Olympic Games 2012: Legacy

Baroness Benjamin Excerpts

Thursday 24th January 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Benjamin]

My Lords, I too congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Mawson, on securing this important debate and his comprehensive opening speech.

Any consideration of an Olympic legacy that does not give a high priority to children will be seriously flawed. Childhood lasts a lifetime and what we deliver for them today at the early stages will influence their lives for ever. In the Government’s legacy plan, one of its five aims is to inspire a generation of young people to take part in local volunteering and in cultural and physical activities. The role of the arts and creative industries in delivering a lasting Olympic legacy should be to inspire a generation of children, as well as young people, to take part in the arts.

Every child should be able to take part in the same artistic activities that we enjoy as adults, but truly to share in that same experience and reap the benefits they need not only their own books but plays, films and music, created for them by artists who know how to fire up their imaginations. This is a vital part of their growing up and a preparation for their adult lives. The arts and creative industries must do more for children than they do for adults. Children should not just be expected to sit and watch. The creative industries have to put on plays for them but also give them opportunities to put on their own plays. They should not just publish books for them but also encourage them to write their own stories and poems through competitions and campaigns, such as the ones set up by Booktrust.

The creative arts have to bring children into museums and art galleries, and let them paint, draw and have hands-on participation. They should be brought into concert halls, where they can make music and dance. Children need twice as much to stimulate their fresh, impressionable minds and to create that wonderful feeling of experiencing things for the first time. But more often than not that is not the case.

In a debate last year, I spoke about the freedom of information request made by the charity Action for Children’s Arts. I am a patron of this charity and declare an interest. It showed that most of the UK’s major arts organisations spend far less on producing work aimed specifically at children—in most cases only around 1% of their total budget—than they do on work for adults. With a heavy heart I say that today, of the £337 million in grants that Arts Council England will give next year to the 688 organisations that it supports, just over 2% will go to organisations producing work specifically for children. Fifty-one organisations will receive grants ranging from £1 million to £25 million but only one of them, London’s fantastic Unicorn Theatre, produces work exclusively for children. What kind of legacy will this type of policy produce?

Children need more, yet we give them less. They depend more than any other population group on services in their local community, services provided by charities as well as local authorities. That includes after-school clubs, nurseries, parks which offer sporting activities, such as those provided by the Mappin Group’s parks and community project, music clubs, such as the World Heart Beat Music Academy, and of course libraries, many of which are being threatened by cuts.

“Please sir, I want some more”, but Oliver’s plea was turned down, and that is when the real problems started. In the current economic climate, asking for more is particularly difficult. Where is it to come from? Children’s arts organisations are often underfunded and understaffed. They lack the time and expertise to go in search of funds from the private sector. They are wholly dependent on public funding and, like Oliver, are apt to find themselves at the mercy of the beadle.

Last year, the Action for Children’s Arts conference called for arts organisations and the arts funding system to put children first. I am making that plea once again. For if we really want to secure a lasting legacy from the Olympics, we have no choice but to put children first. Action for Children’s Arts has two proposals to make: first, to create an Olympic legacy working group, made up of leaders from the arts and creative industries, with a brief to identify ways of integrating work for children into the output of their organisations; and secondly, that arts funding bodies be asked to evaluate the extent to which their existing policies for children encourage artists and arts organisations to create original works for this age group. So I ask my noble friend: will the Government support these proposals and, if so, what practical steps will they take to facilitate them?

All children need beauty around them, but those from disadvantaged backgrounds, whose lives revolve around gang and drug culture, do not have any exposure to creativity, so they need it more than ever. They need to be able to channel their energy creatively, artistically and positively to feel that they belong and have a part to play in their community and their society, giving them the opportunity to create a legacy that they can pass on to their own children. Surely this is what we all want for all children, so let us make sure it happens and that we do not miss this opportunity that the successful London Olympics have given our great country. A nation is judged by the way it provides for its children, the future. We must not let them down, so let us give children more.