Arts Council England: Regional Distribution of Funding

Lord Berkeley of Knighton Excerpts

Thursday 15th December 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Berkeley of Knighton (CB)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Mendoza—although, listening to him, I imagine many organisations feel, “Why are we worrying? Why are we upset by what has happened?” I hope to point out exactly why that might be.

I want to start by looking at this problem from the Government’s point of view. I am a fan of levelling up. I agree that we need to get more funds around the country, and the noble Lord, Lord Storey, pointed out exactly the kind of things. In fact, from my experience as a composer—having worked with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, Opera North and festivals such as Aldeburgh, Bath and Presteigne—I realise what this brings to local communities. They always especially say, “I can’t get to London”, so it means even more to them. I can also see, from the Government’s point of view, how difficult it is to recut the cake and redistribute the money at this sort of level. I think the Arts Council made some serious errors; I will come to that in a moment, but I hope in a constructive way.

The background of Covid and Brexit, as mentioned in the debate last week that both noble Lords referenced, is a telling factor. A lot of these companies were on very tricky ground before the cuts were announced, so you have to add to that what this will mean. On the shop floor, I am hearing from organisations, orchestras, theatre companies and dance companies that—despite the reassurance given last week by the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson, that work is being done to assist touring—they are very nervous about the prospect of affording touring because of the incredible complications and expense of sorting out visas.

I again ask the Minister a question that he must be bored with hearing me ask, so I apologise. Given that the noble Lord, Lord Frost, who represented the Government in these negotiations, has admitted that the Government got this wrong, why will they not put it right? Nobody is saying we are going to cancel Brexit—I realise that is not a possibility—but fine-tuning must be possible. I get the sense that there are people in Downing Street who would like that, but I dare say they are up against those who will not give an inch as far as Brexit is concerned. That is something the entire creative industry would love to see, and I do not think it too big an ask.

In some senses, in order to rob Peter to pay Paul, we have robbed them both. On many occasions in this House, I have commended the help that Rishi Sunak gave the creative industries, and I reiterate how grateful we were for that. But it seems crazy that the future of some of those big organisations, which received large amounts of money, is now in doubt because we are going to take such large amounts back. That surely has to be looked at.

On touring, I was on the Arts Council committee that identified areas of the country that were underprovided for in terms of opera. We came up with a list. The problem is that these cuts undo some of the very work that the Arts Council did. Glyndebourne Touring and the Welsh National Opera go to the places we identified. There has to be a continued line of thinking here.

I come to one or two of the other groups that have suffered. Here is an example of what we might do: why did the Arts Council not talk to the ENO, without uprooting it to Manchester? Anybody who has worked in an opera house—I was on the board of the Royal Opera House and have written three operas—will tell you that you cannot uproot an opera company and put it somewhere else, especially when something like Opera North is already there.

I was on the board of the Royal Opera House when it shut down for refurbishment and it was seriously suggested that we should shut the Royal Ballet for two years. Luckily, I was able to get in touch with one or two funders, such as Lord Sainsbury and Vivien Duffield. When I told them that this was being planned, they rang up and said, “You can say goodbye to all our funding”, because anybody who knows anything about art knows you cannot just stop training. Like an Olympic athlete or the England football team, you have to train all year round. What about all those young dancers coming through? That idea was scotched very soon.

May I draw a medical analogy? While I completely agree that we need funds around the country, there are specialist groups which earn their money. Take the London Sinfonietta, which has lost 41% of its grant. You could say that the work it commissions is niche or the high end of contemporary music, but this is the one company doing it. In my mind, this is not unlike how, in London, we need one or two centres of excellence, because you cannot have that excellence around the country. Think of neurosurgery, for example; many cases will be referred to the hospital in Queen Square, which is so good at it. A child with a terrible paediatric problem will be referred to Great Ormond Street. There is nothing against having one or two centres of excellence that specialise, such as the London Sinfonietta.

Many companies, such as the Britten Sinfonia, cannot understand why they have been cut, given that they have made huge efforts to do what the Arts Council said it wanted. Britten Sinfonia has involved 8,000 children in the east of England and commissioned more than 250 works. It travels to Addenbrooke’s to play music to patients, and it travels to His Majesty’s Prison Whitemoor. What more do you want? That is going out of London, making a base in Cambridge and involving the local community.

We really have to be careful—rather as with our debate tomorrow about the BBC licence fee—that we do not throw the baby out with the bath-water. This is what I fear about one or two aspects of this. I would like to quote my fellow Cross-Bench Peer, my noble friend Lady Bull, because she made a very telling point about the Arts Council redistribution in the debate last week. She said:

“My view is that this rethinking should not have been demanded within the short timeframe of a single funding round. In doing so, the February directive from the then Culture Secretary gnawed at the fingers of the arm’s-length principle. Planning for such a fundamental shift requires a much longer horizon if it is to avoid destabilisation, particularly within a sector still recovering from the pandemic, and if it is to lead to sustainable and positive change that delivers for all communities across all parts of the UK.”—[Official Report, 8/12/22; cols.286-87.]


So, yes, let us level up, but with rather more caution than has been shown so far, and more planning and more dialogue with the people concerned.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Clement-Jones (LD)]

That is because I have not received it, but I look forward to reading my text.

The noble Lord, Lord Vaizey, paid tribute to Darren Henley, as do I, but he did not say that he now pays tribute; he paid tribute to Darren Henley in the past. This has been a bungled funding round with what I fear will be very adverse consequences for the UK’s creative community. I liked the phrase from the noble Baroness, Lady Fox: forced through at speed.

Last week, the Minister talked about cherishing the arm’s-length relationship, but there is very little evidence of that. Arts Council England is clearly having to work to the Government’s strategy and timing, as Darren Henley said in his evidence to the Communications and Digital Committee, and as was referred to by the noble Earl, Lord Clancarty, and the noble Lord, Lord Freyberg:

“We were asked by the Government to move some money out of London”—


it sounds almost illicit, does it not?—

“£16 million in year 1 and £24 million by the end of year 3.”

[Lord Berkeley of Knighton (CB)]

I am so sorry to interrupt the noble Lord as he is in full swing, but I think the phrase was that they were “instructed”. That is very important when we are talking about the arm’s-length principle.

[Lord Clement-Jones (LD)]

We may have to correct the record because I looked at the transcript and it did not say “instructed”. I am willing to look again at that, and I am sure the Minister will have a quick google and see whether or not that is the case.

Sir Peter Bazalgette, the former chair, makes the same point in his November letter to the FT:

“Ace had been gradually moving resources outside London for some time. In my time as chair we shifted both grant-in-aid and lottery funding by 10 per cent, without suddenly cutting off major institutions.”


He goes on to make exactly the same point about the fact that this really was an instruction from Nadine Dorries to make a larger and sudden distribution. What kind of independence is that? Many noble Lords have made that point.

I am afraid the only conclusion is that the Minister has to accept that he and his colleagues are presiding over the settlement and should take full responsibility for this very crude and destructive form of levelling up, rather than hiding behind the Arts Council.