Tourism: Music

Lord Aberdare Excerpts

Thursday 11th July 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Aberdare]

My Lords, it is a privilege to follow the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, who has done so much for the cause of live music. I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Storey, on obtaining this debate and introducing it with such flair. He considered starting with, “Yeah, yeah, yeah”, and I might just go with, “Hear, hear”, because I have agreed with so much of what we have heard so far.

This is an important and wide-ranging topic covering a plethora of related issues, which has proved quite challenging in thinking about how to focus my remarks. Music is a major element in the UK’s tourism offer, both for tourists within the UK and those from overseas. UK Music’s 2011 report on music tourism tells us that UK music festivals and concerts in 2009 attracted more than 7.7 million music tourists who spent more than £1.4 billion, boosting the UK economy by at least £864 million and sustaining almost 20,000 jobs. As the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, told us, although only 5% came from overseas, they accounted for 18% of spending.

It is clear that this is one of the UK’s tourism strengths. We have five major festivals in the international top 20 led, of course, by Glastonbury. The Showcase guide lists 578 music festivals in the UK. Wales, the land of my fathers, attracted 252,000 music tourists in 2009. The noble Lord, Lord Storey, also mentioned the musical focus of the Olympics and Paralympics ceremonies last year. He rightly asked what was happening to build on that in terms of a music legacy.

Focusing on classical music, my personal passion, we have six major opera companies covering Wales, Scotland and the north as well as London and the south-east. But in addition, we have a seemingly ever-growing number of smaller opera companies putting on a wide range of high-quality performances at all sorts of venues. Only recently, I attended the Wagner “Ring Cycle” in a former chicken shed in Longborough. There are some 70 established professional orchestras and ensembles, and between them they put on more than 3,700 concerts a year in the UK, as well as some 450 abroad. We have a number of fantastic classical music festivals. Among them are: the BBC Proms, with over 100 concerts attracting more than 300,000 people last year; Aldeburgh; Edinburgh; the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival; the Llangollen International Musical Eisteddfod; the Three Choirs Festival and, of course, the recent BBC Cardiff Singer of the World event.

It seems incontrovertible that music is important to tourism and that the UK does it well, but that raises two questions in the context of today’s debate. First, could we do better, as the noble Baroness, Lady Liddell, asked, and, secondly, are there barriers to our success that could be removed? One of the difficulties of addressing such questions is that,

“the benefits of music tourism do not always show up as distinctly music-derived”,

to quote a recent report relating to Scotland. Success in this field is the product of a complex and interlocking infrastructure. That includes the organisations that provide the music, such as the orchestras, opera companies and festivals—not forgetting an enormous range of commercial bodies in the popular music arena, including the performers and musicians themselves.

One of the causes of our strength is surely our whole music education system, with nine world-leading conservatoires at its pinnacle. As the noble Lord, Lord Black of Brentwood, reminded us, they not only train UK students to world-class standards but attract talented students from overseas. The ability to hear top performers from all around the world is another factor that boosts UK music tourism. I would also like to mention the National Opera Studio, which runs master courses for young opera singers and pianists—repetiteurs. I would challenge your Lordships to attend an opera in the UK without finding at least one NOS alumnus among the cast.

Other elements of the infrastructure for music tourism include suitable venues for concerts and events—such as the country houses that have become such a feature of the opera scene—hospitality and catering, transport facilities, marketing campaigns so that potential visitors are made aware of the musical opportunities available, and all the necessary ticketing and access and customer support facilities. I understand that the Arts Council of Wales is looking at a possible digital music resource to provide information about music across Wales to help increase music tourism.

Let me suggest a couple of things that might enable us to do better. First, I am not aware of any mechanism—or at least I was not until the noble Baroness, Lady Liddell, mentioned one—for taking an overall look at how to maximise the UK tourism benefits of the music sector across all the areas that I have mentioned. I gather that some other countries and regions, such as Ontario, have been successful in adopting a more strategic approach. Perhaps that might be achieved by designating a Minister with specific cross-departmental responsibility for promoting live music tourism, or even appointing a live music tsar.

Secondly, music tourism is disproportionately concentrated, as is so often the case, in London and the south-east, areas which attract almost half of all music tourists, whereas Wales accounts for only 3%, and Scotland for only 2%, just ahead of Northern Ireland. Could VisitBritain be encouraged to give greater emphasis to promoting music tourism outside London, working in a joined-up way with regional bodies such as Visit Wales to ensure that the benefits of such tourism are more evenly and widely spread?

Another question relates to removing barriers to success. There has been some good progress in this area, not least as a result of the Live Music Act, championed by the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones. I was going to say that the issue of visas for musicians seems to be less vexed than it has been, although two noble Lords have mentioned that as a continuing concern. I would mention two specific issues in the hope that the Minister will be able to comment on them. The first relates to VAT. The UK is one of only four EU countries that do not take advantage of the option to apply a reduced rate of VAT on visitor accommodation and one of only nine to apply the full rate on admissions to cultural attractions. So tourism, our sixth largest export industry, is the only one subject to VAT. Other countries, including competitors such as France and Germany, have gained additional investment, employment, particularly of younger people who are disproportionately represented in the tourism sector, and growth through applying reduced VAT rates in this area. It has been calculated that every pound invested by the Treasury in this way would generate £18 of extra inbound tourism revenue and other significant growth benefits.

The second issue relates to the carriage of musical instruments on aeroplanes. Musicians need to travel to perform, quite often by air. Yet there is no consistent policy about carrying even smaller instruments on airlines, and the ISM has collected more than 1,350 individual reports of difficulties faced by musicians when travelling with their instruments, including cases of valuable instruments being damaged beyond repair. I appreciate the Government’s reluctance to intervene in commercial matters, but even if they do not go as far as the US Government, which have now issued regulations to allow small musical instruments as hand baggage, they could at least put pressure on airlines to follow the welcome lead of easyJet in this area.

This debate focuses on the contribution of music tourism and the economic benefits that that can bring, but let us not lose sight of the ultimate value of music, as described in a quote attributed to Plato in the Times last month. Sadly, I have not been able to track down where he said, “Music is a moral law. It gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, a charm to sadness, and life to everything. It is the essence of order, and leads to all that is good, just and beautiful, of which it is the invisible, but nevertheless dazzling, passionate and eternal form”. We need more of that in the UK, even if it did not bring such significant tourism benefits with it.