Performing Arts: English National Opera

Nickie Aiken Excerpts

Monday 5th December 2022 Commons Chamber

[Sir Robert Neill]

The right hon. Lady is entirely right. A few statistics bear that out: 50% of the ENO’s audience come to see an opera for the first time. I was at its new production of “It’s a Wonderful Life” only last week. On Friday I went to see the last performance of “The Yeoman of the Guard”. I have never seen a younger audience in an opera house on either of those occasions. A few months ago I was at “Tosca” when it first opened and saw the same thing—standard repertoire, some would say—young people who are enthusiastic about serious art done to an international level. To undermine that would be vandalism of the very worst order.

[Nickie Aiken (Cities of London and Westminster) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this Adjournment debate. I was particularly concerned to hear the news of the Arts Council not supporting ENO in the way it should, particularly as the London Coliseum is based in my constituency. I have had conversations with the Arts Council and with the ENO. Does my hon. Friend agree, as I suggested to them, that the ENO should consider a model along the lines of the Royal Shakespeare Company, which has an impressive regional base but keeps its London base because London attracts international tourists as well as British tourists? It is so important for the levelling-up agenda to have a regional base but also to keep the London flagship.

[Sir Robert Neill]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. That is the whole point. This should not be an either/or. The whole point is to ensure that we have a secure company in London that can do its work, but ENO has been more than willing from the very beginning to do more work outside London. It planned to do a show in Liverpool before the pandemic. As it happens, other cuts elsewhere to Welsh National Opera have meant that Liverpool will get less opera now rather than more. That is a bizarre way of going about things.

Supporting UK Artists and Culture

Nickie Aiken Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd November 2022 Westminster Hall

[Nickie Aiken (Cities of London and Westminster) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Gosport (Dame Caroline Dinenage) for securing this important and timely debate.

I am incredibly proud of the vibrant arts and culture offer of my constituency, from the west end’s theatreland to iconic live music venues such as Ronnie Scott’s, the 100 Club or Heaven, as well as the Barbican centre, the Royal Albert Hall, the Royal Opera House and the London Coliseum. According to the Office for National Statistics, 8% of arts and culture businesses are based in the Cities of London and Westminster—over 2,500 businesses. In the time I have, I will pay particular attention to how we can support arts and culture through an incredibly difficult time.

When we look at how we can best support the future of the sector, forward planning is key, especially post covid. Its importance has been made clear to me throughout covid and more recently, during the ongoing decisions on the future of the English National Opera, which is based in my constituency. It is good to see the ENO’s chief executive, Stuart Murphy, in the Public Gallery.

[Dame Margaret Hodge]

Does the hon. Lady agree that there is a real misunderstanding about how much money is invested in the arts in London? That investment is brilliant, but there is a misunderstanding about it. First, it includes national institutions such as the British Museum, which should not be included. Secondly, the audience for London entertainment comes from the south-east, and the south-east gets hardly any money from Arts Council England. If one were to incorporate the two, one would see that the funding per capita in London is equivalent to the funding per capita in the rest of the country.

[Nickie Aiken]

I thank the right hon. Member for her very salient point. Given the funding, or lack of it, from Arts Council England, the future of the ENO is dependent on two factors. The key driver is to move out from its current location at the London Coliseum. The debate on cuts to funding could be a standalone issue, so I will not stray into its complexities right now. I will take that up when I discuss ENO funding with Arts Council England this week.

Right now, what I hear is that one of the major issues the ENO faces is not necessarily a prospective move, but the tightening of timescales and a lack of due consultation. My hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill) mentioned the lack of consultation with the ENO. In fact, Arts Council England expects 20 weeks, between now and April, to be enough for the ENO to start making decisions about its future.

Although I appreciate that a funding decision must be made, moving the ENO in its entirety is a big misstep. As we have heard, it will take five years at least. Is Manchester the right place? I personally want consideration to be given to the model used by the Royal Shakespeare Company, which has a base in the Barbican centre and in Stratford-upon-Avon. That works well: it keeps the London offer, but goes out into the provinces. I cannot see why Arts Council England should not work with the ENO to discuss that type of move, which would keep the London Coliseum alive while perhaps not moving the ENO up north. We have a brilliant Opera North organisation. What about the west country? What about Bristol, Exeter or Plymouth? Those areas need levelling up. Why cannot Arts Council England work with Stuart Murphy and his team to give proper consideration to that?

[Kevin Brennan]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Kevin Brennan]

I was just pointing out that the Welsh National Opera does Bristol.

[Nickie Aiken]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for pointing that out—maybe Exeter and Plymouth, then.

Let me move on to another very important point: the economic drivers that culture brings to areas such as central London. Central London is the powerhouse of the economy and that is because of the hospitality, leisure and culture sectors working together. For every £1 spent in theatres, £5 is spent in the wider local economy. That is tens of thousands—if not hundreds of thousands—of jobs. That is not just in London, but across every major city that has theatres. We have the pantomime season coming up now—oh yes we have! I used to go to the pantomime in Cardiff with my grandparents every year; the local economy really does depend on families going to the theatre and having a meal before or afterwards.

In the very short time I have left, I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Gosport for securing this debate but also for her outstanding work as a Minister. During covid, the arts and culture sector was on its knees; there were worries. I had calls every day during lockdown from really major players in the culture sector who were worried about whether they would ever open their doors again. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for working with me to secure the £1.5 billion culture recovery fund. I know that she played a huge part in that; it made a difference not just to my arts and culture sector in central London, but across the country.

I end by saying that we face a very difficult economic time, but we cannot lose sight of the contribution that artists, the arts and culture play in our country—from not just an economic, but a health and wellbeing point of view. I hope we can keep securing all that and that we can save the ENO.

International Women’s Day

Nickie Aiken Excerpts

Thursday 5th March 2020 Commons Chamber

[Elizabeth Truss]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. We have seen a huge culture change through things like the #MeToo movement. We have also seen a real recognition of the issues and challenges that women face, and they are being dealt with. This Government are very committed to dealing with those challenges.

[Nickie Aiken (Cities of London and Westminster) (Con)]

I should like to back up what my right hon. Friend, and my hon. Friend the Member for Newbury (Laura Farris), have said. I was the leader of Westminster Council, and my predecessor and my successor are both women, which is amazing. As the mother of two teenagers, a daughter and a son, I am obviously empowering my daughter to be the person that she is, but does my right hon. Friend agree that it is equally important that we empower our boys to be feminists and to agree that we are all equal? My daughter plays football and cricket, and my son plays football and cricket. He has always been taught that girls are equally as good, if not better, at those sports.

[Elizabeth Truss]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Rigid stereotypes about what girls should do and what boys should do also hold boys back. They do not give them the opportunities they might want in traditionally female professions, for example, and they do not allow them to express themselves in ways that can be helpful and empowering and make their lives better. This is the point that I was making at the start of my remarks. Of course I am proud to be a woman; I love being a woman. I have two daughters, and I encourage them to celebrate being female, with all the great benefits and life experiences that that brings. At the same time, however, they should not in any way feel that that defines them or places on them any expectations about the way in which they live their lives. Equality for everyone—everyone being free from those preconceptions—is good for our society. It unleashes ideas and opportunities that will benefit us all.

I want to talk about my recent experience at the African investment summit that we held here in London. I met a group of fantastic entrepreneurs called the Lionesses. They were from sub-Saharan Africa, where they are leading the way with the highest rate of women entrepreneurs on the planet. They were a fantastic group of women. I do not think it is a coincidence that women are achieving so much in business. Free enterprise and free trade do not care about someone’s gender or sexuality, or the colour of their skin. The first female Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, once said that

“a widget remains a widget—and it will be bought anywhere if the price and quality are right. The market is a more powerful and more reliable liberating force than government can ever be.”

That is why we are so keen as a Government to champion female entrepreneurs, to champion opportunities for women in business and to champion women in the workplace. We need to ensure that everyone can enter, get back into, and get on in the workplace. I am proud that under this Government the employment rate for women has reached a record high of 72.4%. Almost 2 million more women are in work since 2010. When I talk to women across our country, they are not interested in identity politics. They are interested in how they, their families and their communities can get on in life. That is why we as a Government are focused on tackling the barriers that hold people back and on levelling up our country.

We are investing in our railways, roads and broadband to bring opportunities to every home and business. We have doubled the free childcare available in England to eligible working parents of three and four-year-olds to 30 hours per week. We are supporting families across the UK through tax-free childcare, and we have established a new £1 billion fund to create more high quality, affordable childcare. We will extend entitlement to leave for unpaid carers, the majority of whom are women, to one week. This is the real substance of our national programme, which is inclusive to everybody. Its aim is to unite, to level up and to bring together every region and nation of our country.

As well as tackling these policy challenges, we recognise that ingrained assumptions pose barriers that make it harder for people to fulfil their potential. I vividly remember, as a 12-year-old girl, getting on a flight with KLM. My brothers were presented with junior pilot badges, but I was presented with a junior air hostess badge. That was a revelatory moment for me. I did not like being told what job I was able to do because I was a girl. I do not believe that any girl or boy should be encouraged to pursue a career or study a course because of their gender, yet between the ages of seven and 11, boys are almost twice as likely as girls to want to be scientists and four times more likely than girls to want to be engineers. This is linked to a significant lack of academic attainment for women in science, technology, engineering and mathematics, and to their severe underrepresentation in related fields. That is why this Government have championed maths and science, benefiting girls and boys alike. There has been a 31% increase in girls’ entries to STEM A-levels in England since 2010, and the number of women in the UK accepted on to full-time STEM undergraduate courses increased by 34% between 2010 and 2019.

We recognise that championing women’s rights cannot stop at our borders, and the Government are also taking steps to empower women internationally. I find it appalling that child marriages, female genital mutilation and the denial of access to a quality education still blight our world, keeping women down and damaging the countries they live in. This is depriving us all of the ideas that they could pioneer, the vital jobs that they could be doing and the dreams that they could be pursuing.

The Government recognise that women can contribute positively to the modern world just as much as men. That is why we continue to support targeted development programmes to ensure that all girls, right around the world, receive 12 years of quality education. I strongly agree with the Prime Minister, who speaks so passionately on this subject, that all girls must be allowed to achieve their potential, whether they were born in London, Lagos, Lima or Lahore. The world must stop wilfully neglecting the enormous benefits that accrue for everyone when girls are given an education and job.

We are driving progress towards ending all forms of violence against women and girls internationally, including sexual violence in conflict, and we are promoting women’s sexual and reproductive health and rights and supporting their economic and political empowerment. We are also hosting a conference—chaired by a former Member of this House, Nick Herbert—that will ensure that LGBT people across the world are safe and free to live the lives they wish, including lesbians and bisexual women and the specific challenges that they face.