Arts

Lord Bragg Excerpts

Thursday 1st February 2024 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Bragg]

That this House takes note of the contribution of the arts to the economy and to society.

[Lord Bragg (Lab)]

The creative arts generate more revenue than the life sciences and the aerospace and construction industries combined. Add the input from television, films, advertising and broadcasting and we are faced not with a charming marginal activity but with an industry ready to grow to the massive benefit of this country, commercially and educationally, and equally in areas such as health and social equity.

First, however, the arts industry needs a radical overhaul. At present, it is dangerously patchy and punching way below its weight. Last year, there were over 3 million job roles in the creative and cultural industries—and there could be more, if we recognised and reached the full potential of what is still considered too often to be the cherry on the cake. The arts are not the cherry on the cake—they are the cake. It is the opportunity this society needs to reform itself, to replenish all parts and pockets, and to stem the slide to the bottom of just about any listing that appears. It is an open goal.

There is no doubt that this country could build itself up through a cultivation of the arts, and a determination to release its energies and take on the mantle of other places and other times—this is not too fanciful—such as Athens, Florence and elsewhere, which transformed their societies through the arts. Why cannot we do so? We have the skills, but what we need is the vision and the will. We need to think of the arts as an industry, and a new industry, which it is.

What we have to build on deserves attention and often praise. Cities which have imploded, especially in the north, because of government abandonment and investors seeing no future beyond the stock market—I will take three: Newcastle and Gateshead combined, Leeds, and above all, Manchester—have regrouped and found profit from their engagement with the arts. This goes for similar smaller venues too: Keswick in Cumbria, middle-sized cities such as Bath, and towns such as Cheltenham. In many places, the arts have reinvented and magnetised dying conurbations. However, this still does not provide the fundamental requirement, which is to engineer a deep change which will be universal.

To get to the best, we need to take a close look at the worst. Recently, the Times chief cultural correspondent, Richard Morrison, said that British theatre is “dying” and “in a dreadful state”, its demise hastened by the dominance of television and streaming, and that

“Those theatres not facing closure because of local authority budget cuts … are struggling to attract audiences for anything except musicals and famous plays featuring famous actors”.


National Theatre Wales has lost its subsidy from the Arts Council of Wales. Creative Scotland has received a big cut from the Scottish Government. An all-party report from a House of Lords Select Committee last June commented that the current Government policy towards the sector is

“complacent and risks jeopardising the sector’s commercial potential”.

It is strange that, although over the past decade the creative industries have grown at 1.5 times the rate of the wider economy and contributed billions of pounds of business activity and exports, again and again these profits drain away and the only begetter of the arts is left stranded on overdrafts. This is at least unfair and at most blind to the power and potential of the arts.

When they built the first steam engine, they did not say, “Okay, we can do it—we’ll stop now”. They went on to create a network, here and abroad, with a brilliant non-university workforce. Why do we stop here now, in this country, when it is losing its theatres, its music and its dance? We are sleepwalking into permanent mediocrity, and cultural institutions once the guardians of the arts have, in crucial cases, become accessories to this deterioration.

The Arts Council, for example, set up in 1948, in those flagship years of public service, has been of the greatest value for the arts, especially its arm’s-length management. Yet in November 2022, English National Opera was given 24 hours’ notice by Arts Council England that all current funding would be withdrawn and the company removed from the national portfolio by April 2023. This was said to a company approaching a century of often outstanding work: opera in English; free ticket schemes for young people; 51% of audiences first-time bookers; and a world-class infrastructure. The way in which this was done disgraced the Government. Nadine Dorries, the Culture Secretary, “instructed” in a short letter—she used the word several times—Nicholas Serota, chairman of the Arts Council, to do as the Government, that is, Nadine Dorries, dictated. We had become, it seemed, a state-run arts country, one step away from the dictatorship of the state on the agenda. Without being rude, what on earth was she playing at? Who did she think she was, and why did the Government back her? Dr Harry Brünjes, chairman of ENO, fought it, and eventually the Government shifted their ultimatum back a few years. What on earth is going on? ENO makes a profit, just as importantly as it makes a mark on the future of opera in this country. The magnificent Royal Opera House is incomprehensibly besieged by not dissimilar troubles.

Ms Dorries did not stop there. She threatened the reviewing of the BBC licence fee by 2027 in such terms that the BBC knew it would have crumbled—a policy which seems to have been adopted by her successor. So far, the BBC has stood firm. We will see what happens in the media debate. The finest cultural institution in this country is the BBC. Classical music would be bereft without it. From the Proms to new composers, music of all genres is given airtime. BBC drama on television has pulled in some of the most memorable work over the generations, as have discussions and features on the radio. In the broadest sense, BBC radio is a tailor-made embroidery of our tastes, aspirations and intellectual achievements.

Then there is the World Service of the BBC, surely our greatest ambassador. From the diurnal to the most distinguished, the BBC defines the range and ambition of our society. Yet it is under constant attack from those who envy it and want to capture its audiences, not to make better programmes. There is to be a debate on the media in your Lordships’ House quite soon. I trust that this House will develop some themes which are brought out today, and come out emphatically to leave the BBC unweakened.

The key word is “education”—to change the society thoroughly. This can lead us to a new state of the arts. I owe much of the next passage to the composer Howard Goodall. In the last century, there were the county music services, free instrumental lessons, Saturday morning music schools, orchestras and choirs. After 2020, these services were transferred into “hubs”, a private enterprise model. The local authorities lost responsibility for them and the slide began. In 2022, the number of hubs was reduced nationally from 116 to 43, in direct contradiction to consultations saying that this would be the worst possible option for state schools. The 43 hubs had to do the same work as the 116, and on the same money.

The uptake in GCSE music has dropped from 50,000 entrants in 2009 to 29,000 in 2022. Consequently, staff numbers in music and other arts have dropped dramatically. The noble Baroness, Lady Featherstone, in her excellent speech on the depletion of support for the performing arts, referenced this, pointing out that

“the decline in teachers of dance, drama and music”,

and in “teaching hours” and “position in the curriculum”, is disgraceful,

“nor is there support for small music venues, which are closing down at the rate of one a week”.—[Official Report; 30/3/23, col. GC 108.]

Mr Sunak promised assistance, but none has arrived yet.

Howard Goodall writes that what has happened to music education in the past 13 years is a “seismic reconfiguration”. He continues that “the Conservative agenda being driven through the Arts Council seems to be to let classroom music die out in state schools”. The Department for Education met only 27% of its target for newly trained music teachers last year.

In 2008, under a Labour Government, a programme was funded that revived group singing in 97% of all primary schools in the country, with a verifiable increase in discipline, attendance and work in classrooms. Music mattered—it lit the flame— but the scheme was dropped. Why cannot the 93% of children in our state schools receive the same musical offering that the 7% in private schools take for granted? It is shocking, unfair and just wrong—and what a waste. Just imagine what talent could be released and what benefits would flow were not only music but all the arts given a chance to be a part of the engine of growth in a country which used its proven assets—talent, flair, cultural enterprise—to grow to its full potential? Of course, this needs more investment and rescuing from the doldrums, but look at how we are wasting money at the moment. We are squandering it. What enormous rewards could follow from building up the arts. Let us look again at the Industrial Revolution—the greatest revolution, I would say, that the world has ever seen. Why do we not have an Industrial Revolution for the arts? It is possible.

Finally, Professor Daisy Fancourt has just delivered a book to be published first in America. If ever utterly conclusive proof were required of the benefits of the arts in our society, here it is—she has nailed it. She says: “In 2018, the World Health Organization reported that after 3,500 studies, it had cast-iron evidence of the deep and widespread health improvements which came from the teaching of the arts, from neurological disorders to child development. Cohort studies have shown that tens of thousands of people of all ages benefit physically, emotionally, and intellectually by going to galleries, by dance and singing in choirs”.

I shall not club your Lordships with statistics at this stage, but the evidence of the connection between the arts and intellectual health has now been conclusively made. We have scientific proof that art exercises the imagination and feeds us in positive, unique and lasting ways. We cannot afford to ignore this. We can no longer go on to cut, stint, cancel and slash. If we are to bring up generations whose minds and feelings are moulded by the best work, good teachers, and multiple opportunities, we could indeed make a brave new world. Why not, and why not start now? I beg to move.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Bragg (Lab)]

I will make a very short speech; I have a very small amount of time, and that suits me, because I have enjoyed listening to other people. The support for the arts all over the House has been such a pleasure. There has been well-thought-through information; people are coming at it not with swipes of prejudice, but having looked at their own experience—personally, in the places where they live, and historically. If we know one thing after this debate, it is that the House of Lords is firmly on the side of the arts: of digging into them, developing them and seeing them in their rightful place in society. All we have to do is convince the rest of the country.

I just had a good time. You do not often go down a street and see so many people you admire and like saying all the things you want to listen to, but I had that experience today. I will single out one person: my noble friend Lady Smith, who encouraged me to do this. I was very nervous, as I had not been in the House for one reason or another, but she could not have been more helpful—or more firm. Right up to the last minute, I felt I was almost going to be pulled into the Chamber. It was wonderful working with her.

I thank everybody. It is a great thing noble Lords have done for the arts, and I think it will move things forward. I hope so.

Motion agreed.