Creative Sector

Earl of Clancarty Excerpts

Thursday 4th November 2021 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Clancarty (CB)]

I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Featherstone, on an excellent and comprehensive speech. I also congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Spencer of Alresford, on his fine and absorbing speech.

I will focus on two areas: the arts and arts education. Among some excellent briefings, I was struck most immediately by the frightening figures that Equity quotes about the long-term funding of the arts in the UK: that public funding for the arts, per head of the population, has dropped by 35% since 2008, and local government funding has dropped by 43% in the same period. According to Eurostat, in 2019 we ranked second from bottom of all European countries for spend on cultural services as a percentage of GDP, with only Greece below us. Greece’s situation is understandable; ours is not. These are appalling cuts.

However, I cannot help wondering—perhaps I am going against the grain here—whether the formulation of the creative industries map in 1998 by the noble Lord, Lord Smith, exciting at the time, has in the longer run proved something of a double-edged sword for the arts, which to an extent have been subsumed within that economic grouping. This is not to deny the usefulness of that grouping, but we should not lose sight of the arts as a core entity, albeit fuzzy around the edges.

The arts are not just significant economically, as the rest of the creative industries are; alongside our state media they are an integral aspect of the democracy of this country. It is hugely important that healthy, state-funded arts and media are managed independently, and that the Government of the day properly maintain an arm’s-length distance from both. It is important to restate this principle at a time when there are concerns about the erosion of democracy in our country.

The arts have taken a massive hit with Covid. UK Music reports the loss of 69,000 workers—over a third of music’s workforce. Music has significantly contracted because of its dependence on live events, but musicians and many others have also fallen and continue to fall through the gaps in support. I thank the Government for the recent meeting for Peers on employment in the creative industries, which the Minister attended. I point out that work in the arts is vocational. For most people who are forced to find other work, it will be a second choice.

The Government have announced some welcome rebuilding measures, but much more is required. The Culture Recovery Fund should be extended. The apprenticeship levy needs to be more flexible for the creative sector, as others have pointed out. The Government should rethink increasing VAT on tickets back to 20% in April next year. Recovery will not be fast for the arts.

But, in the long run, Brexit will be the major problem, and it already is. We have heard the OBR’s predictions of the extent of the greater damage it is likely to cause to the economy as a whole, compared to Covid. At no point when signing an agreement with the EU did this Government take the needs of services, including the creative economy, into account. For the performing and visual arts and fashion, mobility is crucial.

Will the Government take note of the three types of action that they must take, as set out by the House of Lords European Affairs Committee in its letter to the noble Lord, Lord Frost, on 29 October? The first concerns what the Government should do in negotiation with the EU, including a visa waiver agreement, cabotage and carnets. The second concerns negotiation with individual countries, and work permits. The third concerns the action they can take more immediately, closer to home, including making Eurostar a designated CITES port and improving UK Border Force’s understanding of the permitted paid engagement scheme for visiting artists.

A visa waiver agreement is urgently needed. We know that the EU would be more receptive to this, unlike the unrealistic UK offer. Moreover, it is the ISM’s understanding, following a recent meeting it had with officials from the Home Office, DCMS and the Cabinet Office, that there are no legal barriers to prevent the Government trying to negotiate such an agreement with the EU.

It is essential that young people have the same access to the arts as they do to sciences in schools. With new teams at both DCMS and DfE, now is the right time to look again at the EBacc. Over the last seven years, take-up of arts GCSEs has fallen by 28%, and take-up of A-level music has dropped by 44% over the last 10 years. The 50% cut to arts higher education courses and the wrongheaded suggestion that courses that lead to poor salaries should be cut will additionally give the wrong signal to schools at a time when a pipeline of talent for the arts is required, as part of the post-Covid recovery.

Finally, in his Budget speech, the Chancellor talked of

“investment in a more innovative, high-skilled economy”.—[Official Report, Commons, 27/10/21; col. 274.]

Education in art and design subjects is key for such innovation to take place. We need to move away from predominantly knowledge-based education if such an economy is to succeed.