Alison Seabeck
Main Page: Alison Seabeck (Labour - Plymouth, Moor View)(10 years, 9 months ago)
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Alison Seabeck (Plymouth, Moor View) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Suffolk Coastal (Dr Coffey) and listen to her talking about the success of the Britten anniversary, which I think most people in this room appreciated. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Central (Paul Blomfield) for securing the debate, because clearly there is a great deal of concern, across parties and around the regions, about the matter that we are debating.
I want to talk particularly about Plymouth. The city is home to one of the nine largest independent theatres in the country, which puts on some amazing productions. It is extremely concerned about the ever-widening gap between London and the regions and the serious financial imbalance that exists; London is assigned 14 times as much taxpayer money per head as the rest of England. As a Londoner, I also acknowledge that there has been a skewing of funding from some of the bigger institutions in the centre of London to those in the outer areas.
Institutions such as the Queen’s theatre in Hornchurch or perhaps even Greenwich theatre might make a case for revisiting the way in which funding is distributed. Will the Minister tell me—I genuinely do not know the answer—whether any detailed work has been done recently to look at all the individual funding streams and investigate whether investment in those areas resulted in economic growth? I was pleased to hear from my right hon. Friend the Member for Exeter (Mr Bradshaw) that the Culture, Media and Sport Committee is going to do some detailed work on that. It is important that we understand better exactly where money is going in the regions and what the outcomes of such investment are.
Who is served by the arts and cultural events put on in Plymouth? Apart from Plymouthians, the evidence shows that the audiences who visit our theatres come from a vast rural hinterland that extends to Exeter, into Cornwall and beyond. Those visitors often stay overnight, which also helps our local economy. Audiences find that going to Plymouth is much better value for money than buying an expensive train ticket to London and a very expensive ticket to an event, for which they may almost need a bank loan. People in Plymouth simply cannot afford to do that. Cornwall is recognised by the EU as one of the most deprived regions in the UK, if not in Europe. It is unfair to isolate our region as the current arts funding set-up does, and I agree with all colleagues in the room that the matter really needs to be looked at again.
The transmission of live events on big screens and in cinemas has been a wonderful way of bringing live performances out to the regions and even into poorer parts of London. It has given people a way to see, for example, the Royal opera or the ballet. It is not the whole answer, however; it is something of a halfway house, and people would like to see the real thing.
As we have heard, the impact of cultural development on an economy is significant. We can see that by looking at what has happened in Gateshead or Glasgow, or with The Lowry in Salford. In Plymouth, we are looking at setting up a new cultural centre in the former civic centre, and a bid has been placed with the Arts Council for the necessary funding. That development would create international contemporary arts studios, independent film options, theatres of different sizes and outdoor festival performance space. That is a really exciting potential project that I hope the Arts Council will look at sympathetically, not least because 4 million tickets are sold for just those nine large regional theatres, as compared to 13 million in London. That is not an insignificant amount, but we could certainly do better. The regional theatres are faced with London’s getting 90% of philanthropic donations and 70% of business sponsorship. The match funding imbalance, which so many Members have already touched on, is significant.
I am afraid that I must come back to the cuts and the potential impact on Plymouth. I want the Theatre Royal, the Drum theatre, the Barbican theatre, the Plymouth arts centre and our museum to flourish. I want visitors to come, and to see our city as a real cultural treat. It was the home to Beryl Cook, Joshua Reynolds and Robert Lenkiewicz. We have a thriving college of art and design that is seeking to become a university—fingers crossed on that. We have production companies such as TwoFour productions, and a rehearsal space at TR2 used by west end productions. That is obviously one benefit of having links with London, which my right hon. Friend the Member for Exeter touched on.
Our city council is facing swingeing cuts. It took the bull by the horns and has not thus far dug into the arts and leisure budget as much as other councils have. Instead, it bid to be UK city of culture. I am delighted that my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Diana Johnson) is here and I wish her city well for 2017. The leader of Plymouth council, Tudor Evans, felt that making our bid was the right thing to do. He said publicly that it would be an abdication of the council’s duty
“to readily accept its (Plymouth’s) cultural decline”
as a result of the cuts. That is absolutely right, but since he will have to find a further £60 million over the next few years, he will be pushed harder than ever simply to manage his core services.
The screws are being turned on Plymouth and on other local authorities, so I urge the Minister to consider fully the report, “Rebalancing Our Cultural Capital”, as well as the recommendations of the Select Committee.