Arts and Creative Industries Strategy

Lord Londesborough Excerpts

Thursday 8th December 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Londesborough (CB)]

My Lords, I too thank the noble Viscount for securing this debate at such a critical time for the arts and creative industries in the UK, as we head into a recession, perhaps followed by years of low growth. As we know, Governments often suffer what I call a macrotemptation to cut support for the arts and creative sectors when money is tight, as it undoubtedly is, in the mistaken belief that it makes sound economic sense—and never mind the cultural implications.

It was especially disappointing to see the Government’s sector vision for the creative industries being delayed yet again and the new Chancellor not including this dynamic sector as one of the five priority areas for growth. I find that strange because, cultural issues to one side, there is a compelling economic argument for prioritising the creative industries. I will focus on the business arguments. I do this having worked as an entrepreneur in this sector for 30 years. I declare that I am an active investor in theatre, film and online information—and still bear the scars to prove it.

First, we need a discriminating rather than flat approach to economic growth, which means identifying sectors where GDP growth is above the national average and, crucially, where there is considerable scope for future growth. As we have already heard, the creative industries contributed £116 billion to the UK economy in 2020. Importantly, that is an average 4% per annum growth over the last decade, whereas the economy in general struggled to reach 2%.

Secondly, when domestic demand is weak, as it is, we need export-led growth. The UK creative sector generated $57 billion in exports in the pandemic year of 2020—the fifth-largest such exporter in the world. There is clearly an appetite for UK content overseas and the weak pound makes this an even bigger opportunity, especially outside Europe. We need to grasp it.

Thirdly, productivity is the only realistic way we can generate economic growth, given demographic trends and our shrinking workforce. The technological enablement and digitisation of content has led to some hugely important productivity gains. I witnessed this first-hand over the last 30 years as a journalist turned publisher: first, it was desktop publishing transforming laborious editorial and typesetting practices; then the internet came along, which forced us to digitise our content and become a real-time online information provider, rather than a staid print publisher delivering reports by airmail across the world. The digital revolution is not just about speed and productivity; it allows content producers to reach audiences across the world at a fraction of the cost and, of course, to boost export revenues. The BBC is a good example.

It is often overlooked that the creative sector now employs more than 2 million people across the UK. An increasing proportion of that number are technical and scientific staff—a vital subsector. We have an exciting fusion, known as createch, between the content creators and those who structure and engineer, or write or promote code through multimedia channels, yet this growing intersection between creative skills and technology is in spite of, not because of, our stubborn, rigid approach to education, as the noble Viscount, Lord Stansgate, just highlighted. We see it at schools with A-levels and universities at degree level, dividing pupils between the arts and the sciences. This in no way reflects the real world. I believe it was a young James Dyson, the British inventor, who after much agonising opted to go to art school, and received a letter of condolence from his headmaster. We need much stronger links between universities and businesses in the creative industries, to drive innovation and indeed make courses much more relevant to careers in this sector. Media studies, take note.

Given the limits on time, I shall finish by making three quick observations to the Minister. The first is on freelancers: a huge number of the 2 million people are freelance and therefore self-employed. I should declare that my daughter is one of them. Please can we stop discriminating against them? The furlough scheme and the flawed off-payroll working rules are two cases in point. They deserve our support for creating their own jobs, showing flexibility at the price of job security, and for being paid on results, unlike many other permanent jobs I could mention.

Secondly, on tax relief, yes, national finances are incredibly tight at the moment, but if we want to boost productivity and innovation in this country, now is surely not the time to slash R&D tax credits for the creative sector.

Finally, I have a word on levelling up. As my noble friend Lady Bull points out, it is formidably difficult to balance the desire to spread opportunities geographically and maintain our national cultural icons which, as in other countries, tend to be concentrated around capital cities. But in the interest of balance I, like many other noble Lords today, question the wisdom of the Arts Council axing entirely its grants for institutions such as the ENO, the Barbican and the Donmar.