Arts: Impact of Brexit

Lord Griffiths of Burry Port Excerpts

Thursday 11th October 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Griffiths of Burry Port (Lab)]

My Lords, what a debate this has been and what an invidious position the Minister finds himself in, as every speech from every corner of the House has struck the same note.

[Lord Adonis]

He is used to it.

[Lord Griffiths of Burry Port]

I ignore noises off and promise that someone will be exiting chased by a bear shortly if he continues.

First, I express my gratitude, along with others, for the fact that my noble friend Lord Bragg has introduced this debate. Her Majesty the Queen has considered him worthy to be a Companion of Honour, but he is a companion of honour to all of us sitting here and, for those of us on this side of the House, a comrade in arms for the people’s education. We honour him for all that he has done, first, in promoting the arts and, secondly, in cultivating, over decades, a public who are more aware of the riches of the arts. His work is truly incalculable and no one deserves to introduce a debate or to be listened to more than him. So we start on a very good foot, although of course I commiserate with the Minister.

It was many months ago when Karen Bradley—three Secretaries of State ago—spoke of the fact that the Government were,

“looking carefully at the areas in which it is important that we continue membership”.—[Official Report, Commons, 14/9/17; col. 956.]

She was referring to the status of the arts post Brexit. However, the Select Committee on Digital, Culture, Media and Sport reported that,

“Ms Bradley did not commit to continued membership of any particular programme or a timeframe for a decision”.

Have we not heard that again and again in one sector after another as we have looked at the thorny question of Brexit?

The committee also reported that in later correspondence the Secretary of State stated clearly that continued participation in Creative Europe would be subject to negotiation with the EU. The committee recommended that the Government,

“should commit to making it an objective of negotiations to secure the UK’s ongoing participation in Creative Europe”.

That was ever such a long time ago, and intricate and byzantine negotiations have taken place since. I would love to hear the Minister tell us that consideration of the status of the arts has been a significant feature of those negotiations, but perhaps if he is even now not at liberty to disclose the outcome of those deliberations, he might, with a nod or a wink or with smoke and mirrors, give us something to hang on to. We have heard the facts adduced eloquently by one speaker after another: that in this area the notice, obstacles and timetables that we are up against make it virtually impossible for us to think of an ongoing activity for most of the arts that we are all concerned with beyond the limits currently set. The Minister will no doubt tell us that we have lengthened the time within which contractual arrangements made this side of 29 March will be honoured on the other side of 29 March to one year.

But those are not the limits that are reasonable in the cases we are considering. It was the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, who uttered the word that I certainly wanted to emphasise myself—“uncertainty, uncertainty, uncertainty”. There is nothing worse than uncertainty. Against that, I would draw attention to a briefing that many of us will have received from the Arts Council. In contrast with the Government, from the time the referendum took place, with a result that the arts world scarcely wanted to hear, it has begun to prepare responsibly for the new era that is now opening up.

There have been surveys: one almost immediately after the referendum; another in February 2017; another in February 2018. The findings of those surveys have been mentioned in various contributions to this debate. But this is an evidence-based, factual building of a case, done responsibly by those responsible for our arts sector. The Government, meanwhile, have dithered, fighting pillow fights in the dark with each other in dark rooms. It is simply not good enough. The well-peopled Benches opposite testify to the fact that they have all gone to the country, and are not here to discuss this vitally important subject. It is not my habit to repeat points already made—sitting where I do in some of these debates, all my best points have already been made—but I am going to repeat the four findings of the first survey on how Brexit will impact on the arts, because they all bear repetition and holding together in the sequence in which they appear in this report. Here they come: reductions to EU funding received by the sector; changes to ease of movement affecting international touring and booking international artists to perform in the UK; an increase in costs of and barriers to moving objects and instruments, and in international tours or museum lending due to changes in customs agreements; uncertainty around legal frameworks important to the creative sector, such as copyright, artist’s resale right, employment and taxation legislation.

I would add a fifth, because it has cropped up generally in the conversation—the plight of young and new entrants into the sphere of the arts, trying their equivalent of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe out on cosmopolitan markets and audiences. The thrill of testing an idea, of forging a team, of crossing a barrier and of meeting other cultural norms cannot be overestimated. There are all of those things, and then the other, most quoted document of them all—the letter by Sir Bob Geldof and his many companions. We have more than once heard about the “self-built cultural jail”. But Sir Bob Geldof’s letter makes several other points. For example,

“60% of all royalty revenue paid to the UK comes from within the EU”.

There are all kinds of consequences that are way beyond the mere immediate impact, and they affect the very well-being of the sector in general.

We must emphasise, of course, that it is not only Sir Simon Rattle, Howard Goodall and the higher, elitist end of the entertainment and artistic world that combined to write that letter. It was Sir Bob Geldof himself who represented quite a different part of the spectrum. As did Ed Sheeran—I can see noble Lords’ faces lighting up at the mere mention of his name. But also, what about Bok Bok? I mean, we are talking about the record label Night Slugs. The style of music that Bok Bok is interested in suggests to me the kind of negotiations that have been going on in Brussels—muscular grime with thick bass synthesis, rather than Bok Bok’s original synth bass. There is all kinds of derring-do under the cloud of darkness.

I wish that the Prime Minister had got on to the platform at the Conservative Party conference with one of Bok Bok’s tracks, “Your Charizmatic Self”, from a 2014 album; and she might have replied with a track from another album called “Get Me What You Want”. In all these ways we have the popular music end as well as the classical music end. We have music and art, and we have heard about dance. The case is undeniable, and I am truly astonished that we have to argue it again and again.

I will end with one little illustration from another moment in British history when there was a conflict with Europe. It was at the time when Queen Anne died and the Stuarts gave way to the Hanoverians. People on the Tory side then were of course Stuarts on the whole, and the Hanoverians came with new Whig Administrations, and for a while nobody quite knew where they were. Interestingly, the Stuarts went as refugees into EU France, and the Hanoverians came out of Germany to take our crown. What a European picture is this! I believe that Alexander Pope, whose writings I am particularly fond of and immersed in just at the moment, coined a blessing, with which I will leave your Lordships—and in view of my professional duties this comes with authority and standing. Listen to this blessing, which has been touched up just a little: “God bless Remain, our Nation’s best Defender, God bless—no harm in blessing—the Brexiteer Offender. Who’ll win the day, prosperity to bring? God bless us all!—that’s quite another thing.”