UK Town of Culture

Anna Dixon Excerpts

Wednesday 7th January 2026 Westminster Hall

[Anna Dixon (Shipley) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Furniss. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Halesowen (Alex Ballinger) on securing the debate. Being from and representing a constituency in the Bradford district, I would like to take the opportunity to share some of the amazing highlights of our year as the city of culture. I particularly hope that some of the impacts I describe will be useful to those who are considering applying for the town of culture competition or hoping to be successful in it. It is a fantastic development.

Although we talk about the city of culture, it was really the whole district. Towns in my constituency of Shipley and Bingley were very much part of the Bradford 2025 experience, which celebrated both our rich history and the dynamic contemporary culture found across the Bradford district. Some people may not be aware that it is already designated a UNESCO city of film. It also hosts a wonderful collection of works by Bradford-born artist David Hockney at Salts Mill. That is a brilliant example of culturally led regeneration, which some hon. Members here may be interested in. Salts Mill is in Saltaire, which is also a world heritage site and which now hosts the Peace museum, a fantastic historical collection.

The year started in Centenary Square—it was minus 10° —with a celebration called RISE, showcasing some amazing spoken word poetry, as well as acrobats. It concluded in Bingley in my constituency with Brighter Still and fantastic stories of hope celebrating the diversity of people who are born and raised in Bradford or who have moved there and made it their home.

In the few minutes I have, I want to highlight the sense of community that that generated. With more than 5,000 events across the whole district, audiences in excess of 3 million, 650 local artists and organisations, and participatory projects that brought in some 87,000 people, there was something for everyone. We had Our Patch co-ordinators on the ground working with community organisations to involve them in everything from creating skate park murals to rap songs. That has resulted in eight in 10 residents now saying that the city of culture programme made them feel proud of where they live.

On top of that, we had a national profile. Great collaborations with the likes of the BBC meant that we hosted the “Antiques Roadshow” and “Songs of Praise”, and at some point in the year 38% of the UK population watched part of something featuring Bradford. Furthermore, the Turner prize 2025 exhibition is in Cartwright Hall—outside of London for the first time—and it has not quite closed yet.

Being the city of culture also brought huge economic and social benefits. With more than 2,700 volunteers involved as youth ambassadors, the hope is that the legacy of the city of culture will be the opportunities it gives our young people to gain skills in the creative industries, which West Yorkshire Mayor Tracy Brabin has made a critical priority in the West Yorkshire industrial strategy.

I conclude by asking the Minister to support the legacy of the city of culture in Bradford, and to congratulate the directors, Shanaz Gulzar and Dan Bates, who were honoured with MBEs in the new year honours for their fantastic work. I wish all colleagues here much success with their bids.

--- Later in debate ---

[Joe Robertson (Isle of Wight East) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Furniss. I congratulate the hon. Member for Halesowen (Alex Ballinger) on securing this important debate on the UK town of culture competition. Let me begin by welcoming the announcement of the UK town of culture programme. The UK city of culture initiative, first launched in 2009, is now in its fifth iteration and has supported places such as Derry/Londonderry, Hull, Coventry and most recently Bradford. In each case, the investment has proved to drive regeneration, attracting investment and visitors, all while showcasing the unique character, heritage and creativity of those places.

Hull’s year as city of culture generated an estimated £300 million for the local economy, attracted millions of visitors and created thousands of jobs, apprenticeships and freelance opportunities. Coventry saw renewed confidence and investment, while in Bradford, more than 5,000 events took place during the year, with around 51 million spent. Within the first six months of Bradford 2025, more than 11,000 schoolchildren benefited from the education programme, and 40,000 local people participated in cultural events. My colleagues visited Bradford during that year to join in one of 5,000 events that took place. The success of this scheme shows how well-funded support can have a transformative impact.

The UK town of culture rightly recognises that smaller and medium-sized settlements have powerful cultural stories to tell—we have heard a great variety of those today—and a vital role to play in our national life. Market towns such as Shrewsbury have long acted as bridges between rural and urban communities, serving as hubs for seasonal celebrations, sport, county dance and local trade. In my constituency on the Isle of Wight, our island’s towns are increasingly recognised as destinations for film and the creative industries. We have vibrant organisations, including Ventnor Exchange, Monkton Arts and the new Department venue in Ryde, plus of course Brading Roman Villa. Shanklin theatre, a historic building, survives only through the tireless volunteer efforts of local people. I enjoyed the local pantomime “Dick Whittington” there only last week with my children.

Building on the success of the city of culture programme, the ambition to break down barriers to opportunity, drive local economic growth and create jobs is one that we strongly support. However, the last iteration of the city of culture competition demonstrated that the scheme could be open to places beyond cities, with examples including Wrexham, which bid as a town, and County Durham, which submitted a bid covering the entire county. Wrexham even became a city midway through its bid. This shows that the programme could already accommodate a broader range of places, without necessarily creating a town of culture competition separately. It raises the question: is it necessary to establish a separate competition when towns were allowed to bid in the last round?

Experience from the previous city of culture competition shows that the places that performed best were those with strong local authority leadership and capacity. The most recent competition, with 20 entrants, was the largest ever. Although expertise is spreading across local government, not every council starts from the same place.

[Anna Dixon]

The hon. Gentleman talks of the importance of local authority leadership in city of culture success. Will he join me in congratulating Bradford council on having the vision to apply to be the city of culture and on having taken the risk to invest in it and then crowd in further investment, which has benefited the whole district?

[Joe Robertson]

I am happy to join the hon. Member in congratulating the local authority in Bradford on its bid. She illustrates very well the point that I am trying to make: there is a financial risk in undertaking the process and, indeed, the risk of not being successful. For smaller towns with less financial might, that could become a considerable issue, so will the Minister commit to supporting local authorities—in particular, smaller ones—in their capacity to bid and succeed in a separate towns competition?

Further to that, a long-standing challenge of the scheme has been the uncertainty about funding, with prize money neither guaranteed nor clearly set out at the point of launch. Although we welcome the approach taken under the previous Government, which enabled runners-up to receive £125,000, the current Government have not yet extended that commitment to the town of culture competition. In the past, even unsuccessful bidders, such as Sunderland, received support that helped to strengthen local partnerships and build capacity in their communities. If the Government introduce a separate towns competition, they must clarify whether funding will be guaranteed immediately for winners and runners-up, particularly for towns that may have less capacity to absorb financial uncertainty.

For many towns that are unsuccessful and receive little or no funding, cultural institutions remain at risk. Much of our cultural infrastructure depends on local authority funding, and discretionary spending on culture is often the first casualty when councils face financial pressure. If we are serious about supporting towns through culture, local authorities must be given the financial tools and flexibility to protect cultural and heritage assets.

This initiative must also be understood in the wider context of the pressures facing our cultural, creative and heritage sectors. Towns’ unique characters are driven by their high streets and small businesses, ranging from historic pubs and craft workshops to independent creative venues and local cultural organisations. Yet this Government’s punitive tax regime places increasing burdens on these organisations. Higher employer national insurance contributions, reduced business rates relief and rising wage costs all fall heaviest on small businesses, which have the least capacity to absorb these costs. We have already seen too many local businesses close over the past year, so how will the Government ensure that the very organisations that we rely on to deliver cultural programmes—indeed, they form the cultural fabric of this nation—are not priced out of existence, thereby reducing investment into the local area?

Thanks to the previous Government’s £2 billion culture recovery fund, many arts and heritage organisations were finally back on their feet, yet this Government’s job tax has hit them hard. I welcome the continuation of tax relief for theatres, museums and galleries, but the Department for Culture, Media and Sport’s resource budget remains flat in cash terms, which of course represents a real-terms cut. At a time when 98% of adults agree that museums are important to UK culture, it is deeply concerning that the Government continue to fail to commit funding to major levelling-up cultural projects, despite announcing a UK town of culture competition, which we welcome.

[The Minister for Creative Industries, Media and Arts (Ian Murray)]

As always, Ms Furniss, it is a great pleasure to see you in the Chair. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Halesowen (Alex Ballinger) for securing what I think has been a very enjoyable debate. It has not just been a debate about the town of culture; I think it has actually been the largest lobbying exercise from MPs that we have seen in this Parliament. It has been a geographical trip through everyone’s wonderful constituencies. We heard from my hon. Friend about everything from yarn bombers to mosh pitters, in the form of Led Zeppelin and Robert Plant. Of course, he has invited the President of the United States to come and visit his wonderful green lands—I am glad about his intonation on that.

I pay tribute to the Halesowen Abbey Trust for its work on the Leasowes walled garden, which demonstrates the civic pride that my hon. Friend talked about in his opening speech. As he mentioned, culture is a shared language. Whether we are talking about yarn bombers, heavy metal, mosh pitters or some of the wonderful heritage buildings around the country that we have heard about, one thing is for sure: we all have that shared cultural heritage that we want to preserve. It is not just about celebrating the past; it is about shaping the future, as many of my hon. Friends and others have said.

I also pay tribute to Colin Brookes of Halesowen Town FC, and pass on our sympathies to his family. Those kinds of individuals drive local projects, institutions and organisations. Without those personal commitments from people like Colin Brookes, none of these institutions would continue to exist; we rely on local people’s passions for that. It was not just a great speech from my hon. Friend; it was also a superb oral application form, which I hope Hansard will just pop, verbatim, straight into his application form for the town of culture competition.

This scheme will be delivered across the UK and in collaboration with devolved Governments. As we have already heard, the UK town of culture competition builds on the city of culture model for cultural placemaking, which was first launched in 2009, as the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Isle of Wight East (Joe Robertson), said, and is now in its fifth iteration. Derry/Londonderry, Hull, Coventry and now Bradford have benefited from the lasting and transformative impacts, including more than £1 billion of additional investment added to local economies of past host cities, increasing jobs, tourism and that local cultural pride.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Anna Dixon) mentioned, Bradford 2025 has delivered a wealth of significant benefits, not just for Bradford itself but for the wider region. The highlights of its time as UK city of culture include delivering more than 5,000 events across all 30 district wards and attracting more than 3 million people with its world-class cultural programme. It commissioned and involved more than 650 local artists, involved 87,000 individuals in participatory projects, 2,700 volunteers—the Colin Brookes of this world—with more than 5,500 people benefiting from training, and engaging more than 160 schools and educational settings.

The direct positive impacts on people’s lives in the local community are clear, as we have heard. More than 80% of people surveyed said that Bradford 2025 had a positive impact on their wellbeing; it made eight in 10 residents feel proud of where they live; and more than 70% of residents felt more connected to the people in their communities. I therefore echo the congratulations of my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley to the Bradford city of culture directors, Shanaz Gulzar and Dan Bates. I thank them for all that they did, and thank everyone who participated in that.

[Anna Dixon]

I thank the Minister for his congratulations. Bradford council has already committed about £13 million over the next five years to the legacy, but much more is needed for capital projects, such as the Bingley town hall creative workshop. Would the Minister agree to meet me and representatives of Bradford council to discuss how we secure the legacy of Bradford 2025?

[Ian Murray]

I am very happy to take up that invitation to meet with my hon. Friend and representatives to see how that legacy is lasting, because the legacy is actually the most important thing from the city of culture scheme. I hope there are also huge legacies from the town of culture scheme, not just for the successful town but for all the applicants. It may give another boost to all of that cultural heritage and cultural futures in those areas.

When the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport launched the UK town of culture, she said that

“every place has a story worth telling”,

and we have heard those stories this afternoon. I have been struck by the depth of what has resonated from hon. Members. My hon. Friend the Member for Halesowen said this is about telling the story of the past and today, but also about shaping the future. Indeed it is.

We have heard lots of wonderful stories. I will run through some of those, rather than going through what the town of culture will be about, because everyone seems to be reflecting. The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) dropped a bombshell, and told us that he tries to get Strangford into every debate—who knew? He is a great champion of Strangford. My hon. Friend the Member for Truro and Falmouth (Jayne Kirkham) talked about the history of opening up the arts to everyone —that is what the town of culture is about; it has to be about art for all—and reminded us not to forget about rural areas and those on the periphery, which I think is really important and what this is all about.

Turning to the town of Amesbury: we had heavy metal from Stonehenge, Romans and Saxons and Spın̈al Tap in a four-minute speech; who would have known we would have got there today? My hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent South (Dr Gardner) talked about “The Great Pottery Throw Down”, which I thought was more Greek than Stoke-on-Trent. She talked about the art, music, charities and heritage, and the Longton carnival in the Stoke-on-Trent area.

We heard from the hon. Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Vikki Slade) about the £60,000 of funding to help develop the approach for shortlisted candidates. It is critical that there is that support to ensure that we develop some of those. There is also £60,000 available for longlisted city of culture candidates so that they can develop their proposals. I join in congratulating Wimborne as Dorset’s town of culture 2026. I would love to visit if I possibly can, but only if I get to see “Legally Blonde: The Musical”—I will maybe go down there to do that.

My hon. Friend the Member for Southport (Patrick Hurley) talked about the Prescot Cables FC, and the story he tells is a story from many places across the country. Who would have thought that William Shakespeare, fleeing the plague, would have turned a bus stop into a playhouse for young people being trained, and for cultural heritage and outreach to schools? One of the key things he said, which drives the town of culture and the city of culture—indeed, it drives the Secretary of State and me in terms of culture across the country—is that change can happen. A big catalyst for change is arts and culture; it is a great advert. My hon. Friend also gave a great advert for Southport’s year of culture in 2026. I cannot remember the website, but I am sure it is in Hansard for everyone to refer back to.

The hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham (Sarah Green) talked about the whole competition empowering local people, and Chesham being a coiled spring champing at the bit to get their application in. Who knew that Bishop Auckland was the home of the calendar, and therefore the home of time itself? My hon. Friend the Member for Bishop Auckland (Sam Rushworth) made a reference to Laurel and Hardy, and the “Land of Hope and Glory”, which I think is a great combination to have there.

My hon. Friend the Member for Reading Central (Matt Rodda) spoke about turning the Reading Gaol into a cultural and arts centre. I think that is absolutely fantastic, bringing arts and history to life. And who knows? The car park might be a famous royal cemetery. Rather than sending the town of culture prize pot to Reading, maybe we should just send a couple of spades and a digger, and we could do it on that basis.

My hon. Friend the Member for Shipley went through all those issues, and re-emphasised the fact that Bradford, as the city of culture, had something for everyone. Crewe and Nantwich is the home of the Cheshire Archives. It is absolutely fantastic to have those there, but the key thing is arts and culture being a catalyst for town centre regeneration. I think that is key. We tend to forget that arts and culture can be that catalyst: they can bring people together and regenerate footfall in our city centres.

Finally, we heard how hotly contested this competition will be in North West Leicestershire. I am not going to look at my officials when I say this—I do not know who will actually go through the application forms, but how they are going to determine who will win is quite extraordinary, given what we have heard this afternoon and the applications. I would say, to everyone who has spoken this afternoon and to anyone who is interested in the competition, to apply. There is such a rich heritage of culture and arts in every single corner of the country—north, south, east and west. We should celebrate that, and the kinds of celebrations we could have from that can be through this competition. The competition will not just be about winning, although I am sure that all Members present today will want their own town to win; just taking part in the competition will be a big celebration of arts and culture.

I will respond to the specific question by the hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham about the timeline for the competition. For now, I can merely say that we will launch the competition very shortly. Of course the first town of culture will be in 2028, so the timeline, as Members can see for themselves, is relatively short. Consequently, we will launch the competition as soon as we possibly can.

Each place has a unique story. However, there is also a shared conviction that through culture and creative industries we can share the stories of towns, and celebrate the contribution of towns to our national story. That is why the town of culture award is so important. I thought that the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Isle of Wight East (Joe Robertson), was slightly curmudgeonly when he asked if we need a town of culture competition; I think he has heard today why we need it. Even if it is just an opportunity for local people, local arts and culture organisations and local MPs to talk about and champion their local area, that in itself is something we should champion.

Our vision for the UK town of culture competition is that the public know we see and value the contribution that towns make to our national story, and that there are benefits for all those who are able to tell their own story. At the end of the competition, a cultural programme will be delivered that draws on the best of art, heritage and creative industries, underpinned by compelling local stories that will be shaped by local people, delivered through local partnership, and designed to leave a lasting legacy through strong cultural infrastructure, increased participation in culture and the creative industries, and a renewed sense of local pride. Indeed, we know that that is what the award does. One of the key things that the Secretary of State and I are very keen to see happen is the bursting of the bubble between there being talent everywhere and opportunity not everywhere. That is something we want to build upon.

This has been a tremendously enjoyable debate and I look forward to all the applications coming in. I do not look forward to having to assess the applications, but I encourage people to get them in, because we know that our national story is not written by one city or one institution. It is not written by one town or one organisation. It is written in the places across the United Kingdom and shaped by the generations of people who have lived, worked, created and contributed there. The UK town of culture competition is an invitation to celebrate that story and invest in it, to ensure that in the future it continues to be told with creativity, confidence and pride.