Arts and Creative Industries

Chris Heaton-Harris Excerpts

Wednesday 19th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Maria Miller]

The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. It is vital that we ensure that the money available goes to the places that need it most. The Arts Council, as an arm’s length body, makes those decisions independently of the Government. We must take into account the importance of ensuring that the money gets to those areas, and particularly to rural areas, which can find it difficult to have sustainable arts programmes.

[Chris Heaton-Harris (Daventry) (Con)]

I must declare an interest as chairman of the Northampton Theatres Trust, which has a £7.5 million turnover. We receive Arts Council funding, for which we are eternally grateful. We all love regional theatre and the culture that it brings to towns across the country. I know that the Arts Council is an arm’s length body, but why should it fund two national opera companies in London, when if it funded just one, there would be plenty of money for regional theatre across the country?

[Maria Miller]

I understand my hon. Friend’s frustration, but the national institutions that are located in our capital city do much to support regional organisations both by supplying them with talented people and by training people from the regions. He makes the important point that regional culture, and theatre in particular, needs the right level of funding. I hope that he supports the work that we are doing to ensure that that happens.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Heaton-Harris (Daventry) (Con)]

I begin by associating myself with what the Chairman of the Culture, Media and Sport Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Maldon (Mr Whittingdale), said on the Opposition motion, which I did not have an issue with, and with what he said on the need to maintain our strong position on intellectual property.

The debate takes place at a time when “austerity” is the buzz word. Austerity is not a bad policy, but rather the result of previous bad policies. I therefore congratulate the Secretary of State on the funding settlement she managed to achieve. Many people from the arts to whom I have spoken are, like the rest of British society, fully aware that money is tight, and that they need to do their bit to help to eliminate the deficit.

I should declare some interests. I am the vice-chairman of the all-party group on dance. I have a specific dance style—it is a bit like a spider trapped in a sink—but I will be appearing in “Strictly Daventry” on 5 July, should any hon. Members wish to come and see said style. Tickets are available online or from me afterwards.

I am also the chairman of the Northampton Theatres Trust and will spend the rest of my contribution talking about regional theatre.

The Northampton Theatres Trust has the huge Royal and Derngate theatre complex, which contains two theatres and a cinema that is just about to open. In fact, “Summer in February” will be on tomorrow as its first show. The Royal, an old-fashioned theatre, has a 583-seat capacity. The Derngate has a capacity of 12,000 seats and is a multi-purpose auditorium that can be configured for a variety of events, including theatre, opera, live music, dance, fashion and sports. Like many regional theatres, it is abuzz; it is alive with talent and fantastic creativity.

I want to demonstrate how important the theatres are to the local economy. Not long ago, in 2005, the theatres were closed for an 18-month, £14.5 million redevelopment, which saw the merging of the two venues. I reiterate that it is a fantastic complex. While the theatres were shut, the local economy of the area suffered, including the restaurants and even the local council because of the lack of parking revenues. Everybody suffered because the knock-on effect of the theatres on the local economy is so large. We must take that into account when we talk about regional theatre.

From 2006 to 2013, we had a fantastic regional artistic director in Laurie Sansom. We now have an even better one in James Dacre. To prove how important regional theatre is, in 2012-13, the Royal and Derngate presented 767 performances and welcomed 236,000 audience members, which is up a couple of thousand on the previous year. Of those, 89,000 were young people, which is up from 50,000 in the previous year. We delivered activities in schools, from drama and dance workshops to residencies by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, which reached 10,000 young people. We work closely with the university of Northampton and hope to do more with it in the future. We employ 58 full-time staff and 99 part-time staff. We are part of the big society, with 127 volunteers providing 9,228 hours of voluntary support.

The income of the theatres is £7.6 million, so this is not an insignificant business. Of that income, 73% is earned income—something we want to improve—14% comes from the Arts Council and 11% comes from the local authorities, which are doing their bit. I want to thank Northampton borough council and Northamptonshire county council very much. Only 2% of our income comes from sponsorship, trusts and individual donations, which is something else that we want to improve.

We need to talk about balance and culture, but many fantastic things are going on in regional theatres up and down the country already. We should not knock them and should always be there to praise them. It has been said that there are not many decent actors from the midlands. Well, Alan Carr, who may not be an actor but is a very good comedian, and Matt Smith are just two of the people who come from Northampton. I am sure that there are millions more people like them across the midlands. That is why we need strong regional theatres in which they can perform.