The Arts: Health Effects
Debate between Gloria De Piero and Lord Vaizey of Didcot(7 years, 1 month ago)
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Mr Vaizey
Health and wellbeing is much on our minds at the moment, and I am co-chair of the all-party group on arts, health and wellbeing, so this is a great opportunity to debate the significant role that arts-based interventions can play in addressing a wide variety of health and social care issues.
In July the all-party group published an inquiry into that important issue—I am holding it up to get the appropriate screengrab, which can go viral on social media. I can see that the Minister is holding it up as well. If someone could pass it to the Opposition spokesman to hold up, we could get a full house. The report was the result of two years of research and discussions with individuals and organisations from the worlds of health, arts, academia and politics. I assure the House, because I had nothing to do with it, that it is of the highest quality. The people who can take credit are Rebecca Gordon-Nesbitt, who effectively wrote it, Alexandra Coulter, who runs the all-party group with such effectiveness, and my colleague Lord Alan Howarth, the chairman, who invited me to become the co-chairman.
The inquiry and report provide considerable evidence to support the idea that arts-based approaches can help people to stay well, recover faster, manage long-term conditions and experience better quality of life. It is important to stress that arts engagement and participation can have a positive impact at every stage of a person’s life. I was struck, for example, when reading the report—I should have known this fact—that one in five mothers suffers from a mental health condition at the time of, or in the first year after, childbirth. The report shows some of the interventions that can help. In Stockport an arts on prescription pilot offered visual art and music projects to women who had or were at risk of postnatal depression. Every woman who participated experienced improvements in their general health, and all but one experienced a reduction in their level of depression. Funding for that service was lost, but similar programmes have been replicated around the UK, with comparable results.
Childhood is another important area where the arts can have a huge impact. I leave aside the effect that music and arts education in schools can have on children’s wellbeing, as well as their educational attainment, although no doubt it is a subject that we will return to in future debates, but it is estimated that possibly 850,000 children suffer from mental health and related physical health problems. Some of the most serious mental health problems can manifest before the age of 24—indeed, in half of cases they manifest before the age of 14.
Such mental health problems can be prevented or mitigated through early intervention. The Alchemy Project, which uses dance as an early intervention in psychosis, had a remarkable effect on mental health. Two groups of young participants with no experience of dance were pushed to work with professional artists. At the end of the pilot both cohorts demonstrated clinically significant improvements in wellbeing, communication, quality of life and many other variants.
Gloria De Piero (Ashfield) (Lab)
A 44-year-old woman in my constituency suffered from depression and anxiety, and she tells me she is not yet recovered from her illness but is now strong enough to go every day to an amazing place called the Huthwaite Hub, which relies in large part on lottery funding. Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that former coalfield communities do not get their fair share of funding from the lottery, which would enable more projects like that to help many more people?
Mr Vaizey
The hon. Lady is a very distinguished former arts spokesman, and I know that when she was the Labour party’s spokesman for the arts she highlighted the fairness of lottery funding distribution. Again, without wishing to dodge the question, that is another debate. I am pleased that the Arts Council, for example, is now much more focused on ensuring that more money goes outside London than it has in the past. She makes a fair point that, fundamentally, there is a project in her constituency making a real difference to one of her constituents, and that is to be applauded without any quibbles from me at all.
Let me run through a few brief examples, because I know that many Members want to speak. An arts on prescription programme run by Arts and Health in Cambridgeshire found that three quarters of participants saw a decrease in anxiety. There is clear and growing evidence that with illness and long-term conditions, arts engagement can alter the morphology of the brain and help speed recovery from neural damage. The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and Humber NHS Foundation Trust have run Strokestra, a pilot collaboration where, through music-based active sessions, almost every single participant who had suffered from a stroke saw a reduction in their symptoms and experienced great social benefits such as enhanced communication. A range of other studies have shown similarly positive effects. Group singing and dance has been shown to improve the voice and movement of people with Parkinson’s disease, and singing enhances lung function and the quality of life for people with chronic respiratory disorders. Arts-based interventions such as listening to music have also been shown to reduce the physiological effects of cancer and coronary heart disease.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Gloria De Piero and Lord Vaizey of Didcot(11 years, 7 months ago)
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Gloria De Piero (Ashfield) (Lab)
Lottery funding is a crucial source of cash for regional arts organisations, and I have repeatedly asked Camelot to provide a constituency breakdown of the purchase of lottery tickets so that MPs on both sides of the House can see whether their constituents are getting their fair share of cash. Will the Minister urge Camelot to provide such a breakdown?
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Gloria De Piero and Lord Vaizey of Didcot(13 years, 5 months ago)
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Mr Vaizey
In an earlier answer, I praised Bournemouth university. One of the first things that I did as a Minister was to commission the Livingstone-Hope report on skills in the video games industry to ensure that our courses were fit for purpose, and I should like to take this opportunity to congratulate Sir Alex Hope on his well-deserved OBE for that work.
Gloria De Piero (Ashfield) (Lab)
The Government make available about £2 billion to British banks under the enterprise finance guarantee scheme to support small and medium-sized enterprises in the creative industries. Music industry representatives have told me that only two music companies have been successful in raising loan finance via the EFG scheme. One very experienced music manager was successful only on his ninth attempt. What is the Minister going to do to improve the scheme and to support our music industry?
Mr Vaizey
I suspect that the hon. Lady met the same people at the meeting that I referred to earlier. I absolutely understand the issue to which she is referring, and I want to continue to work with the banks to try to educate them on how the enterprise finance guarantee scheme can be used to support the music industry. Important changes in the Budget, such as the enterprise investment scheme, will also help our creative industries.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Gloria De Piero and Lord Vaizey of Didcot(13 years, 7 months ago)
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Gloria De Piero (Ashfield) (Lab)
When we are cutting spending on everything outside the House of Commons, will the Minister consider freezing spending on the House of Commons and Government art collection for the lifetime of this Parliament? Surely what money there is would be better spent on struggling libraries, theatre groups, galleries and other cultural organisations across Britain that are enjoyed by millions.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport (Mr Edward Vaizey)
We have frozen spending on the Government art collection for two years. However, let me take this opportunity to say that the Government art collection is a great jewel in the crown of this nation, and I would urge the hon. Lady to go and see it. It is inimitably British, and was set up in the 19th century because the Clerk of the Works decided that it was cheaper to buy paintings to cover the damp on the walls than to replace the wallpaper.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Gloria De Piero and Lord Vaizey of Didcot(13 years, 8 months ago)
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Gloria De Piero (Ashfield) (Lab)
The DCMS website says:
“We would be concerned if libraries were closed, or their services disproportionately reduced, just to save money.”
If the policy is not intended to save money, why does the Minister think that councils are proposing to close libraries?
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Gloria De Piero and Lord Vaizey of Didcot(13 years, 10 months ago)
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Gloria De Piero (Ashfield) (Lab)
The Labour mayor of Lewisham says that he did not seek election to close down libraries, but that is the scale of the cuts. In Milton Keynes, a Liberal Democrat councillor says that the financial challenge means that money will be taken out of the library service. My local council in Nottinghamshire, run by the Conservatives, tells me that, to reduce expenditure, 28 libraries will reduce their opening hours. So councils of all colours do not want to reduce library provision, but the Government are forcing them to do so. What will Ministers do about it?
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport (Mr Edward Vaizey)
I remind the hon. Lady that one of the reasons why councils have reduced funding is the economic mess that her party left this country in; that is why they are having to make the tough decisions that they are having to make. We are not standing by: I have contacted all local authority to remind them of their statutory duty and the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council continues to work closely with a number of authorities on their proposals for the future of their library services.