Arts: Funding

Lord Myners Excerpts

Thursday 3rd February 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Myners]

My Lords, I also express my appreciation to the noble Earl for securing this debate and congratulate my noble friend Lady Bakewell and the noble Lord, Lord Wasserman, on their excellent maiden speeches, which show us all that they will be most welcome to our House and will be important contributors to many of our debates in the future.

I declare my interest: I am a trustee of the Tate Foundation and of Glyndebourne. I was previously chair of the trustees of Tate, briefly a trustee of the National Gallery and a trustee of the Royal Academy. My wife is the chair of the Institute of Contemporary Arts, having previously been chair of the Contemporary Art Society. The depth of declarations made by noble Lords in today’s debate speaks powerfully about the experience of the House and how we can bring many wide and different perspectives to debates and discussions, not only on culture, as we do today, but on other issues.

I will not speak about the role of culture and art; others have done that admirably. Culture is certainly uplifting and helps us to understand ourselves and the context and society in which we live, but we have also been told by my noble friend Lord Puttnam how important the arts are as an economic sector. They employ more than 2 million people. I have seen for myself the impact that an arts institution can have on a local community, with Tate St Ives revitalising the economy of west Penwith in Cornwall. I have also seen the impact of an organisation such as Tate. Under the extraordinary leadership of its director, Sir Nicholas Serota, Tate now attracts 8 million visitors a year and is the most visited contemporary art museum in the world. There are more visitors to Tate Modern than to Pompidou and MoMA together. This is an important part of our economy and society. We all get joy when we go to these institutions, but we also see the joy that others get from sharing in the art that has been accumulated over so many generations.

I am sympathetic to the fact that the noble Baroness, Lady Rawlings, is very supportive of the arts. I know we can look to the noble Baroness for sentiments that we will find encouraging. However, she is in turn limited by the interface and negotiations that the DCMS is required to have with the Treasury. I add that I am delighted that this Government continue to endorse the concept of free entry to our major museums and galleries—one of the great achievements of the previous Government.

However, the simple fact is that this Government have concluded that they will not direct as much money towards culture as previous Governments. We have seen draconian cuts in national funding, and these are being exacerbated by cutbacks in local funding as well, which often affect the smaller institutions in the regions. We have already seen how this can lead to brutal actions in Somerset and Barnet. I fear that there is more of this to come. We are very fortunate that the Arts Council is responding to this challenge in a constructive way. It is highly efficient, well governed and economical, and it has worked well with arts institutions to explain the new reality and move to a new stage of funding for the future.

But what can we do to improve this situation? The Government can do a number of things. First, they can move to simplify gift aid. It is ridiculous that gift aid is still paper based rather than digitally based. This costs the arts sector and the charitable sector a great deal. That would be a simple thing for the Government to do. They could also encourage greater contributions through admitting higher-rate taxpayers into gift aid.

The Government could also extend the acceptance in lieu scheme. In reality, the most tax efficient way of giving in this country is through dying. We need to ensure that people can give in their own lifetime. In the same way that we allow acceptance in lieu against inheritance tax, we should allow it against other taxes. I particularly welcome the opportunity to advance the case that it should be permissible as a means by which non-doms can make their contribution to the £30,000 which they are required to pay. Non-doms are very important in our cultural sector. An opportunity for them to give to a higher value than the tax they are offsetting would be helpful. I hope that the Government will encourage the introduction of charitable remainder trusts, which have proved so successful in other jurisdictions, and that they will repeal Section 6 of the Finance Act 2010 to substitute a more practical implementation of the Persche decision.

Finally, we need to cultivate a new generation of philanthropists. I look forward to the report being produced by the committee chaired by Mr Tom Hughes-Hallett as there is an opportunity here, with the great riches that we now see in the City and in the financial community, to encourage a new generation of committed philanthropists. We need to see corporates giving more. As Mr Simon Robey, the chairman of the Royal Opera House, has recently pointed out, less than a third of our major FTSE-100 companies give any money at all to the arts and culture. We should seek to improve this situation and I look to the Government to take the appropriate steps.