Arts

Baroness Bakewell Excerpts

Thursday 1st February 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bakewell (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank my fellow Peer and noble friend Lord Bragg for introducing this debate. He is not in the Chamber at the moment; I think he is out in the Lobby being interviewed for television. He cannot spread the message too far and too fast. I support his proposition that the economy of this country and the well-being of its people benefit both in money and in spiritual well-being from the flourishing of the arts. As the BBC’s arts correspondent for 10 years, I documented week by week the talent and success, reputational and financial, of our outstanding arts community. I will be repeating a lot that has already been said, but repetition shows only how universally these important views are held.

State funding since the war by central and local government has underpinned much of our success and it continues to be subject to the vagaries of political volatility. That is a word we should not need to use. Before that, I should mention the consistent donations made by private individuals and families in the UK. The Blavatniks, the Ruddocks, the Rausings and the Sainsburys, and indeed the noble Lord, Lord Browne, who has just spoken, are some of the most generous but, taking the broader picture, the UK arts depend on the state as both central and local government.

Arguments in their favour are consistent and enduring. At the risk of repetition, here are some of them. The arts make money. They employ some 2.46 million people and train generations to follow. The UK has some 275 arts colleges and arts courses at further education institutions. Many of their talents go on to enjoy international reputations in the world’s galleries and museums. There is soft power: the range of Britain’s writers and its flourishing publishing industry, as we have already heard, support our reputation in universities and in cultures around the world. Our musicians and composers—a number of them have seats in this House—and the popular music industry more than hold their own in concert halls and on stages. Our established artists, who trained at any one of our 275 arts colleges, command huge rewards on the booming UK arts market, currently worth £9.7 billion. For example, the paintings of the Scottish artist Peter Doig, who studied at Central Saint Martins and Chelsea, currently command prices towards £30 million per painting at auction.

Then there are the personal and social benefits, which your Lordships have already heard spoken of several times. Millions of people visit hundreds of the UK’s museums and art galleries. Post the pandemic, theatregoers are now back to a number of around 16 million. More recently, research at Exeter University found that playing a musical instrument or singing in a choir can promote better memory skills and hence brain health in older age. Music is being used to help those with dementia.

The House has already heard and will hear more arguments and examples of how the arts benefit the UK economy, its institutions, its communities and its individuals. The arts are not a fringe activity for randomly filling in our leisure hours. Although they may do that for us individually, they are an ongoing conversation that this culture has within itself. The Government must take notice of that conversation, back it and support it. How that culture comes to define its identity and nourish the lives and happiness of all who live here depend on the arts, and the arts depend on the Government.