Regional Support for the Arts

Baroness Hayman of Ullock Excerpts

Wednesday 15th July 2015 Westminster Hall

[Sue Hayman (Workington) (Lab)]

It is an honour to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Rosindell.

I have always been a strong supporter of the arts. I believe that rounded communities are important for proper education. I support local theatre, and I was delighted to see that there is a parliamentary choir, which I joined and am enjoying very much. I therefore thank the hon. Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick) for securing this debate.

My constituency, Workington in west Cumbria, has a proud history of arts, music and culture. There are a number of excellent organisations in the area that are supported by many dedicated volunteers, to whom I pay tribute today. For example, the Carnegie theatre in Workington was built and opened its doors at the turn of the last century; it holds a special place in the hearts of local people. The Kirkgate Centre in Cockermouth is a unique theatre and arts venue. Run by Kirkgate Arts, it was set up specifically to tackle the social disadvantage that comes from lack of access to arts and community services.

One thing we are good at in west Cumbria is getting arts out into local communities, which is a really important aspect of regional arts funding. Kirkgate Arts delivers “Arts Out West”, west Cumbria’s rural touring arts programme, which brings arts events to local village halls. I have benefited from its visits to my own village on many occasions. Rosehill theatre’s “Rosehill on the Road” programme takes arts into schools, and it recently did a fantastic piece of work collaborating with local schools to bring an opera to the Carnegie theatre. It was just tremendous. People say that opera is not for everyone, but I defy them not to go to see such a production.

Continuing to provide that sort of access to the arts is a real challenge, as my hon. Friend the Member for Blackley and Broughton (Graham Stringer) said. Local arts providers constantly face an uphill struggle for the funding they need. The Carnegie theatre was run by my local council, Allerdale Borough Council, but it has just been passed on to a trust so that it can access funds that the council could no longer provide because of cuts. We need to ensure that our arts facilities in the regions can develop to their full potential and secure long-term stability. That is becoming more and more difficult.

The Kirkgate Centre has great ambitions to broaden its cultural programme so that local communities can benefit even more from the wide range of high-quality performances and events it puts on. It would be much more likely to be able to deliver those ambitions if arts funding were not so disproportionately divided across the country. If there were less of a regional imbalance, areas such as mine would no longer miss out. We need to ensure that access to music and theatre is not just for people who live in big cities; I do not have a big city in my constituency. Everyone needs access to the arts, wherever they live.

Over the past few years, successive Governments, as well as the Arts Council, have acknowledged the serious imbalance in arts funding, but nothing has been done to alleviate it, the argument being that significant new funds would need to be found. As the hon. Member for Newark said, the latest figures on the funds distributed by the Arts Council show an enormous benefit to London per head of population compared with what goes to the regions. That is even further distorted because most of the regional funding goes to cities such as Manchester, not to rural communities like mine.

I am delighted that the new chief executive of the Arts Council, Darren Henley, understands the situation and has said that it should not be allowed to continue. He has pledged a significant shift in how the Arts Council invests its lottery revenue further out into the regions. Nevertheless, I fear that the areas further from the centre, such as west Cumbria, will continue to miss out, because if regional funding is provided, it gets sucked into the bigger cities within a region and does not make it out to more rural areas. We need to ensure that that does not happen.

Cumbria is often overlooked—it is a bit out on a limb, particularly west Cumbria. When he looks at the distribution of funding to the regions, I urge the Minister to work with the Arts Council to consider how we can make sure that all areas of the country are taken into account.

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On resuming—

[Sue Hayman]

As I was saying, west Cumbria needs continued access to funding, and I hope we can work to deliver that. I like to think really big for my constituency, so there is something I would like the Minister to consider. Right now, major collections in London are left undisplayed: for example, Turner’s watercolours are just stacked away, and if someone wants to see them they actually have to request permission. Why do we not consider moving some of those undisplayed works, which could be national collections, out of London and into the regions to improve cultural awareness, create jobs, increase tourism and, most of all, ensure cultural accessibility?

[John Nicolson]

Is the hon. Lady aware that a significant percentage of the Government’s secret, undisplayed art collection has gone missing? It is one of the great scandals of the Government—not of the Conservative party in particular, but of the state in general—that we do not know the location of many of those works of art. It is an extraordinary thing.

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[Sue Hayman]

I was aware that people do not know exactly where all the pieces of art that are catalogued are. I hope that my idea would help to prevent such things from happening in the future. It may even enable the Government to discover some of the lost artefacts.

Leeds, Newcastle and Manchester have all benefited from art being moved out of the capital into the regions, so why not move some to west Cumbria? The west coast of Cumbria will soon benefit from major infrastructure developments, as I am sure the Minister is aware, and with that will come investment in my constituency. Why not use some of that investment to bring about projects such as I describe, which would create a lasting cultural legacy for the area? Will the Minister consider discussing my idea with the museums and galleries to see whether we can consider such a proposal for west Cumbria and perhaps for other areas around the country?

[Mr Vaizey]

Yes.