Queen’s Speech

Baroness Bonham-Carter of Yarnbury Excerpts

Tuesday 18th May 2021 Lords Chamber

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

I join in congratulating the noble Baroness, Lady Fullbrook, on her maiden speech.

The Government say they want to build back better— an aim we share, as we do levelling up—but I have a major concern, already mentioned by my noble friend Lord Paddick. There is a deafening silence about the creative and cultural sector, whose contribution to the economy was £111.7 billion pre pandemic. Its huge contribution to well-being is not so easily demonstrated through figures, but we all know it to be true. It is a sector whose very nature is about levelling—about the communality of humanity—and it is a sector for which Covid has been nothing less than catastrophic. While the Government have been generous with their rescue packages, there is much that has left a terrible legacy.

First, there is the effect on individuals. The vast majority of cultural workers are self-employed; they are the ones who fell through the gap and who have largely found themselves ineligible for the support on offer. This has led to a damaging migration of people from the creative workforce. The Government’s skills agenda must recognise this and, in particular, that those hardest hit have been from lower-income, diverse and disabled communities. Does the Minister not agree that addressing this is an essential part of levelling up?

Secondly, live events were inevitably particularly affected. Help is at hand—introduce a Government-backed insurance scheme, as has been done for TV and film. But the Secretary of State has provided a positively Catch-22 response to this request: no support until live events are possible again and it becomes clear, which it will, that they cannot happen because of insurance market failure. This is too late. Live events involve planning; it is not a matter of switch on, switch off. Does the noble Baroness not agree that an indemnity insurance scheme should be put in place right now? It is not expenditure but investment.

Then there is the major problem faced over touring. Here, the restrictions of Covid have been exacerbated by the fact that the creative sector was dealt a no-deal Brexit. Can the Minister report on progress towards achieving a bespoke visa waiver agreement with the EU and bilateral agreements with member states that do not offer cultural exemptions?

Returning to skills, the acquiring of a skill begins at school, but successive Conservative Governments consistently and persistently undervalue and undermine arts education, first via the EBacc, then via proposals to scrap the performing arts BTEC, and now HE and the announcement that there is to be a 50% funding cut to arts subjects. “STEM not STEAM” has been the mantra—totally ignoring the fact that there should not be a choice between arts and science: they are symbiotic. The success of the iPhone is as much about the design genius of the UK’s own Sir Jonathan Ive as the tech genius of Steve Jobs, yet this Government say that arts subjects are not strategic priorities. This is the same Government whose industrial strategy prizes the creative industries as a “priority sector”. This is baffling. Can the Minister explain the disconnect? Will she listen to the words of the noble Lord, Lord Bichard, last week that the cuts are “misguided and ill judged”?

Finally, among the most successful drivers of our world-beating creative sector are our PSBs, in particular the BBC. PSBs held us together during the pandemic, providing news that people could trust and, in the case of the BBC, essential support for home schooling. What the PSBs need is prominence extended to all digital TV platforms. What they do not need is an underfunded BBC and a privatised Channel 4. This is a world-leading sector that we have. Global Britain needs it—so support it, do not unravel it. Culture, creativity and our public service broadcasters will be central to getting us through this next period, both the recovery and the renewal.