Government Support for Artists

Lord Patten Excerpts

Monday 19th January 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Patten (Con)]

Of course, taxpayers and the Government have had a role in helping individual artists since the setting up of the Arts Council back in 1946. Increasingly, big corporations and the financial world have also developed a role in sponsorship, which I think is generally valued. Then there is the long-running, historic role of individuals in commissioning work de novo from artists. I have done a tiny bit of that myself —not yet, I have to admit, from a Nick Trench or a Cally Trench, but perhaps that may come in due course.

It is worth looking around the world to see how approaches differ in the funding of individuals. In the USA there is much less federal and state subsidy of the arts using taxpayers’ funds, and much more from individuals given pretty big tax breaks to fund directly, which they often do, or via the constituent members of the GIA—Grantmakers in the Arts—all closely monitored by the Internal Revenue Service, the IRS, of the United States.

In Germany the approach is very different. There are of course government arts and performing arts funds to apply to but the very possession of, say, a degree from an art school in Germany creates in law a professional artist by that act, and thereafter the simple act of applying for a grant or a scholarship counts as a job application and automatically becomes a passport to benefits and subsidised social insurance of various kinds.

Australia is particularly interesting. There is support in Australia for everything from art resale royalty schemes—which, I agree with the noble Earl, are extremely important—to art business start-up assistance via the ArtStart scheme, which I applaud. Perhaps a little more surreally—my chosen interest, as it happens—is the consideration being given by the current Australian Government to adding arts activities to the criteria for their “Work for the Dole” scheme. I must remember to draw this idea to the attention of my right honourable friend Mr Duncan Smith down there at the Department for Work and Pensions.

So there is a wide range of different approaches in Europe and the western world. We see a cocktail of mixed economies, with individual, state and corporate ingredients, and I do not think we would ever want to decry any one of those. I certainly hope not. For myself, I am cautious about anything that smacks of a subsidy from the poor to the privileged—I do not like that as a concept—or where subsidy for the arts crowds out unsubsidised artists, or where there is too much centralised picking of winners, which I disapprove of strongly, whether in industrial or artistic policy.

I believe three things very strongly. First, any increase in funding from taxpayers, rich and poor alike, must be cautiously considered only when economic circumstances allow. Secondly, too much noise about the cuts from arts bureaucrats, who generally get a pretty good salary, is both unattractive and generally counterproductive. Thirdly, the one thing I would like to ask my noble friend the Minister is: what consideration is being given in the mean time to new tax breaks for donations to the arts being increased—for example, including a system based on gift aid, which is well established, and which, carefully monitored, will allow for giving to artistic individuals directly? That is something that I hope may have all-party support.