Queen’s Speech

Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall Excerpts

Tuesday 15th May 2012 Lords Chamber

[Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall]

My Lords, isn’t it nice not to be talking about ourselves? I remind the House that my interests include involvement with a number of performing arts organisations, including the Royal Shakespeare Company and the Roundhouse Trust. I mention that because despite the portmanteau title of today's section of the debate, the gracious Speech in fact has nothing explicitly to say about culture, and certainly not about the arts. When the noble Lord, Lord McNally, introduced the debate, he omitted to mention that culture was even part of today’s debate. Go figure. This is no surprise because I cannot recall when a gracious Speech ever did say anything explicitly about culture.

It is not surprising but it is revealing. In this country we have tended to have an ambivalent attitude to our cultural life and heritage, sometimes congratulating ourselves heartily on the success of our artists, our tourist attractions, our theatre, our historic buildings and our vibrant museums and galleries and, at other times, we appear to view art, artists and cultural endeavour as variously marginal, frequently ridiculous, an unjustified drain on the public purse and not a proper job. Having worked my whole life in the performing arts, I know well how dispiriting indifference can feel to those for whom making a career in what we now call the cultural industries means years of demanding training followed by mostly under-remunerated employment in a fiercely competitive market, in order, not only to provide pleasure and entertainment for other people but often also to contribute valuable work in education, health, prisons, as mentioned earlier, and elsewhere. Glamorous it mostly ain't.

I want to salute our artists, everyone from Oscar and Turner prize winners through to those about to graduate from our colleges and conservatoires. We need them and they do us proud. Just because the gracious Speech says nothing about culture, it certainly does not mean that there is nothing to say; in fact, just now there is rather a lot to say, but the speakers’ list is long, and we are all aiming to be brief, so, hedgehog-like, I have just one big point.

From the moment when the coalition Government took office in 2010, it was clear that the public sector was in for a rough ride. To be fair, things would probably have been pretty tough if my party had been re-elected, but not because the UK economy had been uniquely mismanaged, as we are repeatedly told from the Benches opposite, but because the world economy had suffered a traumatic shock from which, as we can see all too clearly today, it is still struggling to recover. In these circumstances, no sector in receipt of public funds could expect to escape unscathed. The cultural sector certainly had no such expectations, and in the wake of a challenging spending round in 2010, Arts Council England undertook, very scrupulously, the painful task of reorganising its portfolio of support, along the way reducing or withdrawing funds to many successful organisations. Local authorities followed suit, faced with their own budget restrictions, and the net result, now that the impact of these decisions is kicking in, is serious damage to the provision of arts and culture right across the country. I could list all the losses suffered but I will not. I hope that the noble Earl, Lord Clancarty, may do some of that for me. However, I will say this: it is easy to take things apart but much more difficult to build them up again. To quote the song:

“Don't it always seem to go,

That you don't know what you've got

‘Til it's gone”.

At the time of the election, this Government, in the person of the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, Mr Jeremy Hunt, told the arts sector that, despite the inevitability of reduced government funding, help was at hand. He had a plan and it was called philanthropy. The then bright-eyed and bushy tailed Mr Hunt—tail a bit straggly now and eye a bit dull—was convinced that, given a little encouragement, huge new resources could be released from the private sector to fill the gap. Does that sound familiar? Some of us, veterans of many years spent developing the delicately balanced mixed economy which keeps our cultural sector lively, were a little sceptical, but nobody wanted to rain on his parade, except, as it turns out, his right honourable colleague the Chancellor of the Exchequer. In this year's rather accident-prone Budget, Mr Osborne chose to introduce a cap on charitable donations so that there is now an active disincentive on major donors to give. Many cultural institutions already rely heavily on such donors, including perhaps some of those who do the good work mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Stedman-Scott. Worse, the Chancellor, supported, to my great surprise and dismay, by Polly Toynbee but by few others, carelessly implied, in his attempts to justify this curious bit of double-think, that giving generously to charity is just a form of tax avoidance. That was at best inept. I could put it more pungently as, in fact, the director of the National Theatre, Nicholas Hytner, put it when he referred to major donors in a recent article in the Guardian. He wrote:

“It is frankly slanderous to suggest that any of them are involved in tax avoidance. It is also ridiculous. To qualify for tax relief of £2,500, a higher-rate (40%) taxpayer … would be down £7,500. Call me a financial illiterate, but I can't see what's been avoided here—and many wealthy philanthropists give millions away each year”.

He went on to say:

“Unsurprisingly, a number of donors are having to reconsider what they hoped to be able to give”.

I am reliably informed that this damaging effect of the Chancellor's extraordinary decision is spreading.

Those who give generously to charities, including the arts, doubtless do so for a variety of reasons, but of all the many motives that may be in play I am quite sure that securing a tax benefit is rarely, if ever, the main one because, as Nick Hytner points out, there is little such benefit to these individuals who have, over the years, helped to make possible the creation of some of our finest buildings and our most innovative creative programmes. It is preposterous, and demeaning, to brand as tax avoiders people such as Dame Vivien Duffield or the Sainsbury family, or the one I know best, Sir Torquil Norman, who not only persuaded many generous people to contribute to his brilliant reinvention of the Roundhouse in North London as a creative centre for young people but also put millions of his own money into the project. He and others like him have done nothing at all to deserve the slur that has been cast upon them. Who could blame them if they chose to take their bats and balls home, although I suspect that they will try to find another way forward being, in the main, resilient and thoughtful people.

The Government are entitled to look at every option for maximising tax revenue, and should do so, but on this occasion they appear to have scored a notable own goal, discouraging the very people whose support they can least afford to lose. Like Hamlet, they have shot an arrow over the house and hurt their brothers. When the Minister replies perhaps he can say what the Government intend to do to right this wrong.