Creative Sector

Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay Excerpts

Thursday 4th November 2021 Lords Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay) (Con)]

My Lords, I am delighted that the noble Baroness, Lady Featherstone, was able to secure this debate, which has allowed us to recognise the great value of the creative industries to the United Kingdom. I am particularly glad that she managed to secure it now, for I am one month into my new role and still pinching myself at my good fortune to have been given the opportunity to try to do some good for sectors which I hold so dear, as I know all noble Lords who have spoken in today’s debate do. As my noble friend Lord Vaizey said, this is a fantastic job, and one that comes with a big in-tray. It is also a great responsibility to look after one of our economy’s crown jewels: our creative sector.

The Government have a long and deep commitment to supporting our creative industries. That was shown through the 2018 creative industries sector deal, which invested more than £150 million across the life cycle of creative businesses. It was also shown in last week’s Budget where, even in a challenging economic climate, we announced a further £42 million over the next three years to support our world-leading creative industries across the UK.

I was very grateful to the noble Baroness for her recognition of what the Budget and spending review meant for the creative sector. I make no apology for beginning my remarks by dwelling on that Budget. I think she undersold it when she talked about fig leaves; this is a huge investment of taxpayers’ money, going to a part of our economy which is one of our crown jewels, as I said. In addition to the £42 million I just mentioned, last week we announced temporary increases to the headline rates of tax relief for theatres, museums, orchestras and galleries across the United Kingdom until the end of March 2024, which increases—and in some cases doubles—the relief that organisations can claim as they invest in new productions and exhibitions. It is a fantastic and widely welcomed boost for our world-class creative sector and is worth almost a quarter of a billion pounds. We also announced changes to the film and high-end TV tax reliefs to allow production companies to switch between claiming either film or high-end TV during production, ensuring that relief is not lost if a company decides to change its distribution method. We more than doubled the borrowing limit of the BBC’s commercial arm to £750 million in stepped phases between next year and 2026-27, subject to confirmation on oversight arrangements.

We also recognise that there are wider opportunities to improve the efficiency of creative businesses through improved digital connectivity and mobile coverage through a landmark investment to deliver one of the largest ever upgrades to our digital infrastructure. More broadly, as we said in the Budget, we are providing up to £150 million of additional funding for the national museums, galleries and other DCMS public bodies to help them recover from the pandemic and to level up across the country, providing more spaces for creative people to display their work and for people to come and enjoy and engage with it. Again, all of this demonstrates the Government’s commitment to supporting our creative sector and recognises that it contributes to our economic recovery and delivers on the Government’s key priorities on levelling up and extolling the virtues of global Britain.

While the pandemic has heavily affected some of our creative industries, the Government have provided them with unprecedented levels of support which, again, the noble Baroness and others paid generous tribute to. The Culture Recovery Fund was extended by a further £300 million over the summer, taking it close to £2 billion—the largest ever investment in the arts in this country. It would be remiss of me not to pay tribute to my right honourable friend Oliver Dowden, my honourable friend Caroline Dinenage, my noble friend Lady Barran and others who were a part of that work, as well as my right honourable friend the Chancellor, who is the Member of Parliament for the rural and culturally vibrant market town rightly extolled by the noble Baroness, Lady Harris of Richmond, and who has demonstrated his personal and the Government’s wholehearted support for our creative sectors through the Budget. We have gone further still, announcing last week an £800 million live events reinsurance scheme and an extension to the £500 million film and TV production restart scheme, both of which will enable UK events and productions to thrive and plan with certainty.

I am pleased to say that we have seen activity rebound close to pre-pandemic levels across many parts of the creative industries already, but it is clear that this rebound is not spread equally as some audience-facing sectors, such as live music, are still considerably down on pre-pandemic levels. In the visits and engagements I have been doing with organisations up and down the country, I have heard very clearly their concerns about the ongoing effects of the pandemic and the importance of building confidence among the public to book and enjoy what is on offer.

I was sorry to hear that the noble Baroness, Lady Merron, is not as enthusiastic as the Government are about the new Beatles attraction in Liverpool. To reassure her, this is not just a museum. Indeed, it is designed to inspire future generations, as she hopes it will. It may include a new secondary school and there will be rehearsal space for the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra. As the director of culture at Liverpool City Council has rightly said, this will be about more than just the Beatles. The Fab Four are the hook, but Liverpool City Council and the Government are really excited about how this gets kids from some of the poorest areas of Liverpool to create and explore their passion for music. I hope that we will be able to convince the noble Baroness as that comes to fruition.

She and other noble Lords talked about freelancers. We are well aware of the effects of the pandemic and its differential impact on people, based on the roles they perform. The Government recognise the vital contribution that freelancers make to our creative industries. We have provided unprecedented support to self-employed people throughout the pandemic, and up until the end of September, freelancers were able to access financial support through the Self-employment Income Support Scheme, which has so far helped nearly 3 million people. Of course, I am keen to engage with freelancers. We speak to the Creative Industries Council, but I want to speak to freelancers on an individual level to understand how the pandemic affected them and what more support they might need.

A great many noble Lords dwelt on the importance of education. That was a point well made in the excellent maiden speech of my noble friend Lord Spencer of Alresford, whom I warmly welcome to your Lordships’ House. He talked about the importance of creativity and innovation for all sectors. Of course, the transferrable skills that creative industries and endeavours give us, such as communication, teamwork, self-confidence, perseverance, lateral thinking and so much more, are of great benefit and have been to companies like his—ICAP—and so many more.

To that end, following the point he, the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, and others made on R&D and createch, I again point to the 2018 sector deal, through which the Government worked to recognise the importance of R&D to the creative industries and the opportunities to drive local growth by supporting it in creative clusters across the UK. We invested £39 million in the creative clusters programme through UKRI, which connects clusters of creative businesses and academia to take advantage of the most recent research and innovation, so that they can grow. Those clusters are spread across the country, from Cardiff to Edinburgh and Leeds to Belfast. I am pleased to say to my noble friend Lord Dundee that we confirmed in the spending review that we will support the UK games fund, which is based in Dundee, over the next three years.

On innovation more broadly, which my noble friend Lord Spencer talked about, the sector deal supported the Audiences of the Future work programme, which encouraged creative businesses to use innovative new technologies to reach new audiences. To date, that has provided funding of over £37 million, with investment from the industry, to more than 130 businesses and research organisations. Of course the pandemic has put turbochargers on that and I join the noble Baroness, Lady Merron, and others who paid tribute to the way that people across the sector threw themselves into making sure that people could continue to perform and do what they love and that the public more widely were able to see and enjoy that. We have seen across the sector lots of fantastic ways in which organisations have brought their work to new and wider audiences. When I visited the Hallé Orchestra in Manchester I saw how the Cultural Recovery Fund money helped it to invest in some technology which brought its work to wider—indeed, international—audiences, which will have some benefit after the pandemic as well.

Noble Lords talked about the importance of education in schools. I speak as a proud graduate of the state comprehensive system. I pay tribute to the work that teachers do in inspiring creativity in so many pupils up and down the country. The Government are committed to ensuring that all children and young people have a broad and balanced curriculum, of which creative education is a key part. Music and art and design are part of the national curriculum and remain compulsory in all maintained schools for five to 14 year-olds, and pupils have an entitlement to study at least one arts subject at key stage 4 in maintained schools. I am aware of the discrepancies between the private and the state sector. I recently saw my old drama teacher from school. I was very lucky to go to a school which had fantastic facilities: a drama studio, a fully equipped auditorium and music rehearsal spaces. After I left and towards the end of her career my teacher moved into the private sector because the facilities that she was able to enjoy and use for the benefit of her pupils were so much better. It is a discrepancy of which the Government are well aware and which we are keen to address.

Noble Lords talked about the arts premium. With the significant impact of the pandemic on children’s learning, our priorities have inevitably had to focus on educational recovery over the next three years. That is why core funding for schools will rise by £4.7 billion by 2024-25, equivalent to a cash increase of £1,500 per pupil. We value the arts not just for their own sake but as part of our recovery from Covid. That is why we also invest around £115 million a year on a diverse portfolio of music and arts education programmes, including Saturday art and design clubs, the National Youth Dance Company and the BFI Film Academy, which are designed to improve access to the arts for all children, regardless of their background, and to develop talent across the country. I am pleased to say that I am to have a meeting with my colleague Robin Walker, the new Minister of State at the Department for Education, where I will certainly be taking up many of the points that were raised by noble Lords in today’s debate, and I will be pinching my noble friend Lady Fleet’s line about red squirrels, which helps focus minds.

Noble Lords talked about the EBacc. I gently note that it was introduced under the coalition Government in which I had the pleasure of working with the noble Baroness and other noble Lords on the Lib Dem Benches. Schools have time beyond the EBacc to teach other subjects. Indeed, the EBacc was designed to be limited in size in order to allow for that. The best schools in the country combine excellence in EBacc subjects with high-quality arts and cultural education. However, the noble Earl, Lord Clancarty, is right to point to the vocational nature of these subjects in schools and in pupils’ future careers. It is important that we recognise that people are able to have a rewarding career in the arts in every sense, not just lucratively, although there are great opportunities, particularly as we emerge from the pandemic, for people to have careers which pay them well. I saw a brilliant example of that last night at the Royal Albert Hall when I went to see the Music for Youth Remix Prom. Nearly 2,000 young people from state schools and orchestras and youth groups up and down the country, from Cornwall to Teesside, went to the Royal Albert Hall and performed with each other in that fantastic space. The grins on their faces said it all, even before they had produced a note. It was wonderful to see.

Music education remains a central part of a broad and balanced curriculum in schools. That is why it is part of the national curriculum. A new national plan for music education will be published early next year following the publication of the model music curriculum earlier this year. It will aim to ensure that every future pupil has the opportunity to sing, learn a musical instrument and make music with others. My noble friend Lady Fleet knows it well because she chairs the expert advisory panel that has been assembled to guide the development of the plan. It is made up of teachers, music education hub leaders, industry representatives and other music education experts, including representatives from the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain, UK Music and the Arts Council. Of course, this is another area where I am mindful that the responsibility lies with both DCMS and the Department for Education. I know that my noble friend Lady Barran, who was a Minister in your Lordships’ House for DCMS and is now at the DfE, answered Questions on that. I hope that gives noble Lords reassurance that a joined-up approach to government can be seen from this reshuffle.

The noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, and other noble Lords talked about the importance of careers advice. I share the concern that perhaps in the past careers advice in this area has owed rather a lot to Noël Coward’s “Don’t put your daughter on the stage, Mrs Worthington”, but I am pleased to say that the National Careers Service website is working to address that. It includes more than 120 profiles in the creative and media sector, each profile describing what those roles entail, the qualifications needed and the entry routes. In addition, DCMS funded the Creative Careers Programme as part of our sector deal commitment. It saw £2 million of government funding leveraged by a further £8 million of in-kind support from more than 1,000 creative employers. The programme is designed to reduce the aspirational, informational, postcode and reputational barriers to entry into the creative industries. It has so far informed and inspired more than 115,000 young people about job opportunities which are available in the cultural and creative sectors.

Noble Lords also talked about higher education. The noble Baroness, Lady Bonham-Carter, referred to a 50% cut in some arts subjects. It is important to dwell in some detail on that. What was announced in July this year by the Office for Students was a 50% cut to the strategic priorities grant to some subjects in this academic year. The strategic priorities grant, which is annual funding supplied by the Government to supplement higher education providers’ income where tuition fees alone do not meet the high cost of provision, is just one of the additional funding sources which are available to providers alongside tuition fees. The cut which she mentioned represents a small proportion— around 1%—of providers’ overall income. It was designed as a reprioritisation to target taxpayers’ money towards the subjects which are helping the National Health Service during the pandemic and will help it recover from it; that is, science, technology, engineering and the specific needs of the labour market. We know that high-quality provision in a range of subjects, including the arts, is also critical for our workforce, our economy and our society more broadly, which is why the Office for Students also allocated an additional £10 million this academic year to our world-leading specialist providers, including several top institutions such as the Guildhall School of Music and Drama and the Royal Northern College of Music.

The noble Lords, Lord Foster and Lord Bassam, and others talked about apprenticeships as a further route, and the Government are making apprenticeships more flexible so that they can better meet the needs of employers in all sectors. In August, we launched a new £7 million flexi-job apprenticeship fund to support the greater use of apprenticeships, such as in the creative industries, where flexible working practices are commonplace, including short periods of project-based employment.

I am pleased to point to ScreenSkills, which is piloting a flexi-job apprenticeship training model funded by DCMS with the support of Netflix and Warner Bros. That pilot is funding 20 apprentices in production assistant and production accountant roles, and aims to widen participation in the film sector further. Widening participation is another key point which has come up again and again in today’s debate and about which the Government also feel strongly. Noble Lords will have heard in all the utterances from my right honourable friend the Secretary of State since she was appointed the importance of widening participation and access so that people can enjoy and participate in our creative industries. As she has said, a working-class background should never be a barrier to a successful career in the creative industries. We want to increase access to opportunities across the board as part of our plan to level up. That touches on the points rightly raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Prashar, about racial diversity. We want everybody, whatever their background, to be able to play their part.

That is why, this year, DCMS co-funded the Creative Industries Policy and Evidence Centre’s report on Social Mobility in the Creative Economy. It is why we are working with groups such as the All-Party Group on Creative Diversity, which the noble Baroness, Lady Bonham-Carter, mentioned and the creative industries to look at that vital area. We know that there is much to be done, but with the Secretary of State from Merseyside and a Minister from Tyneside, I hope that noble Lords will be reassured that there is a team of Ministers determined to do it.

I touch on the importance of touring, following our departure from the EU. The noble Baroness, Lady Featherstone, said that no thought had been given to this; I think that was a little unfair. The UK took an ambitious approach during the negotiations with the EU which would have ensured that touring artists and their support staff did not need work permits to perform in the European Union. Regrettably, that was rejected by the EU. I point to our recent trade deal with the three EFTA countries—Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein—which was based on the same offer and accepted, which shows that our proposals were workable and that we are fighting to help musicians and other touring performers tour abroad.

In many areas, the arrangements are much more straightforward than has at times been reported. For instance, 20 member states offered visa and work permit-free routes for musicians and creative performers. That includes most of the biggest touring markets, including France, Germany and the Netherlands. Portable musical instruments carried or in a vehicle can be transported cost-free and should not require ATA carnets, and small splitter vans are not subject to the TCA limits on cabotage and cross-trade.

We are working with the remaining member states which do not allow visa-free and permit-free touring, such as Spain and Portugal, to encourage them to make touring easier. We want all our European friends to be able to enjoy the economic and cultural benefits that UK touring artists bring, as we do from the EU creative performers who can tour easily here. The noble Lord, Lord Berkeley of Knighton, asked about Spain in particular. I can tell him that my honourable friend Wendy Morton, the Foreign Office Minister, had a meeting with her counterparts in Spain on 30 September, and Her Majesty’s ambassador to Spain met the Spanish Minister of Inclusion, Social Security and Migration on 14 October. We continue to engage actively at ministerial and official level, and I will certainly keep the noble Lord posted on it.

I am almost running out of time but I turn to the publishing industry, which the noble Baroness, Lady Miller of Chilthorne Domer, and many others pointed to. I am very mindful, the morning after the Booker prize was awarded, of the importance of books; I send my congratulations to Damon Galgut on his success last night. I am also the Minister with responsibility for libraries, and point to the fantastic work that many of them did to continue to loan books and be a huge support to people, particularly those who were home schooling during parts of the pandemic. DCMS is incredibly proud of the British publishing industry. It is a huge success story, as the noble Baroness said, and a big part of our soft power. Our books are read the world over, turned into TV shows and films, and boost the economy in all sorts of ways. Publishers have shown incredible resilience during the pandemic. Indeed, the value of the UK publishing sector rose by 2% to nearly £6.5 billion, so clearly a lot of people found solace in books during the pandemic.

Now that we are in recovery from the pandemic, we want publishers to bounce back and build back stronger than ever. The focus for Ministers at DCMS is to ensure that the publishing sector is accessible to all. We want more authors from disadvantaged and underrepresented backgrounds, as well as people working in the industry more broadly.

The noble Baroness and others asked about the IP exhaustion regime. The Government recently held a consultation on the UK’s future exhaustion of intellectual property rights regime. The Intellectual Property Office held constructive discussions with stakeholders across multiple sectors, including representatives from the creative industries and design sectors. The Government are assessing the options and will make a decision in due course.

The noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, the noble Lord, Lord McNally, and others talked about the BBC. I hope that she heard the words of my right honourable friend the Secretary of State during the party conference season that the BBC is a “beacon for the world”. The appointments of both the BBC chairman and a new chairman for Ofcom have followed the Governance Code on Public Appointments.

I am keen to give the noble Baroness, Lady Featherstone, time to respond, so I will draw my remarks to a close there. I promise to write to all noble Lords whose questions I have been unable to cover. She said that she wanted to see a Government who understand values and promote our creative sector. I hope that she has seen from what I have been able to say in the limited time today that we indeed have such a Government and such a Minister, and I am very grateful for all the thoughts that have been raised in today’s debate.