not afford the instrument, so I rootled around in my cupboard to see whether I could find another creature lurking there. Lo and behold, I found a violin that I had given to my daughter many years ago. I took it out, gave it to a friend who is a very good violinist and asked whether it would be any good for students or children. He said it was actually quite a good instrument, but it needed about £1,000 spending on it. I cannot bear the thought of this poor creature lurking there for the rest of eternity unplayed or the thought of children who might benefit from it, so I talked to the noble Baroness, Lady Fleet, about it, and I am going to do it up so that I can lend it or give it to one of those organisations. We had an amnesty on giving knives in. Let us have an amnesty on instruments that are lurking in corridors and cupboards and encourage people to reuse them and perhaps to provide the funds to refurbish them, because there is another thing that the experts have pointed out: that what matters is not just the instruments but maintenance and peripatetic teachers to teach the children, as has already been referred to.

This is a great step forward. I endorse much of it. There are things that I worry about enormously, and I have just touched on them. I welcome the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson, back as a Minister and I feel very confident that he will support us as much as he can.

National Heritage Act 1983

Lord Berkeley of Knighton Excerpts

Thursday 13th October 2022 Grand Committee

[Lord Berkeley of Knighton (CB)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson. I think he has aged rather better than the Act.

This is a timely and important debate. This very week, a team from Cambodia is here visiting the British Museum and other collections to try to retrieve and get returned artefacts looted from their country during and after the Vietnam War. These objects—statues and monuments—are works not only of aesthetic value but of a huge spiritual, religious and personal significance that we can only try to imagine. Members of the team include the Cambodian Cultural Minister, the Cambodian ambassador and the distinguished stonemason and restorer Simon Warrack, who has worked on the rose window at Canterbury Cathedral, the Trevi Fountain in Rome and the monument at Angkor Wat. He explained to me that, as Tristram Hunt has pointed out, they can convince museums of the moral imperative for returning items but very often then be stymied by the 1983 Act.

As we have heard, at the heart of these deliberations lie profound philosophical and moral dilemmas. Should time be a consideration in these deliberations? Is there a difference between items taken in living memory from Cambodia or, for example, the Elgin marbles, brought to this country in the early part of the 19th century? I want to diverge a bit here just to colour this aspect of human involvement and influence. The descendants of Admiral Byng, outrageously tried and executed for a decision that was ludicrously described as cowardice, have long campaigned to get him exonerated. I tried to help them and discuss the case with our colleague, the noble Lord, Lord West. He was very sympathetic and declared Byng’s trial and execution a travesty of justice, but felt that the passage of time made it more difficult. This is relevant because, as with the Cambodians, that answer does nothing to help the feelings, the deep hurt, of Byng’s family descendants—and who in this Room would not want to clear the name of their ancestor?

I address this last point to the Minister. I suggest that if the Government believe that the chair and trustees of the V&A, for example, are responsible enough to be appointed, then surely they should be considered responsible enough to make decisions on the return of objects unfettered by the National Heritage Act 1983.

Channel 4: Annual Report

Lord Berkeley of Knighton Excerpts

Thursday 21st July 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

It is not about this year’s results; it is about securing the long-term sustainability of Channel 4. Channel 4 is particularly dependent on advertising revenue. Fewer people are watching live advertising. The cost of independent production is rising because of the entry into the market of global streaming giants, so we want to make sure that, in the decades to come, Channel 4 is able to raise the capital to continue doing what it is doing so successfully now.

[Lord Berkeley of Knighton (CB)]

My Lords, is the Minister at all concerned that privatisation might mean that artistic innovation is sacrificed? Very often, that is where money can be lost, simply in terms of views, as the Minister has just outlined. Therefore, that is the first thing that tends to go.

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

No, I am not. According to PACT, only 7% of the total independent production sector revenue came from Channel 4 commissions. Channel 4 spends less on commissioning than ITV, which is of course privately owned. We think the things that Channel 4 does are what make it so successful. We are convinced that any future owner would want to continue to build on those things.