Alison Thewliss
Main Page: Alison Thewliss (Scottish National Party - Glasgow Central)
Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)
I congratulate the Members who secured the debate, particularly my hon. Friends the Members for Dundee West (Chris Law) and for Edinburgh West (Michelle Thomson). As other Members have said, it has come at quite a timely moment, given the other debates that have taken place in Westminster Hall this week and the fact that a number of the industry bodies have been holding their annual receptions on the Terrace, in the function rooms or elsewhere.
On Monday, the Creative Industries Council held a reception in the Members’ Dining Room. Last night, my hon. Friend the Member for Dundee West and several other Members here today were in the National Liberal Club for the UK interactive entertainment reception—the National Liberal Club perhaps being slightly less interactive surroundings than the video games that were on display. Of course, as other Members have said, the festival season is well under way across the country.
I have a large number of personal and constituency interests that I will probably cover in my speech. I want to look at the vast scope of what we mean by the creative industries. I want to look particularly at how they play out in my constituency and the wider city of Glasgow and look at some of the policy challenges and opportunities, which have been covered in quite a bit of detail. By definition, creative industries are forever changing and renewing themselves and adapting and evolving. It is important to consider the impact of the traditional areas—music, art, writing and dance and so on—but as a number of Members have said, online and digital forums are growing in importance for accessing creativity and as a source of creativity.
My hon. Friend the Member for Dundee West has spoken about the huge importance of the computer gaming industry. The number of games companies operating in Scotland has increased by 600% in the past five years. Yesterday, at the UK reception, I was fascinated to learn more about the increasing importance of what some people call e-sports, which were just called computer games in my day. Essentially, the industry covers professional or competitive computer gaming.
In July, the Scottish exhibition and conference centre in Glasgow will welcome the Resonate festival, when thousands of people from across Scotland and, indeed, Europe and probably the world will come together to watch other people—leaders in their fields and really talented people who have invested an awful lot of time in this—demonstrating their skills in a whole range of different e-sports or interactive computer games. My hon. Friend mentioned “Lemmings”. Of course, we do not need to pay money to watch other people play the computer game, “Lemmings”, when we can we watch a live action version taking place in front of us over there on the Labour Benches, but I recognise that this is supposed to be a consensual debate, so I will not go too far down that line.
E-sports are attracting more than 256 million unique viewers a year. By 2018, that figures is expected to overtake the number of people who watch the US national football league, which is the largest watched sport or entertainment in the world.
If I can be creative with the definition of creative industries, I want to make a pitch for Scotland’s No. 1 craft product—the water of life, uisce beatha—because the new and experimental distillers that we see coming on line, especially those who are producing gin, are involved in a unique and creative process. Glasgow has its own distiller company, and Makar gin is named after the Scots word for a creator or poet, so I thought that that was worth noting as well.
Glasgow is, as I mentioned in my maiden speech, the home and the focus of so many of these industries. Now, there is nothing in Glasgow quite on the scale of the Edinburgh international festival, but it has benefited over the years from a range of different designations. In that respect, I wish all the cities bidding for the title of city of culture the very best, because when Glasgow became the European capital of culture in 1990, it began something of a cultural renaissance, the benefits of which are still being felt today. The roots of that can be traced to the empire exhibition in 1938 and the garden festival in 1988, but we also went on to be the city of architecture and design in 1999, and we were designated as a UNESCO city of music in 2008—one of only nine in the world.
The city is a real musical melting pot. It has produced countless artists. We should not read out lists in the House, and that is just as well, because I could use up the rest of my time simply reeling off the names of the bands that have formed in Glasgow or emerged directly from the Glasgow music scene. It has also provided the stage, as has been said, that has allowed bands to break out into the Scottish, the UK and the wider European scenes.
King Tut’s Wah Wah Hut is in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss), who also has the Hydro—
Patrick Grady
My hon. Friend could perhaps intervene and list some of the venues in her constituency. However, the Canadian band the Barenaked Ladies, for example, had their break in King Tut’s, and I saw my brother-in-law’s band, Tallahassee Falls, there just a few weeks ago.
In Glasgow North, we have the likes of Cottiers, the Oran Mor and the Kelvingrove bandstand—my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow Central has most of the Kelvingrove Park, but I have the bandstand, and I am looking forward to seeing Tom Jones there in a few weeks’ time. Cottiers has just finished its excellent dance and chamber projects, and I was delighted to get a little light relief by going to one of the performances there just before the EU referendum.
Glasgow is also home to the annual Celtic Connections festival, which has global brand recognition now. It is a real contributor to some of the statistics mentioned earlier in UK Music’s “Wish You Were Here” report. Some 1.4 million people attended music events in Glasgow in 2015, with 450,000 tourists generating £105 million and sustaining more than 1,000 jobs in the city.
Patrick Grady
Those are very fair points, and the hon. Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy) made similar points about the importance of European regulation. In terms of online and digital expansion—I am aware there was a debate about some of this in Westminster Hall—these are all issues that are being challenged. The hon. Gentleman’s Committee is welcome to visit Glasgow, and if it would like such some suggestions of where they can sample the cultural scene or indeed some of the craft products I mentioned earlier, we would be happy to provide some.
There are also things that we as individual parliamentarians can do. In my office, I make space on the wall for a rotating display of works by local artists. In the past year, I have had Chris Stephens—not the one who represents Glasgow South West, but a street artist and designer from Nautilus Inkworks; Michelle Campbell, who does geometric renderings; Andy Peutherer, who does landscapes; Frances Corr, who depicts everyday items; and John Martin, who captures characters, including our current and former First Ministers. There is therefore a range of ways in which we can sport a creative industries.
It is important as well that local authorities do the same. This year, the West End Festival in Glasgow was sadly curtailed because of a lack of funding and support, and the famous parade that goes down the Byers Road was unable to take place. However, I was pleased that the Scottish Government agreed that an area of land in my constituency, Kelvin meadow and the Children’s wood, should not be designated for housing because one Member made a point about its importance for children and young people. This is a space where they can have creative and wild play. It is very important that we protect those open spaces, especially in urban areas, so that young people can nurture their creative talent.
There is also responsibility for the devolved Governments in supporting education and tackling the skills gap, as was mentioned earlier. The Scottish Government are also putting money into a film studio in Scotland.
The greatest unknown is Brexit, which many Members have touched on. I agree wholeheartedly with almost every word that the hon. Member for Bristol East said, and so do not feel the need to repeat it.
Alison Thewliss
Does my hon. Friend agree that for specialist institutions in Glasgow, such as the Glasgow School of Art and the Royal Conservatoire, there is a great deal of risk for their students from Brexit? At the moment, the Conservatoire offers a unique melting pot of trad, jazz and classical, with pipers playing alongside ballerinas—there are all kinds of things in the mix. However, all that is under threat if the Conservatoire can no longer be the international institution that it would like to be.
Patrick Grady
That is absolutely correct. The artistic and musical communities are very concerned about the impact that Brexit will have, especially on the free movement of people and their ability to travel to festivals, either as artists or participants.
I am aware that other Members are very keen to speak and so will conclude. It is hugely important to nurture future generations, especially in the context of the Brexit result. We have a duty to open and expand our cultural horizons, and I hope that today’s debate goes some way towards that.
Joanna Cherry
Edinburgh of course now hosts more than one university. Its oldest university is our joint alma mater, but it also has Napier University in my constituency, which I have just been talking about, and Heriot-Watt University. Possibly what the hon. Gentleman refers to is due to those universities, but it is also very much due to an atmosphere across the education sector in Edinburgh, which fosters interest in music and the arts.
Of course, we are also very privileged to host the greatest international festival anywhere in the world. Growing up in Edinburgh and getting to attend events at the festival and fringe as a wee girl was the sort of opportunity that not all children get. In my constituency, we have tried to ensure that the festival reaches out beyond Edinburgh city centre to the suburbs and housing schemes. That has resulted in some very vibrant arts activity in Wester Hailes, a big housing scheme in my constituency.
Edinburgh Napier is just up the road from Wester Hailes. Many of its students and graduates have achieved considerable success and external recognition, which they have built on to achieve strong careers in the creative industries. Its students’ work features regularly at international film festivals, including Berlin, Venice, Cannes, Beijing, Kolkata and—closer to home—Edinburgh. Graduates of Napier have won awards in journalism and advertising. Its music students have been awarded or shortlisted for national and international prizes, including first prize in the international Jean Sibelius composition competition.
Importantly, Edinburgh Napier offers businesses opportunities to link up with a diverse range of creative students for freelance assignments. That ensures that students develop their skills in a business environment and the businesses themselves benefit from the students’ professional output. The success of Screen Academy Scotland demonstrates how universities can support the continued professional development of those working in the industry. Illustrious graduates of Edinburgh Napier include the film director Lynne Ramsay, the photographers David Eustace and Colin Baxter, and the BBC broadcaster Catriona Shearer, to name just a few.
The creative industries thrive on talent and depend on a well-educated workforce. Universities are a rich source of that talent. Analysis recently published by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport showed that last year more than half of jobs in the creative industries—almost 60%—were filled by people with at least a degree or equivalent qualification, compared with 30% of all jobs in the UK.
There is often a view that creative talent is innate, but that is not the case. Talent must be nurtured and developed, and that is what higher education does. Scotland’s universities collaborate directly with creative companies and industry bodies in the design and development of courses at undergraduate and postgraduate level. However, there is a problem with the skills gap, and it is that issue which I would like the Minister to address. Research carried out by Creative Skillset found that 28% of companies in the creative media industries report skills gaps within the existing workforce across the UK, with a slightly higher proportion in Scotland—31%—reporting such skills gaps.
It is interesting to note that only 12% of those studying creative industry-related subjects at postgraduate level in Scotland are from Scotland, compared with the proportion of non-EU postgraduate students studying in Scotland, which is 70%. This means that Scotland needs to retain its creative graduates, regardless of where they are from. We need to encourage people who have come to Scotland to study creative subjects to stay in Scotland after they graduate. These graduates are innovative, enterprising and ambitious, and will contribute not only to the Scottish economy, but more broadly to the social, cultural and economic life and development of Scotland. It is important to ensure, therefore, that the needs of the creative industries and the broader creative and knowledge economy is not lost through the post-study work route.
The UK Government’s immigration policy—specifically, the proposals for tier 2—is the major deterrent to greater flows of talent coming from outside the European Union into Scotland and the UK. I fear that if the Brexit vote is to be implemented, the problem will only get worse, as students coming from the European Union will also be affected.
Alison Thewliss
My hon. and learned Friend is making an excellent case about the visas for students who are studying in Scotland. I was made aware by Glasgow School of Art of a case where an expert in a specific field who was visiting Glasgow on holiday wanted to come in and share his expertise with students at Glasgow School of Art, but the school had to refuse that request because it would have had serious implications for its own visa status. Does my hon. and learned Friend agree that much more flexibility is needed to allow people to come and share their talent and expertise, without the necessity for formal visas in such situations?
Joanna Cherry
I entirely agree. Every country requires some sort of immigration policy, but we need to look at what is of benefit to our country and our economy. Flexibility of visas in that situation is clearly desirable.
The rules surrounding the UK’s current student immigration policy in relation to employment are often prohibitively restrictive for graduates from creative disciplines, because the starting salary threshold is based on average salaries in other sectors, such as accounting and engineering. We all know that graduates in the creative industries, at least in the early stages of their career, will earn considerably less than that. Such graduates tend not to be in full time employment; rather, they freelance. They may work as a barista, a waiter or a waitress and support their portfolio careers with part-time jobs. It is interesting to observe that our major English-speaking competitors—Canada, the USA, Australia and New Zealand—do not have that minimum earnings threshold.
For a number of years Universities Scotland has been making a positive case for a more competitive post-study work visa for Scotland, because it would be a significant benefit to universities both as employers and as recruiters of students. There is support for a change in immigration policy in Scotland among university principals, staff and students, among business leaders and across all political parties in the Scottish Parliament, including the Conservative and Unionist party.
The Scottish Affairs Committee of this Parliament in its recent report found that current rules for students studying in Scotland to remain in Scotland are too restrictive and are preventing businesses from finding skilled workers. It is clear that in order to support the creative industries in Scotland and beyond, throughout the UK, the Government need to reintroduce post-study work visas. I urge the Minister to address this issue in his summing up today.
Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP)
It is a great pleasure to be summing up for the Scottish National party in what has been a very fine debate. It feels like we have been on some sort of geographic cultural tour de force, as we have learned about the delights of the many bidding cities for European city of culture, as well as the other cultural delights of many other cities. We are all enriched by learning about some of the great cultural facets of all these different and differing parts of the UK. I, of course, declare my interest as a former recording artist and refer to my entries in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests.
I have spoken in practically every single debate on the creative industries in my 15 years in this House. It is always fantastic to come to these debates and just learn and see how many more Members are taking an interest in their creative industries and the things that underpin them, such as intellectual property and some of the fiscal levers we have at our disposal.
I congratulate those who opened the debate; I forgot to mention the hon. Member for Sunderland Central (Julie Elliott). It is worth reminding ourselves how fantastically we do in this country. The UK is the largest cultural economy in the world relative to GDP. We are the largest producer of TV and radio content in Europe. We are the largest producer of recorded music in Europe and the second largest in the world. We have the third largest filmed entertainment market globally. As chair of the all-party group on writers, it was also fantastic for me to hear from my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh North and Leith (Deidre Brock) about her wonderful authors and writers, and it is great to know that we are the largest publishing market in Europe.
The creative industries are growing almost twice as fast as the wider economy. I think it was the Minister who first mentioned, in a tweet, that we are now worth £10 million an hour to the UK economy. Many have subsequently picked up that figure. The creative industries are also a huge employer, and the number of jobs in them increased by 5.5% between 2013 and 2014.
There is incredible growth in our creative sector and its industries, therefore. When so many of our sectors are flatlining, we are practically reindustrialising this nation on the imagination, creativity and talent of the people of this country. What a wonderful way to grow our economy, based on those virtues.
Alison Thewliss
I do not know whether my hon. Friend is aware that the artists studios in Glasgow are so successful that they are having to expand and expand. I visited the Briggait in my constituency. They are planning their expansion because they have filled the space they have, as have Wasp Studios. Does my hon. Friend agree that we need further support from Government for the artists studios in the city?
Pete Wishart
Absolutely. We are all seeing and experiencing—as we have heard in most of the contributions and interventions today—that every constituency and community now has some form of creative hub, providing highly skilled jobs, giving opportunities to young people, employing people and encouraging them, and culturally enriching their communities. I pay tribute to the wonderful work done in my hon. Friend’s constituency and in those of so many other Members.
This is about much more than the hard economics, important though they are in assessing the contribution the creative industries make. The creative industries provide a conduit which allows for the cultural enrichment of our nation and communities. We are successful in this country primarily because we are fantastically good at producing this stuff. We are also successful because we have managed to provide the conditions that allow talent to develop and grow. I have always said that one of our major responsibilities as legislators and Members of this House is to try to create the conditions that allow the optimum environment for our artists and those who invest in our talent and build our creative industries, so that they can continue to develop, thrive and grow. We have been successful in that, because up to this point we have managed to provide the frameworks that allow our creative industries to grow.
There are certain things that need to be in place in order to have a successful creative industries sector. Some of them are fiscal, and some are at the disposal of this Government. We have already heard about the difference some of the tax reliefs have made to various sectors, particularly computer games, about which my hon. Friend the Member for Dundee West (Chris Law) made such a good point and recognised. When we deploy these things, we get a massive return and a massive hit. Some of the support is resourcing, therefore, such as ensuring that funds are available for what are mainly small and medium-sized enterprises to develop and grow. There is so much more we can do to incentivise our SMEs, to ensure we continue to create that optimal environment for development in these sectors.
Other things are probably a bit more difficult to achieve, and they are what I want to address. I want us to ensure that the artists who are prepared to use their talent are properly rewarded for the work they produce and those who invest in it are properly rewarded for the investment they make. We must strive to make that always the case and to ensure that those who produce this wonderful work, which we see and experience and love so much, are rewarded properly. This is why we need to ensure that the intellectual property rights of those involved in our creative sector are always respected and progressed.
Our creative industries inhabit a part of the economy that is fast changing, developing all the time and always open to technological innovation, and more than anything we are seeing the migration to digitisation in the online environment. That presents probably a bigger challenge to our creative industries than to any other sector of the economy, which is why we must be ever vigilant around the demands and needs of the creative economy and sector. Even though the creative industries are a huge success story—we can see the contribution they make to our economy—many people in music, film and television production, publishing and design still struggle to be rewarded properly for their efforts. We have to design a properly functioning digital market that enables creators and rights holders to secure the full value of their work online.
It has to be said again that the market is being distorted by the tech giants. The likes of Google and YouTube—the gateways to online content—distort the market and make it difficult for artists and those who invest in their talent to be rewarded for their work. Google is a fantastic facility—I am sure we all use it—but it makes such a big impression on the market and makes life so difficult for those in the creative sector. We have to get on top of that. So often, searches on Google and through other big tech companies still direct people towards sites that are either illegal or do not properly reward artists and musicians. That must now stop.
That facilitates the worries about the growing “value gap” between rising creative consumption and decreasing revenues, which undermine the incomes of people in the sector. I think mainly of the streaming sites, on which we had a helpful debate yesterday—several people in this debate spoke then about the remuneration of artists online. We have to look at these issues, and I am sure the Minister took away some valuable points that helped to shape that debate. Someone is growing rich from the creative endeavours of our wonderful artists, but it is not the artists. Parasite companies—little more than hosts with algorithms that store content—are growing rich on the back of the creativity of the people of this country. Somehow we have to re-tilt the balance much more in favour of the artists, creators and inventors—the talent—and those prepared to invest in them.
I have to turn finally to the EU debate. We really enjoyed the remarks from the hon. Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy). She was spot on. This is a potential catastrophe for our creative industries. We cannot mince our words: being taken out of the EU would be really serious for our creative sector. We have heard the issues about the single market, about how these wonderful products will be placed properly without further tariffs within the EU, and about the impact on our creative sector and its product placement, but there is also the movement of people. One reason our creative industries are so successful and why London is probably the creative hub not just of Europe but of the whole globe is the fact that it has been able to draw talent from the EU uninhibited by any concerns about visa arrangements. There is a real concern, therefore, about what will happen to the people employed in our creative sector, particularly in cities such as London, and also Edinburgh, which is dependent on talent from overseas.
The biggest innovation at the moment—the one that will make the biggest difference to how we use and access online content—is perhaps the digital single market, but we will not be part of it. The Minister said yesterday that we could somehow—I do not know how—have proxy conversations with France and Germany about it. If we leave the European Union we will be excluded from that and have no say in it whatsoever.
Thankfully, most copyright laws that were designed in Europe have been incorporated into UK law, so we need not concern ourselves too much with the protection of artists, writers and creators as those laws have now been subsumed. However, a massive debate is going on in Europe about innovation and new copyright laws, and we will be excluded from that, which will be of massive detriment to our creative industries.
The hon. Member for Bristol East touched on the issue of what leaving the European Union will do to us psychologically, and where it leaves us culturally. If anything, music, cultural works, and things that we enjoy are about sharing and working communally. We have lost something quite profound in how we talk about ourselves as a nation and how we share all the wonderful culture that we produce. It is as if we have stepped aside and walked away from our partners, and that will have a profound impact and psychological effect on artists up and down the country. I do not know how we recover from that or start to address it, but we can almost sense the depression in our artistic and creative community.
On Tuesday night I hosted a meeting of the all-party group on intellectual property, and all that people were talking about was leaving the EU and the impact and depression that that has introduced into the sector. We must work hard to address that and think about how we can excite the sector. That is down to the Minister, because it will be his job and responsibility. Unlike the Secretary of State, who went against almost 99% of the people he is notionally supposed to represent in the creative industries and who desperately wanted to remain in the European Union, the Minister was on the remain side and he must try to design a way forward for the country. There are a couple of opportunities and ways in which he may be able to do that. For example, with the Digital Economy Bill he must reassure everybody in the sector that he will try to offset some of the difficulties and harm that will be done when we leave the European Union. He cannot do much about immigration, but he can speak to his colleagues about what we can do to secure and retain talent.
The Digital Economy Bill is great, and it honours the commitment made by the Conservatives to ensure universal access to broadband. I am grateful for that, as I am for the inclusion of intellectual property rights that state that online crime will be of the same nature and stature as offline crime. However, we need a big job to ensure that we start to rebuild some of the confidence that has taken such a heavy knock over the past few weeks.
I am sure the Minister saw the fine report on the creative industries in Scotland—my colleagues have referred to it a few times. I am delighted that so much time was spent on the city of Dundee, and to learn what happened there and what underpinned the success of the creative economy. However, I was disappointed by the response—I thought that we might have secured membership of the UK-wide Creative Industries Council, but that has been turned down. I was also disappointed that there was no recognition of how tax reliefs in the creative sector apply across the United Kingdom, and I urge the Minister to consider those issues again.
This has been a fantastic debate, and it is great to see so much interest. I wish everybody well in any competitions that their various cities many be in—such as that for city of culture. It has been fantastic to learn about the wonderful cultural activities taking place. We should keep an interest in this sector as it is important for our economy. We have troubles now, but it is up to us to try to design a way forward. Let us hear what we can do; I look forward to hearing from the Minister.