Arts and Creative Industries

Gerry Sutcliffe Excerpts

Wednesday 19th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gerry Sutcliffe (Bradford South) (Lab)]

It is a great honour to be involved in this debate and to follow the hon. Member for Manchester, Withington (Mr Leech). I am a bit dubious about the football team he supports, but that was the first time I have heard him congratulate the previous Labour Government. Will he put that in writing so that we have it for future reference?

This is an important debate, for the reasons that have been outlined by many of my colleagues on the Culture, Media and Sport Committee, whose Chairman has said what it is trying to do. My hon. Friend the Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire North (Jim Sheridan) was a bit hard on himself in saying that he was not fully involved with the thought patterns on what needs to happen. He, like me, has certainly learned that the creative industries are vital parts of this country’s lifeblood. They are also important to cities such as Bradford.

I know the House will forgive me for talking about the plight of Bradford’s media museum, but before I do that I wish to mention something that was being talked about long before the prospect of its closure: the rebranding of the city. We were discussing a city with a strong literary and cultural history, and people will know that of Bradford. It is the home of the Brontës, J. B. Priestley, David Hockney, the Black Dyke Mills Band, Kala Sangam and, more recently, Zayn from One Direction. It is also the birthplace of the British film industry and is the first UNESCO city of film. The Minister, and the Education Secretary, whom we are delighted to see in his place, will be pleased to know that next month Bradford college will launch the international film school. That brings together Bollywood and international film makers from around the world to teach the youngsters of Bradford about film. Of course, as I said, Bradford is also the home of the National Media museum.

We were not just involved in a marketing or rebranding exercise; it was about rethinking our future economy in Bradford and cities like it. Bradford is very close to Leeds, the regional centre, and we wanted to find a way to examine the job and economic prospects for Bradford for the future. We want to sell ourselves as a city of culture, media and sport—we have the heritage. That is why the announcement saying that the National Media museum may close came as a bit of a blow. I think that there has been some inverted snobbery over many years. I am old enough to remember when we first got the National Media museum from London in the late ’80s, at a time when the then Government were trying to make sure that everything was not concentrated around London and that things would go out to the regions. We were proud to have the National Media museum in Bradford, but there has been snobbery in the past, as people have, year after year, been trying to get the museum back to London from Bradford. So it is great news that the Minister said what he did to the group of Bradford MPs and said publicly yesterday that there is no reason why the media museum should close. It is great news that the Department has been able to reduce a 10% cut to a 5% cut, but it is still a cut. My hon. Friend the Member for York Central (Hugh Bayley) spoke about the accumulation of problems that we face.

I hope the Minister can tell us about the capital programme and the issues that science museums may face in relation to the capital project. That will be important to the future of the museum. It is not just about saving the northern museums; it is about putting investment in and making sure that they are places where people want to go. Our museum has been run down over the past few years. I do not care whose fault that is. We need to look at new partnership arrangements to make sure that we can invigorate that museum. We can do that through the local authority, the local college and the local university coming together, and businesses in Bradford looking to see what they can do philanthropically to protect the future of the museum. I am grateful to the Minister, who said at the meeting on Monday that he would use his good offices to bring people together to try and make sure that we have a workable solution to what needs to happen in Bradford.

The debate is about more than museums in Bradford, important though those are. It is about the creative sector. Copyright is a major concern, as the hon. Member for Maldon (Mr Whittingdale) said. The Government need to take heed of bodies such as ALCS, which the Minister knows well. It is not about alcoholics, as he tried to explain yesterday when he talked about Barbara Hayes and Janet Anderson spending their time in Strangers Bar. The Authors Licensing and Collecting Society looks after the copyright proposals that are before the Government now. It is important that the creative industries are confident about copyright protection.

The creative industries are important to the economy. They are the new manufacturing, in terms of the opportunities that they present. In Bradford we have a growing young population. We have the opportunity to have technicians involved in the film industry and in the games industry in our great city. We want to have film studios. I notice with interest that the Warner Brothers planning application has been turned down. If Buckinghamshire does not want it, we will have it in Bradford and in Yorkshire. We must ensure that the sector in the UK remains a world-leading sector. We may have our political knockabout, but the sector is important to us as a country and we need to make sure that we develop it in our own best interests.