Arts and Creative Industries Strategy

Baroness Featherstone Excerpts

Thursday 8th December 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Featherstone (LD)]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Viscount, Lord Chandos, on bringing the debate and opening it so powerfully, and all noble Lords across the House for making a case for a strategy so ably. As always with regard to the creative sector, the most compelling, knowledgeable, logical and irrefutable arguments have been made by noble Lords across this House about the imperative for the Government to elevate creativity and the creative sector in their priorities for growth and levelling up.

Judging by the actions, not words, of this Government, the opposite is sadly true, as evidenced by a long list: 13 Secretaries of State in DCMS in as many years; the lack of cross-departmental working; the omission of arts in the EBacc; the reduction of university creative courses; the lack of protection for our creatives in negotiating Brexit; the focus on STEM not STEAM; the omission of the creative sector as one of the five priorities for growth in the Autumn Statement; the alleged interference by the Government in Arts Council funding; the delayed sector vision; and the lack of a strategy, which this debate rightly calls for.

Even the ex-but-one Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, opined:

“You know, sometimes I don’t understand what’s wrong with us. This is just about the most creative and imaginative country on earth—and yet sometimes we just don’t seem to have the gumption to exploit our intellectual property.”


It is a shame he never put his money where his mouth is. He did not have the gumption, and sadly I fear that Rishi Sunak appears to be in the same vein. He did manage to use the word “innovation” a few times, but seemingly without understanding what that actually means when it comes to investing in the creativity of our country, economic success, vision, originality and well-being. There is not only a compelling case for a strategy but a desperate need for one. Given the trouble the Government are in and our quest for growth, this is a lifebelt they really ought to grasp.

I have said before to this Government—in fact, from here, this time last year in the debate on the same subject, when the Liberal Democrats brought forward this issue; if some of my words seem familiar, it is because they are—that the following would be a good start for a creative strategy. We should get the barriers out of the way to trading and working with the EU, as we have just heard from the noble Baroness. We should educate our children properly and stop treating creative subjects like second-class citizens. We should respect and capitalise on the creative sector.

We should support and encourage our broadcast companies and recognise their irreplaceable value as the second-largest exporter of television programmes and formats in the world. We should support the BBC rather than undermining it and stop trying to sell off Channel 4. We should feed the ecosystem that spawns new and emerging talent, as well as being financially successful. We should ensure that broadcasters have continuing access to European platforms.

We should invest equally in STEM and STEAM. We should fight for rights for intellectual property. We should recognise the part played by creative courses in the innovation economy, ensuring that policies are retained and enhanced. We should support the freelancers, sole traders, part-timers and those with a portfolio of roles who people the creative industries, and ensure that the tax and welfare systems support them to thrive and earn well.

We should understand the contribution the advertising industry makes to our economy and how much of that relies on creatives. We should intensify and strengthen our creative core by promoting creative subjects in schools, further education and university. We should ask Ofsted to monitor the curriculum so that no school can easily drop music, art and drama. We should encourage institutions and businesses to collaborate with schools to provide cultural education and offer high-quality careers advice. We should make sure that high-quality apprenticeships are offered in the creative and digital industries, and get a grip on the pathways needed for screen skills.

We should promote the value of live events in small and large public venues, regional theatres, local halls and festivals across the country, and much more. Look at our gaming industry, which has been mentioned by many noble Lords. Look at the streamers streaming in; at our BBC, our designers, our musicians and so on. We in this country have a unique ability to create, to bring forward the new and produce the brilliant. Sadly, our innovators get snapped up by other countries, which put their investment into creative education. Look at Singapore; look at China.

We have heard from all parts of this House that the Government need to turbocharge their level of commitment to the creative sector. The low esteem in which creativity is held by this Government is unbearable, insulting and, more than that, plain stupid. The Secretary of State said the following in a letter to the Office for Students:

“Courses that are not among the Government’s strategic priorities—covering subjects in music, dance, drama and performing arts: art and design, media studies and archology are to be subject to a reduction of 50%”


That contempt was again on display in the way the Government negotiated Brexit. Just take music, for example. Our music industry, as has been said, contributed £5.8 billion to the economy in 2019. Brexit completely undermined our touring musicians and performers, but no thought was even given to that during the negotiations. I could go on and on—indeed, I am—but the point I am trying to drive home is that the Government have signalled clearly, at home and to the world, that the UK creative sector is not a priority and not important.

As several contributors have mentioned, the current inquiry of the Communications and Digital Committee, which will report shortly on our inquiry into the creative industry, has done excellent work under the stewardship of the noble Baroness, Lady Stowell of Beeston, on this very issue. We have looked across the world and at the digital world ahead, and I have no doubt we will conclude that the vision, understanding, promotion and priority that the Government give to the creative sector is lacking.

Creativity is our secret weapon, our soft-power success. My noble friend Lord Foster of Bath pointed out that the creative sector’s economic contribution to our economy is bigger than that of the oil, gas, aerospace, life sciences and automotive sectors combined. That is enormous. How crazy it is that the various departments that bear responsibility for parts of that agenda have such poor cross-departmental working.

My noble friend Lord Storey highlighted that the Government expect 90% of students to do an EBacc, which means there will be almost no one studying the arts. My noble friend Lord Shipley emphasised how crucial school education and the national curriculum are to cultural subjects.

A number of companies and organisations have been fathoming out our future requirements. McKinsey’s 2018 report, Automation and the Workforce of the Future, demonstrated that creativity, critical thinking, decision-making and complex information processing are going to grow in coming years, from an already high base. According to Realizing 2030: a Divided Vision of the Future, a report by Dell Technologies and the Institute for the Future of Jobs, 85% of the jobs that will exist in 2030 have not even been invented yet, while 56% of business leaders say that schools will need to teach how to learn rather than what to learn, in order to prepare for that.

This is a critical moment of both opportunity and necessity to build back better and level up by using the talents of the most precious commodity we have: our human capital, our unique and original thinkers. However, it is also the moment of greatest jeopardy, because, if the Government fail to heed the wise words in this debate, they cannot deliver.