Covid-19: Cultural and Creative Industries

Lord Stirrup Excerpts
Monday 26th October 2020

(3 years, 6 months ago)

Lords Chamber
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Baroness Barran Portrait Baroness Barran (Con)
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As my noble friend knows, the cultural and creative industries have been a critical and rapidly growing part of our economy, representing about £111 billion of gross value added in 2018—or 6% of GDP. We estimate that, up to August 2020, output in arts, entertainment and recreation was about 28.1% lower than in February 2020.

Lord Stirrup Portrait Lord Stirrup (CB)
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My Lords, the recent grants to arts organisations are very welcome but, if we are not careful, we risk winding up with too few artists to perform in many of them. What further action are the Government considering to stem the exodus from the profession of many musicians—perhaps more than 40% of the total? They can neither find employment nor access the relief schemes currently in place.