Cultural Attractions: Contribution to Local Economy

Alison Thewliss Excerpts

Tuesday 6th October 2020 Westminster Hall

[Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)]

It is great to see you in the Chair, Sir Charles. I am going to speak up for Glasgow Central and our renowned cultural offer. We are also a UNESCO city of music. I want to talk about the many people that work in the communicative sectors, both in the limelight and behind the scenes. The band Ash tweeted earlier:

“Not just musicians though is it? It’s our technicians, our engineers, our management, our agent, our promoter. It’s the venues, their staff, the production companies, transport, storage. It’s roughly one million people you’re throwing on the job market”,

by not supporting the industry further. I would add to that the restaurants, bars and hotels and all of the people that work in them. An entire local ecosystem is at risk without further support in a sector that is worth £111 billion to the UK economy.

Some of the comments from the Chancellor and the Treasury have been quite hurtful to many people in terms of their role within the sectors. I will read a comment from one of my constituents, Jazz Hutsby. He writes,

“My partner and I are freelancers within Live Events and The Arts. To call this a career would not describe what our jobs mean to us. We have dedicated our lives to our practice, we trained specifically for this role. We are specialists in our field, make no doubt that we do not need to “get better jobs”, or to “upskill”. What we need is effective support. The rhetoric from Westminster over the last week has been, quite frankly, disgusting. Our vocation, our lives, have been deemed unviable. This was, as I’m sure you are aware, quite literally what the Chancellor suggested.”

I can tell the Minister that that was written before the comments on ITV earlier today. There is so much more that Jazz points out that needs to be done to support the sector by all Governments and by local government, and I will seek to pursue those issues with whoever can help.

I want to talk about the events and conferences sector because the Scottish Events Campus in my constituency of Glasgow Central employs more than 200 people, with additional people that come in for events. Exhibitions are worth more than £11 billion to the UK economy, but they and their suppliers have little or no support, and the ending of furlough could mean unemployment for around 114,000 people in the exhibitions sector, which is completely avoidable if the Government choose to support the sector. It is and will be viable. It just needs bridging to get to that point. Further job losses have been announced in Cineworld, and potentially the Odeon, which will affect my constituency.

Lastly, I want to talk about the museums sector. Museums Galleries Scotland has pointed out that as of last week only 160 of Scotland’s 423 museums and galleries are open. That is 38%. That might be a high point for the year as we go into winter and some have to close down for that. Some museums cannot open because they do not have the capacity to do so safely, social distancing makes their business model unviable, and their staff have been redeployed, or their volunteers are too vulnerable to come back in. The Association of Scottish Visitor Attractions found that only 28% of attractions that have reopened are opening at an economically sustainable level.

We need such sectors. We need them to survive for all our health and wellbeing, and for the cultural joy that we draw from these things. The Government need to get their finger out to provide the extra support to see them through the winter.

[Sir Charles Walker (in the Chair)]

There has been great self-discipline from Back-Bench colleagues and we have had two no-shows, so the Front-Bench speakers each have at most 11 minutes, which leaves the mover of our debate two minutes at the end. I call Gavin Newlands.

[Gavin Newlands (Paisley and Renfrewshire North) (SNP)]

I do not intend to take up 11 minutes, Sir Charles, unless I am intervened on several times. It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair. I congratulate the local MP, the hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Nickie Aiken), on securing this important debate. She set out the stark statistics, and the real issues facing the creative sectors, very well.

There have been some fantastic speeches this afternoon. I do not have time to touch on them all, but the point made by both hon. Members for Cardiff, the hon. Member for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan) and the hon. Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty), who is no longer in his place—[Interruption.] Apologies: he is lurking behind me—we can do the panto bit now. The point about the Chancellor’s attitude to those who work in the creative sector was very well made and one with which I very much concur.

I also agreed with the hon. Member for Warrington South (Andy Carter) when he mentioned the importance of panto. My children would ordinarily be very much looking forward to Paisley’s PACE Youth Theatre panto this Christmas, but sadly that will no longer take place.

Of course, in the contribution from my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss), that great Renfrewshire commuter town that lies to the east of my constituency, we heard some fantastic points, particularly about the Scottish Event Campus in hers, which I frequent often.

As we enter the fag end, as I like to call it, of 2020—it has been that sort of year—we are looking to put this pretty desperate year behind us. If there were any justice in the world, we should be looking forward to Paisley celebrating its tenure as UK city of culture 2021. I have never spoken again to the Economic Secretary to the Treasury since he, as a Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Minister, announced Coventry as the winner of that competition—but in all seriousness, I wish Coventry well in 2021. I am sure that, despite the difficulties presented by the situation that we all face at the moment, it will deliver a fantastic and impactful programme and secure a great cultural, economic and social legacy from that.

The word “culture” still elicits a curious response from many. Culture is for everyone, but many still instinctively think of highbrow sophistication, snobbery and elitism at the opera or theatre. That is a long-held but unfair reputation. People are just as likely to sit next to a snob at a stand-up comedy act—as I did at the Stand in Glasgow last time I was there—as at the opera. In case anyone thinks that I am doing opera down, I should say that in my stint as the branch fundraiser, one of the more risky events—that ended up being one of the most successful and enjoyable events that Renfrew SNP ever held—was an opera concert at Renfrew town hall.

The truth is that culture, in whatever form, enriches us all, individually and collectively. That is the case whether it is live music in stadiums, village halls or the pub; theatre, including panto, and opera and theatre productions big and small; stand-up comedy; or, of course, museums and galleries.

[Alison Thewliss]

Missing from my hon. Friend’s long list is ballet, of course, and Scottish Ballet is based in my constituency. Does he share my sadness that its Christmas productions will not be going ahead as normal this year? And unless there is further support from the Government, there might not be theatres for it to host its productions in in the future?

[Gavin Newlands]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. Of course—how remiss of me to forget ballet, particularly as my daughters are both dancers themselves. My hon. Friend made a very good point, and I hope that the Minister was listening to it.

In many of these sectors, the people who derive a livelihood from them, be they performers or staff who facilitate and assist the performers, are in severe financial peril. Of course, the Scottish Government have acted when the UK Government would not, or before the UK Government when they did. The Scottish Government were proactive and announced a £30-million creative, tourism and hospitality enterprises hardship fund, and £10 million has been provided to protect vital performing arts venues, with an additional £59 million announced in August.

We need the UK Government to step up. One has just to look, as others have mentioned, at the announcement by Cineworld of 5,500 people losing their jobs as the chain mothballs itself until the spring. That decision just proves the utter inadequacy of the so-called job support scheme. The Chancellor says that the scheme exists to provide support for viable jobs, so does the Minister think that cinema and the jobs that support it are no longer viable? Of course they are. These are the sorts of jobs that any job support scheme worth its salt should be protecting.

There are also the 125,000 jobs supported by concerts in the audio-visual and events sector, with companies such as Adlib and FE Live in my constituency, without which concerts just could not be delivered.

While we are on the subject of supporting those who earn their livelihood from this sector, let us turn to the self-employed, whom many have mentioned and who constitute a large number of workers in the creative industry because of the preponderance of freelance actors, performers, technicians and so on. We have heard today from Members across the Chamber that the Chancellor’s support for the self-employed is simply not enough. Not only is the level of financial support not enough, but not enough people qualify for support. Whereas the UK Government have failed to help those people, the Scottish Government have provided £185 million of targeted support for SMEs and the self-employed, and £5 million for creative freelancers specifically. The Chancellor must rethink his approach or a great many people across the UK will face a long, difficult winter.

Creative industries in Scotland account for 70,000 workers and 15,000 businesses, and are estimated to support about £9 billion of activity within the wider Scottish economy, contributing £5.5 billion to Scotland’s GDP. Edinburgh of course, has its world-renowned festival and fringe. The fringe alone provides 3,000 jobs and £173 million to the Scottish economy. We absolutely recognise the vital role played by creative businesses, which employ tens of thousands in Scotland. As others have said, the UK Government’s focus on financial viability alone ignores industries’ true value. Local live music venues provide meeting places and community hubs, and cultural events such as the Edinburgh fringe elevate global awareness of Scottish and British arts and culture. Not only that, but they bring culture and entertainment from all over the world to our doorstep.

The cultural sector is vital for preserving our national heritage, and connecting people. Its preservation is more important than mere economics. However, of course, the vast majority of Scots’ cultural engagement and entertainment is found not at the Edinburgh festival but in communities, towns and cities the length of the country. Ninety-three per cent. of the grassroots venue network faces permanent closure, and 34% of musicians are considering abandoning the industry completely. Those are stark figures, so I am glad that the £2 million-plus grassroots music venue stabilisation fund was announced by the Scottish Government. One of the recipients of that lifeline grant was the Bungalow in Paisley, a well-known venue and community interest company, which, for the past 40 years or so, has put on its stage every musical genre of up-and-coming-talent, spanning punk to big band jazz. Bungalow co-director Tommy McGrory said:

“This money is our lifeline. Without this money, we would find ourselves in a very serious position. We have just been limping on.”

It must be said that the Scottish grassroots music fund is, in relative terms, six and a half times the size of the UK Government’s comparable scheme for England. They must do more for this vital sector.

I have, despite what my colleagues may think, relatively broad cultural taste, but, to be honest, it is grassroots venues, be they live music or stand-up comedy, that I really miss—even some that are outwith my constituency, such as the 180-year-old Gellions bar in Inverness, the city’s oldest venue, which has bands such as Schiehallion featuring among the 650 gigs played there in a normal year. Live music is critical to venues like the Bungalow and Gellions bar, and as long as clinical advice continues to ensure that no indoor live music or comedy can be performed, the venues and performers must be supported.

I mentioned in my opening remarks that Paisley was robbed of the city of culture award, and it should be warming up to embark on its 2021 programme with the ninth year of the Spree festival, an extremely popular and growing celebration of music, arts and comedy, which should have kicked off this very Thursday. Sadly, it is just another event that has been cancelled because of the pandemic. It is fair to say that the bid itself will leave a legacy in the town for years to come, with £22 million being spent on plans to preserve Paisley town hall’s place at the heart of life in the area and turn it into a landmark performance venue, and £42 million on the transformation of Paisley museum into an international-class destination telling the story of the town’s pattern, heritage and people. I very much look forward to those great venues reopening, but I sincerely hope that, when they do, Renfrewshire will not have lost many of its grassroots and small venues, for that would amount to a pyrrhic legacy.

The SNP Scottish Government have supported the Scottish creative industries, but would like to do more. To do so, they need the financial powers and funding. The UK Government have tools at their disposal. As others have mooted, they could extend the 5% cultural VAT rate on tickets, in line with the recommendations of the Select Committee on Digital, Culture, Media and Sport. They could also provide a Government-backed insurance scheme to provide the music industry with the necessary confidence to reopen. Whatever they choose to do to support reopening they need to act now to deliver fuller support for those vital businesses, so that the Scottish Government can use the consequentials to support the Scottish creative and cultural industry. The UK Government must act now, or the damage of collapsed businesses and lost talent may be irreparable.