Funding for the Arts

Lord Vaizey of Didcot Excerpts

Tuesday 13th September 2016 Westminster Hall

[Mr Edward Vaizey (Wantage) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to appear under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone. In fact, it is the first time in six years that I have appeared in order to propose a motion in Westminster Hall, so you can put that on your already extremely distinguished CV. It is also a great pleasure to talk about the arts, which has been a passion of mine all my life and has been—

[Mr Philip Hollobone (in the Chair)]

Order. The right hon. Gentleman actually has to move the motion.

[Mr Vaizey]

I am already moved, but I will move the actual motion. I beg to move,

That this House has considered funding for the arts.

Thank you for pointing that out, Mr Hollobone, and emphasising how out of touch and rusty I am at speaking from the Back Benches.

[John Nicolson (East Dunbartonshire) (SNP)]

Hear, hear.

[Mr Vaizey]

I am glad to have the support of the Scottish National party on that issue, as I do on so many others. It is worth pointing out, with the very distinguished spokesman for the SNP, the hon. Member for East Dunbartonshire (John Nicolson), here, that broadly speaking I will be talking about funding in England. No doubt the SNP spokesman can talk about funding in Scotland and he will tell a great tale that the Minister will rightly treat with some scepticism; he will point out that the Scottish story is not as great as the SNP would make out.

Anyway, back to England. I was lucky enough to serve as the Minister responsible for the arts for six years, until I left the Government in July. I warmly welcome the new Minister to his position and want to tell him that he need have no worry about my being a backseat driver. I am not planning to leave Parliament to give him the space that he needs to develop his position, but I am certainly not planning to second-guess what he does in his new role. I know already how talented he is, but those of us who leave Government perhaps not of our own accord do not have the chance to make a resignation speech, so perhaps I can treat this motion as a review of some of the things that I did as an Arts Minister and explain why I think there is an opportunity to increase Government funding for the arts.

The arts in England in particular, but also in the UK as a whole, have always relied on what is known as the mixed economy. We are relatively unique and very lucky, in that our arts organisations depend not just on straight Government funding but also, obviously, on their income and on philanthropy. In the last six years, we as a Government worked hard to encourage philanthropy, and arts and heritage organisations responded in kind and raised a great deal of money. Schemes such as Catalyst, which introduced match funding, enabled them to raise additional money from private donors.

[Kelvin Hopkins (Luton North) (Lab)]

I will just point out to the right hon. Gentleman that the level of public funding for the arts in Britain is lower than that in most continental European countries and below the European average. I think the Government ought to look at that.

[Mr Vaizey]

I will take that point when I come to address the levels of actual Government funding. I was talking about the mixed economy and pointing out that arts and heritage organisations have responded brilliantly, by not only raising private money from donors, but raising what is in effect commercial income from ticket sales, sponsorship and the like. In fact, for most successful arts and heritage organisations, Government funding is only a small proportion of their overall funding. Having said that, I believe that Government funding is vital. It is vital in providing core funding support for many of our most popular and successful arts organisations, as well as smaller arts organisations all over England. It is also vital in attracting additional money. A grant from the Government, Arts Council England or the Heritage Lottery Fund is a great vote of confidence that ends up acting as a catalyst for attracting private sponsorship and commercial funding as well.

We are very lucky in this country to have not only the mixed economy, but very talented arts and heritage leaders. I pay tribute to the people I worked with at the Arts Council: people such as Liz Forgan and Peter Bazalgette as chairmen of the Arts Council and Alan Davey and Darren Henley as chief executives. I am incredibly pleased to see that Sir Nicholas Serota is taking over from Peter Bazalgette as the new chairman of the Arts Council. Again, that is a great vote of confidence in the condition of the arts today.

When we came into government, we did have to impose cuts on the Arts Council, but in my view those cuts were misinterpreted. We kept to a minimum the cuts in money that actually went to arts organisations through grant in aid. We did stop some very expensive programmes and reduce the overall bureaucracy of the Arts Council, but the money going to arts organisations was reduced by far less. The amount of money going to arts organisations through the national lottery was increased significantly, by hundreds of millions of pounds.

It is also worth pointing out that in the last couple of years the then Chancellor of the Exchequer, my right hon. Friend the Member for Tatton (Mr Osborne), began to introduce tax breaks for arts organisations. I understand that the theatre tax break, for example, is now worth some £25 million to theatres in England. The orchestra tax break, which is just coming into play, will no doubt have a similar impact, and I know that the Government are taking forward plans for an exhibitions tax break as well.

Nevertheless, there have been cuts. The point I wanted to make was that the arts organisations that have had to deal with those funding reductions—as with many other sectors, covering every part of Government, that have had to deal with funding reductions—have responded brilliantly.

In my opinion, the heritage industry has perhaps been treated rather worse, because it suffered cuts under the last Labour Government and we did not protect it additionally when we came into office. The overall grant for English Heritage, now known as Historic England, has been significantly reduced, curtailing its ability to carry out vital heritage regulation. Nevertheless, the new model that the Government have put in place, putting the historic buildings and monuments that English Heritage was responsible for into a separate charity, along with a very generous capital endowment, will make a big difference. I pay tribute to people such as Simon Thurley, who led English Heritage for much of my time as a Minister, and to the current chairman, Laurie Magnus, who has done a brilliant job in making that split happen and providing a confident future for heritage.

Nevertheless, heritage funding is not as high as it could be. There have been individual programmes that have made a difference. As a Minister, I tried to go to the then Chancellor with individual programmes to draw in additional funding and I was successful—for example, with the capital programme for cathedrals. I should say, of course, that heritage did benefit from, again, a significant uplift in lottery funding, which has made a massive difference, because obviously heritage projects require a lot of capital funding in order to fund improvements.

Then we come to our wonderful national museums. They are national, serving all parts of the United Kingdom, but they, too, have seen a significant reduction in funding, while all the time maintaining free access to the national collections. Again, they have responded magnificently. I cannot think of a set of national museums anywhere in the world that have the prestige that ours do. They have seen their visitor numbers increase successfully. Take a museum such as the British Museum or Tate. These are world-leading museums, attracting millions of visitors every year and highly regarded throughout the world. It would take too long to list all the incredibly distinguished directors whom I was lucky enough to work with, many of whom continue to run our national museums, but again, if people want to see an example of a sector that has responded brilliantly to straitened financial circumstances, I think our national museums represent that.

The arts are resilient. The value of the contribution of arts and culture to our economy has increased by one third. They have increased the revenue that they earn, they have increased the money that they bring in through philanthropy, and they make ever more impacts in other parts of life, whether through cultural diplomacy—our calling card around the world—or impacts on health, the criminal justice system or education. The arts and our heritage sectors deserve support. There was—I do not think I am underestimating—an outpouring of joy from the arts and heritage sector at the last spending review in November 2015 when the then Chancellor announced that he was not going to make any cuts at all to the arts and heritage. That is the position we had arrived at. It was not just that he was not going to make any cuts; it was the way he put his position in his statement. He said:

“One of the best investments we can make as a nation is in our extraordinary arts, museums, heritage, media and sport.”—[Official Report, 25 November 2015; Vol. 602, c. 1368.]

He also said that

“deep cuts…are a false economy”.—[Official Report, 25 November 2015; Vol. 602, c. 1368.]

I agree with him and am glad that in that last settlement the then Chancellor recognised—as I think the arts and heritage sector took his meaning to be—that we had come, as it were, to the floor of where we were going to come to.

[Kelvin Hopkins]

Briefly, I strongly support what the right hon. Gentleman is saying. In the last few days, he may have seen a television programme about Cambodia. They are trying to revive their culture after the terrible predations of Pol Pot and his people, and their simple slogan is “No culture, no nation”. Culture is how we define ourselves and it is absolutely vital that it is preserved.

[Mr Vaizey]

That is so true and that is why I am so pleased that this Government also brought into being the cultural protection fund—£30 million of funding that is available to preserve the culture and heritage of other nations. In fact, all told, if we add the individual programmes to the core funding of heritage, museums and arts, we have a fantastic story to tell, both in the financial support of the arts and heritage, and in the range of programmes that this Government have supported.

Local authority funding is always a huge issue. I have to say that I am more robust on this than I am on other issues. Local councillors are elected by local people and they have the freedom to spend their taxpayers’ money as they see fit. I do not support statutory funding or statutory requirements for culture in a local area. I think that wise local councils should support the arts and heritage in their areas and understand the impact they have.

[Thangam Debbonaire (Bristol West) (Lab)]

The right hon. Gentleman is making a good point, but what does he think about how local authorities are expected to cope with keeping their arts budgets at a static point? I have to say that Bristol has managed it, and I am proud of that, but most are struggling because of the cuts to their grants from central Government. Would the right hon. Gentleman care to comment on that?

[Mr Vaizey]

One of the things we wanted to do in the culture White Paper, which I published before I left the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, was to take forward a partnership with local councils showing how the arts and heritage play a huge role in place-making and how different funding streams—not just the core funding stream from Department for Communities and Local Government or via the Arts Council—could help to support arts organisations. There is a lot we can do. Things like the UK capital of culture programme, for example, are great ways of galvanizing local authorities into taking their arts and heritage more seriously, but there are still bad news stories. For example, I was depressed to learn this week that Walsall is thinking of closing the New Art Gallery Walsall, which I regard as a great cultural institution.

I do not want to be a backseat driver. I wanted to use this debate to praise our arts and heritage sectors and what they have achieved, and to look briefly forward at what can be achieved in the future. Last week the Minister announced the museums review. That is a great opportunity to put our national museums, and some of our key regional museums, on a secure footing and to make absolutely clear what the relationship is between central Government and our national and regional museums and also what central Government are prepared to fund as core support and what they would expect national and regional museums to raise for themselves. Similarly, with the review of the Arts Council and other organisations that may take place shortly, I hope the Minister will think deeply about the core level of funding that the arts and heritage should receive.

A new Government, with fresh Ministers and renewed energy, have a chance to put arts and heritage funding on a secure and core footing. I am not asking for the earth. I am not asking for a 100% increase in core arts and heritage funding. A small and modest increase would not only make a significant difference to the arts and heritage; perhaps more importantly, it would stand, as the words of the then Chancellor showed in last year’s autumn statement, as an extraordinary vote of confidence in some of the greatest organisations we will find anywhere in the world, and that vote of confidence would be repaid many times over.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (in the Chair)]

This is an hour-long debate, so we are due to finish at 5.30 pm. The guidelines are that the SNP Front Bench is allowed five minutes, Her Majesty’s Opposition are allowed five minutes, the Minister is allowed 10 minutes and then Ed Vaizey is allowed three minutes to sum up the debate at the end. Therefore, I want to call the Front-Bench speakers no later than seven minutes past 5 and there are three Members seeking to speak, so I am going to impose a time limit of six minutes, which will ensure that everyone gets in.

The first speaker is going to be Deidre Brock. I have had a nice note from the SNP Whips Office, and I think she is dangerously over-qualified to speak because it says that she

“was formerly the Deputy Provost responsible for Arts and Tourism on the City of Edinburgh Council, and is a former actor.”

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[Thangam Debbonaire (Bristol West) (Lab)]

I thank the right hon. Member for Wantage (Mr Vaizey) for securing this debate and for doing so much in his time as Minister for the arts. I very much admired his commitment and could see that he was passionate about the arts—there will be a “but” eventually, but he knows that.

I am here to say that above all else, I value art and culture for its own sake. Art just matters for so many things. I was originally trained as a musician. I started learning the cello when I was four and I never stopped. I went to a music school that was publicly funded. I was a professional musician and a member of the Musicians’ Union, off and on, until my early 40s. I also married an actor who was originally an opera singer and is now an opera singer again. My sister is an artist, my parents are both musicians and art has been integral to who I am for my whole life. I really believe in the value of art for art’s sake because I know what a difference it has made to my life. I am here for today’s debate because I want everyone to experience that joy in whatever form it takes for them.

First and foremost, I want to emphasise the terms and conditions of people who are working in the arts. Without a properly remunerated, well supported workforce with decent terms and conditions, no industry at all can do well. Actors, musicians, dancers, painters, writers and technicians all need decent terms and conditions and too often are expected to work for very little or sometimes even no money.

Hon. Members have mentioned the words “funding” and “subsidy” today, and I want to try and change the language by talking about “investment.” The arts deliver an amazing return on investment. I do not have the figures with me—I used them somewhere else in another speech—but I know hon. Members here will be aware of just how much the arts give back to this country’s economy. If we are talking in purely economic terms, I think it is time that we stopped calling public money in the arts “a subsidy” or “funding” and called it “investment”.

[Mr Vaizey]

I wholeheartedly agree with the hon. Lady; could Hansard strike from the record any reference that I made to “subsidy” instead of “investment”? I believe that the then Chancellor said in his autumn statement last year that £1 billion invested in the arts returns £250 billion—and if the Treasury allowed that statistic out the door, it must be true.

[Thangam Debbonaire]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for reminding me of the figures. The Labour Government made arts and arts investment a real priority.

I will give a few examples of where arts investment goes and what it does in my constituency. Ujima is a community radio station with extraordinary reach. It touches the subjects that other radio stations go nowhere near. It has some public funding, but also generates a lot of its own income and does its own work. On Saturday, it was given a fantastic and well-deserved award by the Community Media Association.

Many people in Bristol know the Watershed as somewhere to go for coffee or to see a film. They may not realise that behind the doors is the Pervasive Media Studio, where artists go to collaborate, create something new and discover together. Very often, although not always, that collaboration turns into something commercial. Sometimes, it leads to a piece of theatre that needs more public investment, but sometimes it leads to something that can actually make money. I was privileged to visit the Pervasive Media Studio and to literally get my hands on one of its new inventions, which looks like a football with many sides, but is actually a musical instrument that DJs can use in nightclubs—something that I know nothing about. Apparently I got the hang of it really quickly, or maybe they were just flattering me.

Public investment helps the commercial sector. I always fall back on the “Skyfall” example. A colleague in the National Theatre pointed out to me a while ago that, although that is a commercial film, the lead characters and the director—Sam Mendes, Judi Dench and Daniel Craig—started out in publicly invested theatre. Sam Mendes did not just wake up one morning and decide to make “Skyfall”. He had been doing lots of other things, thanks to public investment.

I need to mention—the right hon. Member for Wantage knows that I will—the consequences of no public funding. He and other hon. Members have mentioned local authorities that have made huge cuts, but local councillors talk to me about dealing with the impact of cuts to central Government grants. When many local authorities serving deprived communities are faced with a difficult decision between the arts and the high cost of child protection, housing needs or other needs, they will cut the arts.

Now, I do not like that, the right hon. Member for Wantage does not like that and I am pretty sure that the Minister will not like it, but we need to face reality and accept the fact that local government and central Government grants have an impact. The right hon. Member for Wantage argued against ring-fenced funding. I get that argument, but there is a consequence when we cut Department for Communities and Local Government funding.

The Centre for Economics and Business Research has evaluated the impact of arts and culture on the economy, and it is massive. The arts and culture industries are so often more productive than other industries and, as well as generating economic value, they generate joy. I can testify to something that other hon. Members have mentioned—the value of arts in health and wellbeing. When I was being treated at Southmead hospital last year, I was privileged to see the cathedral to health that has been created there, and how much art and culture was built into the fabric of the building. There are works of art, changing exhibitions and a grand piano at which a variety of musicians play all sorts of wonderful music, which uplifted me in moments when otherwise I felt very down.

The public investment that we put into the arts more than earns its keep economically, through social aspects and wellbeing, and through regeneration of deprived areas, which is something that I have not mentioned, but for which there is a great deal of evidence. It is important that we take notice of workers’ terms and conditions, and recognise that public funding for the arts should be seen as an investment that has huge commercial opportunities when properly supported. We need to stop thinking about art as a subsidy.

Art, for my money, should truly be for everybody. As Jennie Lee said in her first arts White Paper way back in the ’60s—and I am pretty sure that the right hon. Member for Wantage said something similar in his White Paper—art, and our support for it as public citizens, should truly be for everybody. It enriches us, lifts us up and helps us to make something better out of the world we live in.

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[Mr Vaizey]

We live in a time of great turmoil: within the last hour, Mel and Sue have announced that they will not be presenting “The Great British Bake-Off” when it moves to Channel 4.

The Minister’s speech was particularly welcome because of the sure-footedness and steady hand that he has brought to his portfolio. I will pick out a number of points that he made, some of which I overlooked and some of which I want to emphasise. First, I welcome his focus on diversity, in terms of both protected characteristics and social mobility. In their early speeches in their new portfolios, both he and the Secretary of State have emphasised that, which is welcome. Secondly, he reminded the House how much progress has already been made in pushing funding outside London and showed a great commitment to carrying that on.

Thirdly, I cannot emphasise enough how important words are in the sector. Actions speak louder than words, as they do in any other area, but words are important, so to hear the Minister say on record that public funding is a cornerstone will be greatly reassuring to both the arts and heritage. Also, effectively telling the Chancellor that he is a supporter of the arts is a great move. Given the influence that my right hon. Friend has, I am pleased that the new Chancellor is officially a supporter of the arts. I thank him for that as well.

The Minister is an old friend, and will grab this portfolio with both hands and with the energy for which he is well known in the House. I know that the Secretary of State is also enjoying great support from the people I know in the sector who have met her, so I have great confidence. I know that it is slightly cheeky of me, at this early stage in their tenure as Ministers, to hold a debate on increasing funding to the arts, but I wanted to put on record why it is important.

In the last public expenditure settlement, I said to the then Chancellor that although those headline cuts, of the kind that the Treasury always loves to shove out the door in the run-up to public expenditure, would have a significant impact on world-class organisations, they represented very small sums in the great scheme of Government spending. Similarly, I emphasise to my right hon. Friend that the kind of sums that could make an impact on arts organisations at the next spending review or in the next Budget would be infinitesimal in the realm of Government spending—although I absolutely acknowledge that this Government in particular have, and will want to keep, a record of financial prudence. They will not only make a significant difference to what our arts organisations can do and to their impact; they will, to return to my other theme, be a massive vote of confidence from this Government in the arts and heritage, and he and the Secretary of State will be repaid a hundred times over by the sector.

As I said, I cannot foist that burden or challenge on to my right hon. Friend. I am realistic about what can and cannot be achieved, and he must negotiate with the Treasury. However, regardless of the outcome of the spending review or the next Budget, I emphasise again that both he and the Secretary of State are welcome additions in the arts and heritage, from everything that I am picking up. I am thrilled to read some of their speeches and see some of the work they are already undertaking. I am doing my absolute best not to sound ridiculously patronising; this is a heartfelt speech of support for what the Minister is doing.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered funding for the arts.