Local Arts and Cultural Services

Lord Ashton of Hyde Excerpts

Thursday 30th March 2017 Grand Committee

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Culture, Media and Sport (Lord Ashton of Hyde) (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords, and especially to the noble Earl, Lord Clancarty, for securing this incredibly wide-ranging debate. My reply will probably only scratch the surface but I will try to answer as many points as I can. It is clear that this is a subject that noble Lords are very interested in and in which they have their individual specialities. It is a very daunting prospect to face this array of specialised interests—with, admittedly, some help. I will do my best.

The Committee has shown the breadth and depth of its interest in arts and culture. The presence or absence of beautiful buildings, galleries, museums, libraries and treasured archaeological sites has a huge impact on whether somewhere thrives and is a good place to live. These institutions help bind communities together and link current generations to those that came before; they console and inspire individuals. They are remarkably popular: 76% of adults in England engaged in the arts in 2015-16, and in the same period—surprisingly to me—53% of adults visited a museum or gallery.

The whole Government recognise that, and it is why there have been excellent recent funding settlements for DCMS sectors, even at times of economic difficulty. Central government’s main financial support for the arts, culture and museums is delivered via Arts Council England; it plans to invest £1.1 billion of public money in the period 2015-18. These sectors also benefit from public funding through the National Lottery. The Arts Council alone is to spend an estimated £700 million over the same period. Furthermore, the Heritage Lottery Fund spent £434 million in 2016-17; it supports museums and heritage projects, including public libraries. Archaeological-sector projects are supported by Historic England, and museums receive £400 million a year from the DCMS in grant aid. Let us not forget, also, that to assist the sector we have extended the museums and galleries tax relief to permanent exhibitions.

The Government are also investing in flagship projects such as Hull UK City of Culture 2017, which thereby raised over £1 billion of additional investment, and the Great Exhibition of the North in Newcastle and Gateshead in 2018. Arts Council England, the Heritage Lottery Fund and Historic England have come together to create the Great Place scheme, which will spend £20 million on embedding arts, culture and heritage in local plans and decision-making.

However, the nature of the political system is that much responsibility for locally delivered services is devolved to local authorities. This principle has had the backing of all political parties. I recognise that local authorities have had challenging financial settlements over the past few years as we tackled a very large national deficit. That had to be done for the sake of our children and grandchildren. Nevertheless, many local authorities have acknowledged that not supporting arts and culture is both a serious failing and a false economy, and continue to invest in all those sectors.

One of the most effective ways for local authorities to develop and sustain arts and culture is through collaboration with other organisations. For example, Dig Greater Manchester, supported by the University of Salford and the Association of Greater Manchester Authorities, is giving thousands of Manchester residents the opportunity to take part in real excavations. Nearer to here, the Museum of London is receiving £180 million from the City of London Corporation and City Hall for its new premises, which will showcase the best of London’s history and archaeology, including brand new finds from Crossrail and other projects.

The merits of collaboration were recognised in the Government’s Culture White Paper, published last year. It announced a review of culture and digital technology, which is bringing together organisations such as Arts Council England, universities, the BBC, Culture24, and Connecting Cambridgeshire. The Government are therefore offering strategic support in a variety of ways. Together with the Local Government Association, we set up the Leadership for Libraries Taskforce. It published Libraries Deliver, an ambitious strategy containing a range of practical and innovative ideas for how local authorities can maintain and improve library services.

The noble Baroness, Lady Warwick, reminded us that last September the Government launched a museums review led by Neil Mendoza. It recently concluded a series of round tables exploring issues in the sector and is now considering its recommendations. The review is expected to be published in the summer. Of course matters such as opening times could well be included in that. The noble Baroness also mentioned the Bradford Media and Science Museum, which I was due to see last week but was prevented from doing so by the events of last week.

The noble Lords, Lord Redesdale and Lord Renfrew, talked about archaeology. As a result of the issues that they raised, we have asked Historic England to work with representatives from the local government archaeology and development sector to consider how best to respond to the reduction in the number of historic environment specialists employed by local government. This follows a report by the noble Lord, Lord Redesdale, and John Howell MP. This will involve developing professionally recognised standards and guidance, a review of local authority models for charging for archaeological services and research into the impact of heritage service changes in the south-west. It produced an update on progress in February 2017 on its proposed way forward, which it issued in October last year—I cannot go into all the detail now. In addition, Historic England is looking into training and skills retention and developing plans for heritage apprenticeships.

I wanted to say a few words about regional funding, which was raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Murphy, and the noble Lords, Lord Shipley, Lord Freyberg and Lord Faulkner, among others. We agree that we want to disperse funding across the country, and Arts Council England continues to do that. It will rebalance funding between London and the regions over the next few years. In the past three years, 70% of the funding was invested outside London, and that will rise to 75% by 2018. National portfolio funding outside London continues to increase and will increase further in the 2018 portfolio. It will have increased by 4% between 2015 and 2018 and another 4% between 2018 and 2022.

The noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell, and the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, talked about Manchester. The Government have invested heavily in Manchester: £78 million in a new theatre and arts venue called The Factory. The South Asia gallery of the Manchester Museum received £5 million. As the noble Baroness, Lady Murphy, said, there is a 4% uplift in national portfolio funding, but furthermore, the 70% of lottery funding outside London increased to 75% over the past three years and 80% to 90% of the Ambition for Excellence scheme to support talent is spent outside London. That is £35 million. The strategic touring fund of another £35 million funds touring of arts productions and focuses heavily on areas of low engagement.

The noble Baroness, Lady Warwick, specifically asked whether the museums review will help to show museums how to avoid closures and sell-offs and identify early warning signs. The review is looking specifically at the sustainability of local museums as a key line of inquiry and will make recommendations this summer. The noble Baroness also mentioned the reopening of the National Science and Media Museum, a national museum. That is another trend—that national museums are having more and more venues outside London.

The noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, asked about culture and whether that is genuinely included in the industrial strategy. First, of course, the Secretary of State was a member of the committee that put that together. I can say to him that the cultural sector is included in the definition of “creative industries” that is mentioned in the Green Paper in an early sector review, the Bazalgette review. We are certainly looking forward to working with him and all interested colleagues in the coming weeks and months. The review is focused particularly on prosperity across all the creative industries, and we recognise that the cultural sector as part of those is contributing to UK prosperity through its many national and international commercial successes.

I must really speed up now. The noble Earl, Lord Clancarty, and others made a very valid point about EU funding. Of course it is too early to say where we will do that, but I can say that we are extremely well aware of it. It is not only about the money; it is the partnership and the links with EU organisations that are important here. Of course we will have extra money when we are not a net contributor, but this is all part of the negotiation and we are very well aware of it, as we are cultural people in terms of free movement, which will be part of it. One of our jobs, and one that we are taking very seriously, is ensuring that the Department for Exiting the EU is aware of the concerns of the cultural sector. That is definitely a job that the DCMS has.

The noble Lord, Lord Redesdale, mentioned the fact that half of museums do not have collection specialists and that many are no longer accepting archaeological archives from developers. The museums review is specifically looking at the issue of archaeological archives and storage, and will report in the summer.

The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Derby asked four questions, one of which I am going to answer; I am afraid the others on tax are pretty well outside my remit. The Government are keen for churches to contribute and play a full part in community life. In December 2016 we announced the English churches and cathedrals sustainability review. That is now in progress and exploring these issues. I might mention that on broadband, for example, the WiSpire initiative is one very good way in which they might contribute.

There were other questions but I apologise that I do not have time to answer them. If I may, I will write. I will conclude by saying that arts and culture are a huge part of what makes the villages, towns, cities and nations that comprise our United Kingdom so special. We want them to be available to everyone, to be cherished and protected and to have the strategic and financial support that they need. This is the central mission of the DCMS, and it is heartening to be reminded that this House shares our determination.