Music and the Economy

Kevin Brennan Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd November 2011 Westminster Hall

[Nigel Adams]

The hon. Gentleman is right. Live music is incredibly important to pubs as venues, not just for the pub’s business, but for the artist. It is incredibly important that young artists—people starting out—get an opportunity to play in pubs as venues. I shall talk about that later.

[Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)]

rose—

[Mr Don Foster (Bath) (LD)]

rose—

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Vaizey]

We have a thriving and vibrant music scene, and no individual singer or band is guaranteed success, but it is reassuring to me—I happen to be a fan of “The X Factor”, but people understandably say it should not be the future of UK music—that Adele and other stars have risen. Adele, I think, is the biggest selling artist in the world at the moment; that is an astonishing achievement. Obviously, the Government cannot dictate who is going to survive and thrive, but that is testament to the fact that we have a vibrant music ecology in this country.

I know that the hon. Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy) has concerns about visa issues. It is important that bands in this country should have the opportunity to tour the world, and I am happy to continue working with her on the question of jurisdictions where it might be difficult for bands to get the appropriate visas—perhaps for understandable reasons.

[Kevin Brennan]

Will the Minister give way?

[Mr Vaizey]

I give way to the musician in the Chamber.

[Kevin Brennan]

That might be a stretch. Without making the debate too much of a love-fest I, too, pay tribute to the work that Feargal Sharkey did, including the ultimate sacrifice of actually playing with MP4 once or twice along the way.

Does the Minister agree that it is important for the industry to maintain that single-voice focus, which Feargal Sharkey helped to establish with the setting up of UK Music; that that put an end to the old days, when it was difficult to get a single established view from the music industry; and that it is important that that should continue into the future?

[Mr Vaizey]

Yes, absolutely. I agree that when UK Music came together two or three years ago, that was a real achievement. There were a number of disparate voices. I emphasise, for the benefit of all hon. Members, that Feargal Sharkey is still very much alive; the range of tributes being made might make people think he is not. He is entitled to move on, and I have no doubt that he will continue to play an extremely important role.

Among other issues covered in the debate was the importance of live music and of deregulating the licensing system. I echo the call made by the right hon. Member for Bath (Mr Foster) that no man should stand in the way of the Bill that Lord Clement-Jones has introduced. Let no man put asunder the marriage between the right hon. Gentleman and the Bill this Friday. Let us hope that it passes through the House with ease. Nevertheless, there is the backstop of the Government’s consultation on live music licensing.

Copyright is an incredibly important issue to the music industry. The Hargreaves report was mentioned; a consultation will shortly be initiated by the Intellectual Property Office. As to format shifting, from a common-sense point of view it makes sense to establish regulations that would allow people to do what they do already—move from CD to iPod and so on—while at the same time ensuring that any measures that are appropriate to protect the music industry are in place. That will be part of the consultation.

There are other things whose importance I want to highlight: the digital copyright exchange, which we are not forcing on the music industry—we hope that there will be a bottom-up approach, with Government help; the recent extension of copyright for performers, taken through the European Commission; and the continued action that the Government take to combat the theft of intellectual property—otherwise known as piracy—not only through the Digital Economy Act 2010, passed by the previous Government, but through brokering conversations and deals with rights holders and internet service providers, including advertisements on pirate sites, credit card details, payment facilities being provided on pirate sites and search engine optimisation issues, and through the important progress made recently in the courts, with the blocking of the Newzbin site, which began 10 days ago.

Access to finance is of course a perennial problem for the creative industries. The Creative Industries Council, which we established last year, has one specific work stream on access to finance, chaired by Ian Livingstone from the games industry. It is important that people engage with him on issues of access to finance. I have spoken to banks about the enterprise finance guarantee scheme. I had a meeting, for example, with the Royal Bank of Scotland, to discuss it. Importantly, a recent Demos report, authored by the researcher Helen Burrows, shows that the creative industries are not as risky as people think, and that they are a good investment.

Others could take a leaf out of the video games industry’s book. After the debate I shall be going to the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts to talk to small-scale angel investors, who are being introduced to games companies. If UK Music could stretch itself even further to organising one or two investment conferences with banks and the music industry, and independent labels in particular, that could bring progress.

My hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk Coastal, who rightly highlighted the Aldeburgh festival, made the point that the record industry of course encompasses classical music. Although we missed a trick by not launching it today, on St Cecilia’s day, we shall shortly launch our national music plan. I gather that it is pencilled in for Friday; it is a constantly moveable feast, as we seek to improve it more and more. However, the key point about the national music plan is the music education hubs that will sit at the heart of it. I hope that those will bring together local authorities and organisations such as the Aldeburgh festival to provide a wider offer to children in schools. The money has been secured for local authorities, but we want to put a system in place to secure the participation of the much wider ecology of the music industry locally, whether that is local orchestras, the brass band or the Aldeburgh festival.

We have had a good-natured and well-tempered debate in which hon. Members from both sides of the House have united to emphasise our support for the music industry. We have highlighted the key issues that affect it: education in schools, copyright, access to finance and live music. The Government are focused on all those issues, and I am grateful for the participation and input of hon. Members from both sides of the House.

Question put and agreed to.