King’s Speech

Earl of Clancarty Excerpts

Friday 19th July 2024 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Clancarty (CB)]

My Lords, I will concentrate my remarks on arts and arts education. I declare an interest as a visual artist. I am heartened by the change in language, particularly around arts education. I am sorry we do not have a specific category for the arts in this debate on the gracious Speech. The arts are an essential aspect of our democracy and this needs to be better recognised at all levels of government within the UK.

Over the last 14 years we have seen the progressive downgrading of the arts in our school education. According to research by the Creative Industries Policy and Evidence Centre, only one in 12 people working in film and TV is from a working class background. Both the EBacc and Progress 8 were introduced specifically to sideline the arts. Both should go. They are accountability measures, not part of the curriculum. We do not need a review for this.

A good proportion of the 6,500 new teachers should be arts teachers, including dedicated teachers in arts subjects at primary school level. Will the Government improve ITT bursaries for art and design, and music, so that they are on a par with the sciences? The arts offer in state schools needs to be brought up to the same high level as exists in many private schools, as the noble Baroness, Lady Garden, said.

I trust that the rhetoric around so-called “low-value” courses in higher education has ceased and that changes made at the Office for Students reflect a different culture. More importantly, will the Government make it a priority to help to prevent more closures of arts courses threatened at universities?

The educational community would cheer to the rafters if the Government were to negotiate rejoining Erasmus+. Turing is better than nothing, but is a pale imitation of what Erasmus as a reciprocal programme achieves, and much more. Will they do so?

After years of cuts to local authority and Arts Council funding, what the arts need most is substantial state reinvestment. Do the Government agree? In terms of overall government spending, the moneys concerned are a drop in the ocean, yet the benefits accrued, including financial rewards, far outweigh such modest expenditure. It is embarrassing that one single city in Germany—Berlin—gets more state funding than the whole of the UK.

The Arts Council is overloaded, taking on much of what used to be funded by local authorities. There are instances where funding is urgently needed. I will give two examples. At the smaller scale is a brilliant museum located in a deprived area of a town in Buckinghamshire whose council funding is threatened to be cut off and the building and the attached gardens, used by local people, sold off. On that point, will the Government take steps to halt the sale of our precious public buildings and spaces, many used for the arts and other community activities?

Secondly, at the other end of the scale, following the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Murphy, will the Government urgently address the concerns around Welsh National Opera—an opera started originally by miners and teachers, and a company that through touring benefits both Wales and England? Emergency funding is required to stop musicians going part-time, but in the longer term England and Wales together need to review the current Transform funding model that so clearly penalises WNO.

There should be space for classical music and community projects, and the other arts including theatre and the visual arts, which often get overlooked. I ask the Government to take a look at the recommendations in the visual arts manifesto led by the Design and Artists Copyright Society. One recommendation is the appointment of a freelance commissioner for the arts to look at their rights and levels of pay. It is good that the Government are addressing workers’ rights—this should be a part of that.

In April, the Guardian reported that 74% fewer UK bands now tour Europe post Brexit, and that this affects their ability to tour America. The clear desire by the Government to address music touring is encouraging, but I also urge the Government to look at the effect of Brexit on all the creative industries, including the visual arts, craft and fashion. There is a growing sense that we will not regain the former pre-eminent position our creative industries had not just in Europe but across the world until we rejoin the single market.