Creative Industries: Stoke-on-Trent

Debate between Chris Bryant and Gareth Snell

Tuesday 8th October 2024 Westminster Hall

[Chris Bryant]

Well, I am also the Minister for tourism, so I feel as if I will be going on a tourism visit. We will see what works as the best kind of visit. I am always a little worried about trying to do too many things in one visit and then nobody gets a proper insight into anything, but we will certainly look at that. My hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central makes a good point about creative clusters. It is a key way of developing a real levelling-up strategy.

My hon. Friend’s third question was whether the creative industries will be a key part of an industrial strategy. The Government are working on this at pace, and I can assure him that we are making a strong case for the creative industries being an absolutely essential part of that strategy. I do not think Britain can have a successful future economically speaking—let alone sociologically, and in many other ways—unless that is the case, so I can assure him that it will be.

My hon. Friend asked a fourth question—I am answering all these questions directly; it won’t catch on—about whether we would have conversations with the Department for Education on the curriculum. I will not bother reading out what has been written for me—the answer is yes. We are already having those conversations. We have seen a shocking decline—in the region of 40% to 50%—in the number of students studying music, drama and art over the past 14 years, and we want to reverse that. It is not going to happen overnight, but we have to put all these subjects right back at the heart of the curriculum. That is an essential part of what we have to do.

[Gareth Snell]

I thank the Minister for responding directly to my points—I do not think that ever happened during the entire time I was last in Parliament, so the novelty is not lost on me. On the curriculum, can the Minister ensure that when that conversation happens, there is emphasis on the communities that should have access to that? I know the Minister will do that, but I want it on the record. While having art on the curriculum works fine, often, in working-class communities like mine, it is not seen as being for those people or for those communities. I know the Minister is a great advocate for communities like those we represent. Can he ensure that the DFE understands that it is no good just having art on the curriculum, and that it has to be actively encouraged in communities that ordinarily would not take it up?

[Chris Bryant]

My hon. Friend makes a very good point. It will be a complete failure for this country if the only place a student can study an art A-level is at Eton, because it has a good art teacher and art classroom and all the rest of it, or if the only place a student can throw a pot in a school is in a very middle-class area with lots of middle-class parents. I know this from my own experience: in the Rhondda and Ogmore, a vital part of what we do well for the nation is producing people who have excelled in the creative industries, but those people have often had to do so despite not having those opportunities locally. Artists such as Ernest Zobole and Charles Burton were involved in teaching locally, which is important to ensure there is a pipeline for young people who are thinking about art, drama and so on.

I would also argue, incidentally, that a creative education is a force multiplier for all other aspects of education. What is it that many employers want? They want somebody who will be able to confidently answer the phone. That self-confidence is as likely to come from having done a drama course and learned how to speak publicly, to project and use the voice and to be part of a team, or from having sung in a choir or played in an orchestra, as it is from being really good at maths. That is the kind of attitude that we need to adopt.

I do not want to stray too far into the subject areas of the Department for Education, but it is worth pointing out that what is in the national curriculum needs to be advanced in every school, not just some schools. The structure of education in England is obviously different from that in Wales, but I am conscious that we need to take these issues forward.

The main point of this debate, of course, is that the creative industries are an enormous part of our cultural and economic future. They represent £125 billion of value to the UK. My hon. Friend referred to video games, which are a fast-growing sector. Last week, I visited Ubisoft in Newcastle, which represents significant investment; large numbers of people will be working there. Exactly the same is true in Stoke. The video games industry is worth something like £7 billion in the UK now, which I confidently expect to grow in the years ahead—not least because it builds on things that we have been exceptionally good at in the UK, such as producing books, telling stories, creating characters and music and technological development. I played “Assassin’s Creed” last year, very briefly; I was not very good. However, what was fascinating was that its development used archaeologists and historians to make sure that everything that people see on the screen is perfect. That is a whole nexus of creativity that we want to develop.

Growth in this sector over the last 14 years has been higher than in the rest of the economy and we know that it will continue to be higher in the future, as long as we make the right investments and the right decisions. The creative industries sector is a large employer in the UK, employing some 2 million people.

There is nobody here from the previous Government to defend themselves, but I felt that over the last few years that the creative industries sector was denigrated a bit, as if going into the creative industries was not a proper job; ballerinas were told to retrain and things like that. That is not our attitude. We believe that the creative industries are an absolutely essential part of our future economic growth.

My hon. Friend made the point about levelling up, in a sense, although he did not use the term—maybe we need to ditch it. Nevertheless, it is an important point that there are 55 creative industries clusters and 700 micro- clusters around the UK, and this is an opportunity to ensure that that happens everywhere, because talent is everywhere but opportunity is not. That is what we really need to change and that is what our strategy will be devoted to. It is not a “nice to have”; it is absolutely essential to our economic future.

My hon. Friend referred to Stoke as the crucible of creativity, which I think is a reference to the burning of the pottery at the start of the process, although I now have the title of Arthur Miller’s play going through my head; that play slightly ruined my school days. However, he made a very important point about the World Crafts Council granting world craft city status to Stoke. When Clarice Cliff died in 1972 lots of people probably thought that she would be forgotten, but she has now been brought back, not least because of things such as “Antiques Roadshow”. Again, this is a cycle of creativity, whereby different creative industries feed off and enhance one another.

My hon. Friend also referred to video games; I think that it is Junction 15 Productions that won the Emmy for its work on the Beijing Olympics. He is quite right—the industry is worth £7 billion. As I saw in Leamington Spa, it is essential that there is close working with the local university, to ensure that there are people coming through. The course at the University of Staffordshire is world-renowned. That is a really important part of ensuring that people are coming through into the industry, because it has vacancies; in particular, it has vacancies five and 10 years in. That is an important part of the work that we need to do.

I commend the city on developing a cultural strategy for 2022-28. It has been a cross-party process; the strategy was originally introduced by Conservatives and was carried forward by Labour. I wish that every single local authority in the land—as well as the Mayors, many of whom are advancing such plans—had a similar kind of strategy, because in the end all of this has to be delivered at local level, and it is creating that ferment of excitement that enables these things to happen. I commend Stoke for that. As I said earlier, the combination of culture and tech is important; for example, making sure that there is full fibre roll-out across the whole of the city is an important part of making many modern creative industries flourish.

There was a reference to the New Vic Theatre in Newcastle-Under-Lyme. I note that Angela Carter’s “The Company of Wolves” is on at the moment and I also note that the Christmas show is “The Three Musketeers”. Indeed, the publicity for “The Three Musketeers” might be referring to my hon. Friend when it says:

“A spirited country boy arrives in the big city with big dreams”.

There we are; I think that is him to a tee.

I will just make some final points. First, as I have said, creative education is absolutely essential for what we want to achieve, and we also want to reform the apprenticeship levy so that it works much better for creative industries, and so that there is portability and flexibility. Thus far, the levy has not really worked in that regard, but we are working on it.

Secondly, I have an ambition that there should be no impediment for somebody from a working-class, ordinary background from whatever community in the UK, to consider going into the creative industries as a career. All too often, the creative industries have almost become a kind of hereditary industry, because someone can only afford to start in them by taking an unpaid post for a year or two, which is paid for by the bank of mum and dad, or if someone has a parent or another family member who has worked in that creative industry. We need to change that situation completely, so that the full talent of the whole of the UK is embraced.

Finally, we need to ensure that the product of the creative industries is accessible to all, which is about people being able to go to the theatre, going to live art events, see art in their streets and having architecture in their city that is beautiful, and which lifts and inspires. That is the ambition that we have as a Government, and Stoke is beautifully exemplifying it in its crucible.

Question put and agreed to.

Parliamentary Buildings (Restoration and Renewal) Bill (First sitting)

Debate between Chris Bryant and Gareth Snell

Committee Debate: 1st sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 4th June 2019 Public Bill Committees

[Gareth Snell]

Thank you very much, Sir Gary. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship.

Before I touch on ceramics, as predictable as I am becoming in this place, I want to lend my support to amendment 2, in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for City of Chester. We know that trade union-recognised bodies tend to be safer and that their staff tend to be happier and to get jobs done more quickly and on time, because they have a reputation to work with. We also know—this is linked in part to new clause 1 and amendment 14—that where trade union bodies are involved in the construction industry, modern-day slavery is less prevalent.

I mention that because the construction industry will freely admit that it still has a problem with tackling modern-day slavery through gang labour. The best intentioned commissioning and procurement cannot guarantee what the layers of sub-procurement down the chain will deliver. A trade union-recognised employer would be able to work with supply chains to ensure that we do not unwittingly propagate modern-day slavery through the procurement and commissioning of large-scale infrastructure works linked to this place. There are already recorded instances of public bodies, without prejudice, finding themselves receiving services from people in modern-day slavery because of the way contracts are subcontracted out.

I support my hon. Friend’s amendment 2 because, by involving trade unions with employers at an early stage of large projects, we can ensure not only that we put our money into the fabric of the building, but that we put our values into the building. That has to be an important part of how this building moves forward.

I turn to the ceramics industry. My right hon. Friend the Member for Alyn and Deeside mentioned the sums that are already being spent to keep the building going. Many hon. Members will have seen that the Minton tiles in Central Lobby, which were originally made in my constituency—in fact, by one of my predecessors, the Member for North Staffordshire in the 1870s—are being replaced, one at a time, by a wonderful company called Craven Dunnill. Where we already have skilled people on site doing remedial work, they ought to be involved in conversations now so we can work out what skills they can bring forward and how the procurement and commissioning process can be best placed. I do not mean that in the sense of helping them on a commercial basis, but they will be able to tell us what they can and cannot do and what the scope of the industry is. Because we already have a contractual working relationship with those companies, we have nothing to fear about the credibility of the advice they give.

That is why amendment 14 in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch is so important. The ceramics industry in Stoke-on-Trent can make us pretty much anything we ask for, but I would wager that very few people know that. Yes, it can make tiles, teapots and tableware, but advanced ceramics is now a wonderful way of replacing metalwork—not that I have anything against metalwork, but ceramics are longer standing and have a greater tolerance for stress. There is an opportunity to build in—[Interruption.] Well, I am not quite on commission—if I were, I would declare it.

My point is that there are sectors of the UK economy doing wonderful work that many of us do not know about. Unless we ask them up front what is possible through the procurement process, we may end up doing what, I am afraid to say, often happens with the military: they decide they want something, so they buy that something. What they actually want is something that can do a certain thing, but they do not think about what else is available. Considering what we hope to achieve at the end rather than what we want to buy may create greater scope—

[Chris Bryant]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. One of the problems in the building is that nobody has yet managed to count correctly the number of brass windows we have—it is either 4,800 or 7,200, depending on who we believe. Nobody makes those windows today, so somebody is going to have to start training people soon to try to replace them. It is the same in ceramics.

[Gareth Snell]

My hon. Friend makes a fair point. If we want something in the wall that will let in light, and that will let in cool air when it is hot and keep out cool air when it is cold, does it have to be a brass window of that design? Is there some other way of doing things? [Interruption.] We could do it in ceramics, but that might be slightly dark in daytime. We have not quite got transparent ceramics yet. The way we think about the outcomes will be important in shaping the procurement process. That is something that the Sponsor Body ought to be considering now, but with the industry alongside it, because nobody is better able to tell us what it can do than the industry itself.

I want to make a brief comment in support of amendment 14. The Public Services (Social Value) Act 2012 is a wonderful piece of legislation. It started as a private Member’s Bill, and it has allowed procurement and what we are actually paying for to be revolutionised. I urge the Government, when it comes to the point of working with the Sponsor Body, to frame how procurement should work. Yes, the cost—the value of the things that we are buying—is important, but the additional value that we can derive through the Act in the procurement process, in terms of opening up this vast investment to skills, new technologies, and research and development in different parts of the country, may have a lasting legacy beyond the jobs and employment contracts, which are very transactional. It may genuinely root changes in communities, which will benefit from this place. I will therefore be supporting the amendments.