Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport

Christian Matheson Excerpts

Wednesday 10th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Christian Matheson (City of Chester) (Lab)]

I thank all hon. and right hon. Members who have taken part in the debate so far, particularly my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan), my right hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell), and my hon. Friends the Members for Easington (Grahame Morris) and for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Steve McCabe). Let me praise the Chair of the Select Committee, the hon. Member for Solihull (Julian Knight)—he is a Chester lad, of course—for his introduction, which I thought touched on so many of the issues.

We have heard from Members across the House that the creative, culture and tourist industries have been some of the worst hit by the pandemic. Tourism and the rich cultural scene that Britain has to offer will be a crucial part not only of our economic recovery, but of the recovery of our mental health and wellbeing, yet the Government have still failed to meet their promise to do “whatever it takes” to support these sectors fully. Throughout the pandemic, this Government have been the masters of self-promotion, with grand announcements that in reality fall short of the supply needed or of what was initially promised. Too often the funds allocated have not reached the businesses or people that need them the most. The Chair of the Select Committee hinted that his Committee might be looking at that in future.

There are some aspects of the Government’s support schemes that we welcomed. For example, we welcomed efforts to support the print media through Government advertising, even if the adverts themselves were too party political, often featuring pictures of the Chancellor —no surprise there—and even if not enough effort was made to get the financial support through to smaller, local and independent news outlets. Similarly, we welcomed support for the commercial radio stations during the pandemic, which also saw advertising revenues collapse. Again, more of that money might have gone to the genuine independent local stations, but we will not be too critical.

We know, for example, that the Government’s insurance support scheme has assisted film and TV production to get back under way, and we welcome that. My hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff West talked about insurance for live music, and he was echoed by the hon. Members for Folkestone and Hythe (Damian Collins) and for Winchester (Steve Brine), who talked about festivals. Again, I pay tribute to the Minister for Media and Data, who is not in his place today, for his work, both when he was out of government and now back in office, on journalistic freedom and the protection of journalists. It is just a shame that the Prime Minister and other Ministers have spoken so disparagingly of journalists in recent weeks.

Of course, we welcome the culture recovery fund as far as it goes, with the usual criticism that by and large it supports buildings, not people. Did you notice, Madam Deputy Speaker, how last week’s CRF announcement, preceding the Budget of course—let us face it, most of the Budget preceded the actual Budget announcement—included a whole host of endorsements from leading institutions in the cultural sector? Surely each one was entirely spontaneous! Surely they were not all co-ordinated by Tory Ministers! It was almost as if these institutions had been lined up and told to sign off and provide a supportive quote in order to get the CRF money from the Government and the Chancellor, because for him it is all in the presentation.

Talking of presentation, last week my hon. Friend the Member for Wirral South (Alison McGovern) remarked on the Chancellor’s commitments to the creative sector in a notable contribution reflecting on his talents for self-promotion, and who could blame the Chancellor for wanting to hide reality behind flash presentation when that reality is a miserable, below-inflation, 1% pay rise for NHS nurses? Today, we can add another artistic string to the Chancellor’s bow—acting. His Oscar-winning performance clapping for the NHS outside 11 Downing Street may have hoodwinked many at the time, but the reality is now out in the open. It was all for show, and no BAFTA-winning acting performance will cover up such a level of misdirection and misappropriation. People are seeing through it.

Of course, the extension to the culture recovery fund is welcome. However, we must remember that these sectors are not just heritage buildings and historic theatres; behind each building, there are hundreds of jobs that need saving, and some of these individuals have not seen any income since the beginning of the pandemic. I spoke recently to one BAFTA-winning filmmaker who, in her own words, was ready to “throw in the towel” and leave the sector because of a lack of income.

Almost a year on from the beginning of the first national lockdown, and even with the Government’s slight adjustment from the Budget last week, millions of self-employed people across the country remain excluded from any Government support schemes. A big number of them work within the creative sectors. That is a whole year without the work that they love; a year of uncertainty and struggles with mental health; a year of not knowing what, or when, their next job is going to be; and a year of being ignored by the Government. Hon. Members across the House have referred to this in today’s debate, including the Chair of the Select Committee, the hon. Member for Solihull, and the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill).

I commend the freelancers’ charter and the news recovery plan, both produced by the National Union of Journalists, and ask that Ministers take on board what the NUJ has proposed; my hon. Friend the Member for Easington made reference to that. My hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff West talked about the importance of supporting freelance musicians, and my right hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) referred to the work that Equity has done on supporting actors in getting back to work.

Britain has some of the best culture and tourism that the world has to offer. We need the creative and cultural sector to recover and grow our economy. As a whole, DCMS businesses, excluding tourism, contributed £224 billion to the UK in 2018. A s the hon. Member for Clacton (Giles Watling) said, we would not have an NHS without our cultural funds, which make up 12% of the economy. Creative businesses’ exports are worth £36 billion worldwide, up 7.5% on the previous year, meaning that growth is five times that of the British economy as a whole. More importantly, after we have been starved of so much of what the creative industries have to offer for over a year, the creative sector will be a big part of the recovery of the nation’s wellbeing.

There is nothing in these estimates to make up for the terrible Brexit deal that the Government have imposed on the cultural sectors. I am going to have to contradict my good friend, the spokesman for the SNP, the hon. Member for Ochil and South Perthshire (John Nicolson): I am quite happy to talk about the Government’s failures on their own Brexit deal. With that disastrous deal, the Government have all but curtailed touring in the EU by UK performers and artists and their support crews, and likewise for EU artists and performers who want to come here, as the Chair of the Select Committee referred to. It reduces our artists’ opportunity to work and earn abroad, and it also reduces the chance to promote British artistic values and achievement abroad, but it seems this Government care nothing for promoting Britain and British culture abroad. As is always the case with the Government, it is hard-line, crackpot Brexit ideology first, everything else second, regardless of the human and economic cost—mislead the British public and try, as usual, to blame the EU for everything. The British public are starting to see through their failings and half-truths as the reality of the hard Brexit—or, as some hon. Members suggested, no-deal Brexit—in the creative sectors starts to bite. As the pandemic eases, that awful reality will become only more evident.

The Minister has been personally supportive when he has engaged with me on sporting matters relating to my constituency. Other hon. Members have also said that they have been able to engage with him, and I pay tribute to him for that. Of course, we are still waiting for the much-promised fan-led review of football, and we want to see the national plan for wellbeing, including participation in sport. As we come out of the pandemic, we need to fast-track measures to get people involved in grassroots sport for their physical and mental health, as my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Steve McCabe) has referred to.

On digital, we know that the Government are lagging behind in their efforts to roll out fibre broadband. Ofcom has reported that adults are spending an average of four hours a day online, the highest number on record, and the number of adults using video calling software has doubled—don’t we all know it, Madam Deputy Speaker? Hon. Members from across the House have talked about the lack of decent broadband in their areas: the hon. Member for West Dorset (Chris Loder), whose constituency is in a rural area, the hon. Member for Southend West (Sir David Amess), and my next-door neighbour the hon. Member for Eddisbury (Edward Timpson), who knows rural Cheshire very well, have all mentioned this issue.

The shift online has emphasised the digital divide that exists in our country, which is not just geographic. There are 1.9 million households with no access to the internet, and tens of millions more reliant on pay-as-you-go services to make calls and access healthcare, education and benefits online. This divide has led to children having to do their homework in fast food restaurants in order to access wi-fi, and parents having to choose between buying data or food. Meanwhile, we await the Government’s online safety Bill, which still will not tackle the dominance of big tech companies. We have seen the Secretary of State being pushed around by Sir Nick Clegg and Facebook, refusing to include a firm commitment to director-level responsibility in the online safety Bill and then, like a playground weakling, only piling in against big tech when most of the hard work to challenge the power of online media had already been done by Australia. There is still no commitment to work with Governments across the world to rein in this antidemocratic transnational force, which also damages our domestic media, as my hon. Friend the Member for Easington suggested.

Charities have suffered greatly during the pandemic. The charity deficit for this financial year is expected to exceed £10 billion, with the sector predicting 60,000 job losses. Despite a funding package announced last April, many in the sector are still struggling, with the second lockdown likely to hit fundraising opportunities. Charities deliver so many of our public services and they must be supported while restrictions continue, but it seems that the only interest that the Government have in our charitable sector is as a mechanism for the Prime Minister getting somebody else to pay for his new kitchen and wallpaper.

Talking of charities, let us not forget Age Concern’s advice about loneliness being exacerbated by the Government’s decision to remove the free TV licence for the over-75s. The Government are still hiding behind the BBC, too craven and dishonest to stand up and justify their own policy. But they are responsible for removing the TV licences, not the BBC. I had hoped that there would be something in the Budget and in these estimates to make good this Tory betrayal of pensioners, but sadly not.

Throughout the pandemic, there seems to be a clear pattern emerging of big announcements and promises of funding that for one reason or another does not reach the businesses or the people that need it. Making announcements is not enough to save the cultural and creative businesses, especially the many self-employed and freelance people who work in our cultural economy, as hon. Members across the House have mentioned in the debate.

Although the extensions and promises of funding are welcome, the Government must look at this again to ensure that DCMS businesses and people in those sectors are properly supported. Without them, our recovery from the pandemic will be very bleak. People want life after the pandemic, and that life is provided by the creative and cultural sector. Let us hope that it is still there to breathe life back into our society when we put the pandemic behind us.