Art Asia (Southampton)

Lord Vaizey of Didcot Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd May 2012 Westminster Hall

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport (Mr Edward Vaizey)]

I am grateful for the opportunity to speak under your chairmanship, Mr Crausby, and to respond to this important debate secured by the right hon. Member for Southampton, Itchen (Mr Denham) on an issue important to his constituency that might have wider implications.

As a colleague in the House, I know only too well how rare an opportunity it is to secure a Westminster Hall debate. I am looking at two colleagues with distinguished careers. The fact that they have taken the time to come to the Chamber to raise the issue speaks volumes about how important it is. To put it in a slightly more vernacular way, I do not think that either the right hon. Gentleman or the hon. Member for Southampton, Test (Dr Whitehead) would use any weapon in his locker on an issue that was frivolous or unimportant. It goes without saying that it should be taken extremely seriously.

It is also nice, as I have some time, to be able to take a brief moment to praise Southampton as a city of the arts and an important cultural city, being the home of the great film maker Ken Russell, the great hymn-writer Isaac Watts and, of course, the songwriter sans pareil, Mr Craig David. I congratulate both Members on their contribution to Southampton’s return to the premier league. I look forward to seeing Southampton play at the home of the European champions next season, perhaps accompanied by the Chancellor of the Exchequer.

Despite my mildly humorous opening, the serious point is that the Arts Council has made a commitment to the arts in Southampton. That is why we are here today. We would not be here if the Arts Council had not made serious capital commitments to the city. As has been indicated by the right hon. Gentleman, that capital commitment is now focused exclusively on Southampton’s new arts centre. He went into a great deal of necessary detail about the issue, but to rehearse some of the chronology, the decision was made in June 2005 to grant Southampton’s new arts centre—known, I gather, by its acronym SNAC—some £5 million and give a £750,000 grant to Art Asia. At the time, neither organisation wanted to accept the money and put it in its bank account. There were a number of complicated reasons for that—all related to getting the project off the ground—including changes of developers, difficulty in meeting funding conditions, issues of leadership and artistic vision, and a concern that capital costs were increasing.

It was later agreed by the Arts Council’s management committee that a revised funding agreement of £5.724 million would be awarded to Southampton city council for SNAC, which named Art Asia and other arts organisations in its bid, and that included Art Asia’s award, which by that time was £724,000, not £750,000, because it had already received a capital sum of £26,000. However, things became slightly more complicated and an extraordinary review of the entire project took place under the auspices of the Arts Council between January 2009 and March 2011. I am told that since March 2010, the Arts Council’s south-east office has worked closely with Southampton city council to develop the governance and artistic vision for SNAC. As the right hon. Gentleman has mentioned, the office has also worked with the university of Southampton, because it is responsible for the John Hansard gallery, which is based on its campus. The aim of the review was to ensure a shared understanding of the strategic direction and any other issues before going ahead with the project.

I am pleased to note that a great deal of progress has been made. There has been a change to the operating model and design, and about two years ago, in July 2010, ACE provided another £1.5 million of capital to support SNAC. That means that the total capital investment for the project is about £7.2 million. The current position, as I understand it, is that Southampton city council has reviewed the design of the new arts complex as well as the governance and operating model. I also understand that the Arts Council regularly meets Southampton city council to discuss the project as part of the monitoring of the award of capital. Discussions are taking place on the external context in which the new development is taking place—that is, its place in the local, regional and national arts ecology—as well as on the design of the centre. The Arts Council’s clear goal is to give Southampton a high-quality arts offer and to galvanise its position as a cultural hub in the south-east. That is why Southampton city council has become a national portfolio organisation. It will receive almost £350,000 over the next three years to recruit an arts champion to lead on artistic vision and to work with SNAC.

That is the current position, but I have listened to what the right hon. Gentleman has said and will set out briefly what I am able to do. We fund the arts at arm’s length through the Arts Council, which is what every Government have done since the Arts Council was established. That is the absolutely appropriate way to fund the arts. Since we are debating controversial issues relating to the Arts Council, I should put on record the fact that, certainly during my time as a Minister, overall it has done an excellent job. In Alan Davey, it has a fantastic chief executive who has tackled a difficult financial position, as well as the review of the organisations that the Arts Council funds, with a deft hand. It is testament to his leadership that the Arts Council is now a widely respected institution.

I should also note that the problems that the right hon. Gentleman has brought to our attention began some time before Alan Davey was in post. Indeed, the Arts Council has had to cope with a recent inquiry into the funding of The Public in West Bromwich—given that one of the Members of Parliament there is the hon. Member for West Bromwich East (Mr Watson), it is not a place to make too many errors—and there were some criticisms, but I would not hold that against the current chief executive, who, to a certain extent, has inherited one or two problems that arose before his time.

I agree completely with both the right hon. Gentleman and the hon. Member for Southampton, Test that if there were problems with Art Asia as an organisation, it should have had the chance to respond. Although Art Asia’s funding has been reduced—as has the funding of many arts organisations—it continues to receive regular funding and to be a national portfolio organisation. Alan Davey and his colleagues at the Arts Council handled the process well, and one of the reasons why the process was held in high regard and earned a great deal of respect is that it was rigorous and based on artistic merit. Art Asia would not have survived and would not have continued to receive funding unless it was a well-run and important arts organisation. The fact not only that local MPs have been prepared to back it and give their time to raise the issue in Parliament, but that Art Asia has continued to receive funding from the Arts Council, speaks volumes—without my knowing a huge amount about Art Asia as an organisation—about its status as an important organisation that deserves support.

Turning to the four issues raised by the right hon. Member for Southampton, Itchen at the end of his contribution, first, I would hesitate to go on record at this early stage and agree with him that the issue has not been handled well. It might be worth while to undertake some form of independent review of the process in the future, to decide whether that is the case. Of course, as the right hon. Gentleman acknowledged, that relates to events that have already taken place and what we are concerned with is the here and now.

Secondly, the right hon. Gentleman invited me, almost as an issue of national policy, to commit myself to the aims of the BME and Chinese capital programme. I would not hesitate to agree with him that it is important that the Arts Council focuses on support for BME organisations. That is not an issue of political correctness. It is a straightforward matter of fact that many such organisations are not well represented and, to be frank, many of them do not necessarily have the insider knowledge—if I can put it that way—of how to apply to the Arts Council or of what opportunities it presents. I would always encourage the Arts Council to reach out to such organisations to encourage them to apply and be part of its funding programmes.

Thirdly, and perhaps most pragmatically, the right hon. Gentleman invited me to use my best endeavours to find a way forward. I will certainly agree to do that. I have written to him to suggest a meeting. I like nothing better than a good round table. I invite him and his colleagues from Southampton, Southampton city council, the Arts Council and Art Asia to sit around a table to discuss the issues and see whether we can find a way forward. Such comments tend to give my officials a dose of the heebie-jeebies, but given that they are also trying to deliver a £9.2 billion Olympic games, this should be a walk in the park for them. I promise that I will not cross the line by interfering in the Arts Council’s decision and that I will act exclusively as a neutral operator to bring the two sides together to discuss openly and frankly, but behind closed doors, a possible way forward.

That leads me to the right hon. Gentleman’s final point, namely whether Art Asia will continue to be fairly treated and avoid any comeback as a result of raising this issue in such a prominent fashion. I wholeheartedly agree with him that it is absolutely right and proper that any organisation that feels that it has been unfairly treated or that has concerns about something should be able to talk to its local MP, and that that local MP should be able to raise that issue in a way that he or she thinks appropriate. I can tell the right hon. Gentleman that I am completely confident, given how closely I have worked with the Arts Council over the past two years and the excellent men and women who work there, that there will be no comeback on Art Asia for raising the issue. I very much hope that all that will have been achieved is that we can progress at a more rapid pace than has been achieved in the past. I will certainly, along with the right hon. Gentleman and his colleagues, put my shoulder to the wheel to try to establish a way forward.

Question put and agreed to.