Covid-19: Cultural and Creative Industries

Baroness Bonham-Carter of Yarnbury Excerpts

Monday 26th October 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

The noble Lord is right that culture and the arts play an important part in our mental health and sense of well-being. That is why we have worked so hard with the sector, providing guidance on reopening; we are now permitting indoor performances with socially distanced audiences. We continue to look at a variety of ways, including wider use of testing and better ventilation so that we can achieve exactly what the noble Lord hopes for.

[Baroness Bonham-Carter of Yarnbury (LD) [V]]

I join the noble Lord, Lord Colgrain, in thanking the noble Baroness’s department, Arts Council England and others for the grants and funding given during this crisis. However, a major stumbling block for those wanting to put on live events or planning them for the future is the availability of affordable contingency insurance. I know the noble Baroness has been asked this before, but please could she and her department work with theatres, venues and insurers to get a solution in place? A precedent exists in the form of cover that was needed for terrorism acts insurance in the 1990s and early 2000s, when the Government stepped in and intervened.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

Again, I thank the noble Baroness for her kind words regarding the Cultural Recovery Fund. With regard to government-backed insurance, particularly for theatres, the same applies across the arts. There is a very high bar for intervention in the insurance market, and the Government would need to be absolutely clear that access to insurance is the remaining obstacle to reopening if they were to intervene. However, we continue to work with UK Theatre and colleagues in the Treasury and others so that we leave no stone unturned.