Arts: Funding

Lord Howarth of Newport Excerpts

Thursday 3rd February 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Howarth of Newport]

My Lords, I add my warm congratulations to the noble Earl and to my noble friend Lady Bakewell. The House had high expectations of her maiden speech and they were well fulfilled.

We had seven fat years for the arts under the previous Government—I think that I can say that objectively—and I very much hope that we shall have fewer than seven lean years under this Government. It was entirely unnecessary for the Government to compound the damage of the recession to the arts. Public spending on culture is 1 per cent of that spent on the health service. If we abolished the whole of the cultural budget, it would make no difference whatever to the assessment by the markets of Britain’s fiscal deficit. As it is, the cuts that are to be faced will have a significant effect on the possibilities of future growth in our economy. There is so much more to be lost both economically and culturally by cutting public spending on the arts than to be gained. Be that as it may, the Government have taken the decision that the arts must make a contribution—hefty for them—to reducing the deficit.

In this situation, what are the essential responsibilities of government? I suggest that they are threefold.

First, the Government should do everything they can, within their self-imposed fiscal constraints, to keep the show on the road and to nurse the arts through to the recovery phase of the economy. Therefore, the pacing and timing of cuts in public expenditure are extremely important. Against the background of the reductions in business investment in the arts, it is devastatingly damaging that local government—a major funder of the arts, museums, galleries and the heritage—is to be required to cut 16 per cent from its spending in the first year. Indeed, the impact on the arts will be worse because support for the arts is not a statutory duty of local authorities—and we have seen that Somerset and Barnet are taking the opportunity to cut their funding for the arts by 100 per cent. The Government need to nurse the system through to at least 2013, when we may hope that there is a stronger economic recovery and when, at any rate, the arts and heritage lottery funds will have significant additional sums to spend—a decision for which I applaud the Government. I believe that Lord Keynes would certainly have advocated counter-cyclical public spending for the arts in these circumstances, so why does the reduction to the Arts Council England budget have to be implemented as to 80 per cent in the first two years? Will the noble Baroness tell us what the prospects are for phasing the cuts to the Renaissance in the Regions budget?

In this situation, the Government should concentrate the resources that they have to spend on the basic necessities and refrain from indulging in expensive new initiatives. A new fund of £1 million for technology in the arts is a good idea but one for prosperous times. They should also concentrate on the cost-free changes that they can bring in to assist the arts, cutting in particular the regulatory costs, which, as Neil MacGregor pointed out in his report, bear heavily as it is on arts institutions and inhibit philanthropic giving. I am pleased that the Government have started to act, at any rate, on reserves. They should not have mucked about with institutions that were functioning very well, such as Public Lending Right, the MLA, Arts & Business, Creative Partnerships and CABE. They should have continued to support agencies that themselves support the arts and heritage to build capacity, achieve best practice, and improve fundraising, marketing, exploitation of intellectual property and their understanding of how to participate in the procurement processes of other public bodies.

The Government should also act coherently across government as a whole. The Secretary of State should be the great advocate and champion for the arts across Whitehall departments to ensure that they understand the potential contribution of the arts and heritage to their programmes and that they can benefit from their budgets. Support for the creative economy should be unambiguous. The Secretary of State for Schools should have understood the extraordinary benefit that the Creative Partnerships programme has conferred on attendance and grades that young people in disadvantaged areas achieve. The English baccalaureate should embrace the arts. The barbarism of removing all public support for teaching arts and humanities in universities should never have been contemplated. There is much else that one might say about what the Secretary of State should be aiming to achieve across Whitehall.

I shall say finally that the Government should move intelligently towards a more plural and balanced pattern of funding. They are right to support philanthropy and the development of endowments but those will be gradual processes. In the mean time we need specific decisions and action taken fairly and squarely by Ministers, not hiding behind their quangos, to ensure that the arts right across the country get the help they need. It takes a long time to build up but very little time to dismantle. I look forward very much to hearing the noble Baroness affirm her belief in the value of the arts—no one doubts her own commitment—and describe the Government’s ambition and vision for the arts.