Arts

Lord Rooker Excerpts

Thursday 1st February 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Rooker (Lab)]

My Lords, if everybody agrees with everybody else, I wonder where that leaves the Minister.

I will work on one thing for a couple of minutes: rural life. Governments—of all parties, to be honest—ignore rural life in the UK. The word “rural” has not crossed anybody’s lips, although we came close with the right reverend Prelate’s speech. This goes for the big arts funders as well.

I live in Ludlow. It is the case that citizens there cannot even get home from events in Shrewsbury and Hereford, 30 miles away, using public transport. We are on our own. I declare an interest, in that Helen Hughes, aka Lady Rooker, was the pro bono chief executive of the Ludlow Assembly Rooms for eight years, after it was disowned by Arts Council England. It contains a 300-seat auditorium, recently rebuilt to modern standards, and it is mainly run by over 100 volunteers. Events can be streamed from London and New York. A mixture of film, live shows and international streaming for thousands of people, including those with dementia and other impairments not catered for by the big battalions of the arts, are offered. But the base funding is crucial to help provide the infrastructure for such small organisations. In turn, they are crucial for artists to develop their craft—people often come to a 300-seat rural enterprise to test events for a bigger auditorium later on. Funders want innovation, while small organisations need core funding to stay ongoing.

We are 10 miles from the Welsh border. Annual performances by Mid Wales Opera fill the auditorium. Recently, “Beatrice and Benedick” packed the place out. Mid Wales Opera ensures that nobody in Wales and the Marches is more than 30 miles from professional opera through its touring programme, together with the outstanding work it undertakes in schools, providing an education programme that gives massive benefits to so many young people. But now, Arts Council of Wales, in its wisdom, has cut support to this innovating company to zero. It just does not care—that is the problem. Rural arts need more support and attention.