Creative Sector

Lord Berkeley of Knighton Excerpts

Thursday 4th November 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Berkeley of Knighton (CB)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones. I agree with virtually everything that he has said. I declare my interest as a composer and broadcaster and welcome this timely and vital debate, brilliantly initiated by the noble Baroness, Lady Featherstone. I extend my welcome to the noble Lord, Lord Spencer. He will find that his knowledge of wild animals is enormously helpful in your Lordships’ Chamber and may even recognise the odd elephant of one hue or another.

Our Government tell us constantly that they prize the creativity of our musicians, artists, actors, dancers, fashion designers and writers, but their splendid words are rather undone by their less than splendid stance on creative education and the result of the Brexit negotiations. These two issues, Brexit fallout and education, were compounded by a third, which admittedly was beyond the Government’s control: Covid-19.

The Government’s support for the arts during the pandemic was enormously helpful—and we are grateful for it—as is the doubling and extension of orchestra tax relief in the Chancellor’s Budget Statement last week. However, many freelance musicians and artists, as the Government recognised, fell through the support network during the pandemic and these are precisely the people who, as they try to recover, are now being hit by the problems with touring, particularly in Spain, where the cost of getting visas and the invasive requirement to reveal personal accounts, including bank statements, are exacting real hardship, as publicly described by two of our most gifted singers, Dame Sarah Connolly and Ian Bostridge.

Cabotage is a huge problem, especially for those companies and orchestras who own their own trucks. Why is Spain important and why cabotage? Well, if you are planning a European tour for an orchestra, a string quartet, a dance company or a heavy metal rock group, you must divide the costs by the number of performances that you can give. Geographically and historically, Spain is key to European touring, yet it has more restrictive requirements than several countries with which we do now have bilateral agreements. Currently, trucks are allowed to transit to only two locations before either all the gear must be transferred to a local carrier or you must return home and start again. During this gap, performers must be paid for loss of work and for subsistence, amounting to thousands of pounds.

Regarding Spain, I have a little suggestion for the Minister. We know how many UK citizens love and welcome their Spanish holiday. We know how Spain values their contribution to the Spanish economy. Surely there is some leverage here, à la France and fishing. “You want us on your beaches so make it easier for us to tour or maybe we will have to help reach our carbon targets by further taxing flights to Spain.” Of course, there are many complex issues surrounding this problem with Spain, including a national and endemic bureaucracy and the strong and febrile feelings over Gibraltar, but there must be a way through. Could we not perhaps go back to pre-European Union rules? What are Spain’s arrangements with other countries outside the EU— America, for instance?

A letter has been sent to Boris Johnson on behalf of cross-party MPs, demanding urgent action over the crisis facing musicians and crew touring the EU. The All-Party Parliamentary Group on Music, endorsed by the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Classical Music, of which I am a co-chair, has also revealed plans to hold a cross-party inquiry into the costly barriers and delays facing musicians, particularly emerging artists. Details of the two initiatives come after Sir Elton John warned in June that the UK music industry risked losing a “generation of talent” and branded the situation a “looming catastrophe” for artists.

Regarding education, the amount of time devoted to arts subjects, including music, has been steadily declining in our schools over the last decade. I feel more passionately about this than any other aspect of creativity, even those that I have mentioned, because we are depriving future generations of the opportunities that we all enjoyed. In terms of levelling up and diversity, we all celebrate the wonderful playing of the cellist, Sheku Kanneh-Mason. A few months ago, his mother, Kadie Kanneh-Mason, told me on Radio 3 that what upsets her about current music provision in schools is that if Sheku was a pupil now, he and his siblings would not be where they currently are; the privileged and well-off can get music lessons but the poor in our society are stranded.

Ideally, we should get these creative subjects back on to the national curriculum, but, failing that, let us augment hubs and target underprovided areas, as suggested by the Local Government Association. When the Minister rises to tell us how valued the creative industries are, as I am sure he will, will he consider whether we will still be able to say that in decades to come if we have denied our children the means to develop into the musicians and artists of the future that they, and we, deserve?