Arts

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Thursday 1st February 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the powerful contribution of the noble Lord, Lord Cashman, and join the universal thanks to the noble Lord, Lord Bragg, for securing this debate and introducing it so powerfully. It is worth focusing on his key message that the arts feed us. They are to our physical, emotional and intellectual benefit. However, rather than cake, we should look at them as bread—one of the staffs of life.

I shall focus on the importance of that staff being available to all communities, as did the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans in noting the near collapse of provision in Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire, particularly in opportunities for people to participate in the arts. For the Green Party, that must be the foundation of arts policy: focusing not on what people purchase—Hollywood movies or blockbuster exhibitions —but on what they participate in or jointly create. We know that that is of great public interest, in the best sense.

To take an example that noble Lords may be aware of, there is currently a giant furore around Suffolk County Council’s decision to deliver a 100% cut to core arts funding. This has even penetrated the London-centric mainstream media bubble. We have to acknowledge the long-term impact of more than a decade of government austerity on local government—and I declare my position as a vice-president of the Local Government Association. The foundational blame lies in Westminster. But the local decision is still indefensible and has since, to a degree, been reversed, although the outcome is yet to be finalised. However, a partial climbdown by the county council leaves hugely valued local institutions, such as DanceEast and the New Wolsey Theatre, without the kind of certainty needed to securely continue to deliver hugely valued community services. The mother of 15 year-old Jack, who has autism, told Channel 4 how much a weekly drama class had brought him out of his shell. “I absolutely love them”, Jack told Channel 4’s reporter.

Noble Lords will be aware that I work across many issues in your Lordships’ House. In health debates, we often hear that the Government understand and value the increasing contribution to health of social prescribing, which enables people to access dance, theatre and other creative arts as a way of caring for them and improving their health and lives. Yet Ipswich, where one-third of children live in poverty, faces a collapse of such provision, which can only put more costs on to our struggling NHS and take away that essential food to set children up for a healthy life.

Finally, I step away from my main focus to comment on the contribution of the noble Lord, Lord Vaizey, who is not currently in his place, and disagree in the strongest terms with him about the relationship between BP and the British Museum. As the campaign group Culture Unstained said, this is “completely indefensible”. Greenwashing and artwashing do not clean the hands of companies such as BP, but they do damage the reputation, the standing and the world’s view of institutions that enable that effort at greenwashing.

To comment further on the noble Lord embrace of philanthropy, relying on philanthropy as a foundation to keep our institutions going means that a tiny number of people get a big say in the direction of those institutions—the subjects they tackle and the kind of work they support. How much better it would be to ensure that big companies and rich individuals pay their taxes and we all democratically decide how to allocate the funding. If we want arts that embrace and show the way to change, rather than simply seek to reinforce the status quo, we need democratically decided funding for them.