Paul Farrelly
Main Page: Paul Farrelly (Labour - Newcastle-under-Lyme)(10 years, 11 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
The Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport (Maria Miller)
I beg to move an amendment, to leave out from “House” to end and add:
“welcomes the Government’s support for the arts and creative industries; notes the increase in Lottery funding for the arts which will mean that some £3 billion will be provided for the arts from the National Lottery and in Grant in Aid over the lifetime of the present Parliament; notes that there has been further support for the arts from the Government, including the introduction of lifetime giving, catalyst funding and the maintenance of free admission to the UK’s national museums; welcomes the first ever national music plan for education, and looks forward to the imminent publication of the national cultural plan for education; further notes the Government’s support for the creative industries, including tax credits for film, television and animation; looks forward to the introduction of a tax credit for video games; notes the establishment of a Creative Industries Council; and welcomes the continued strong lead given by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport in these areas.”.
I am absolutely delighted to have the opportunity to debate such an important subject. As all Members know, the arts are one of Britain’s crown jewels. We are known across the world for our cultural and creative prowess.
We heard a lot of warm words from the right hon. and learned Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman), but she was a bit short on policies. A closer reading of the Opposition motion shows, all too clearly, that the Opposition have not kept up to date with the work that the Government have been doing for the past three years in supporting this vital sector.
Britain is already a world leader in the arts and the creative industries, and I want to give the right hon. and learned Lady and all Members the opportunity to show their positive support for what has already been achieved. I hope that she will be able to support the Government’s amendment.
The country undoubtedly faces difficult economic times. As I think Labour now accepts, that calls for discipline in public spending. However, the right hon. and learned Lady sounded as if she was calling for more spending. What is it—more spending or iron discipline? I am still not sure.
Maria Miller
Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will clarify that when he intervenes.
Paul Farrelly
The motion mentions leadership. Since the 2010 general election, the Department has taken on more responsibilities, including, notably, telecoms, so the creative industries are not the only ones looking to the Department for leadership. Will the Secretary of State therefore categorically confirm that, given all the planned cuts, the Department will still be in existence at the next general election in 2015?
Maria Miller
Yes, and I think that the right hon. and learned Member for Camberwell and Peckham would be able to elaborate on that and say that she has heard that from the Prime Minister himself.
The House should be focusing on the important issue of the future of our creative industries. I gently suggest that if the right hon. and learned Lady and other Opposition Members looked a little closer, they would see that the Government have increased lottery funding to the arts by £100 million a year; developed the catalyst fund to encourage organisations to build endowments for the first time; introduced lifetime giving and the cultural gift scheme; maintained free access to museums in the toughest economic climate for almost a century; launched a national music education plan; developed a national cultural education plan; introduced tax credits for film, television and animation; announced tax credits for video games; and established Creative England and the creative industries council. This is practical action that is being taken now, despite the difficult economic situation we face, to support the arts because of how important they are.
Mr John Whittingdale (Maldon) (Con)
I very much welcome this opportunity to debate the arts and creative industries. Although I of course support the amendment in the name of my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, in the spirit of consensus that the Select Committee on Culture, Media and Sport always tries to achieve, I have to say that I can find nothing in the motion tabled by the Leader of the Opposition that I disagree with.
As a believer in free markets, I am not normally a supporter of public subsidy. However, I am convinced of the benefits of public subsidy in the case of the arts—not just the economic benefits, which the Secretary of State quite rightly spelt out in her speech. The arts are hugely important to people’s quality of life in this country, as the right hon. and learned Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman) said, and many other benefits flow from that in education, health, community cohesion and so much more.
Under the previous Government, the arts enjoyed years of plenty; under this Government, we are facing lean years for the arts. That is absolutely inevitable. This Government have the higher priority of trying to clear up the enormous mountain of borrowing and debt that we inherited, and it would be wrong to exclude the arts from having to play a part in that. However, when we on the Select Committee looked at funding of the arts immediately after the election, we said that it would result in some difficult decisions and that some institutions would probably close as a result. I am delighted to hear from the Secretary of State that she has done well in her debate with colleagues in the Treasury for this year’s spending settlement, but I understand from what I have read and what she has said that we can anticipate still further reductions. That means that more institutions will probably have to close, which will be a tragedy.
That means that we need to look at other means by which we can find funding for those institutions. The Government have already done a lot in trying to encourage philanthropy and, as has been mentioned, to increase the money going from the national lottery. In that respect, I would suggest that what the shadow Secretary of State described as the arts emergency might mean that we can consider—perhaps on only a temporary basis—the flexibility of national lottery funding. It has always been the principle that national lottery funding is there for capital investment projects and not for meeting ongoing costs, but if the consequence is that we can build new buildings while existing ones close, that would not necessarily seem to be a sensible use of resources. That is something that we might consider, if only for a limited period.
I was also interested to see what Dr Simon Thurley said recently about how it is hard to justify spending £35 million on a single painting by an Italian artist when so many buildings in Britain—5,000—are on the at-risk register. That, too, is something we might just look at.
I want to turn quickly to the creative industries, where one has to say that the picture is much brighter. The figures—in terms of employment and economic growth—for the huge contribution that the creative industries make in this country are well known. The success of the music industry and the film industry are well known, but it is also important to look at the others, such as electronic games, publishing, design and advertising.
Mr Whittingdale
If the hon. Gentleman will forgive me, I have six minutes and I would like to continue.
One of the most striking things from the Select Committee’s recent visit to California—I will remember this for a long time—was the look on the face of the hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire North (Jim Sheridan) when he saw thousands of zombies overcoming Philadelphia. He said, “That’s Glasgow.” Of course, it was Glasgow. Indeed, that film alone brought £90 million into this country. That could not have come without the tax break which the previous Government introduced but which this Government have maintained and extended to cover high-end TV drama, animation and electronic games.
The one note of warning I would sound is that the success of all those creative industries depends on one thing: a strong framework of intellectual property rights. We tinker with that at our peril. Yes, there may be a case for modernising it, but we must be very careful not to pursue questionable and illusory benefits at the price of putting at risk the huge economic benefit to this country from the success of all our creative industries. I ask the Secretary of State, and also Ministers in the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, to think very carefully about introducing such things as private copying exception and some of the other Hargreaves proposals. I know that we shall be debating that, but the Secretary of State will be aware of the considerable alarm that is being expressed throughout the creative industries about the damage that could be done unless the matter is handled very carefully.
We also need to do more to tackle online piracy, which is still doing huge damage to the creative industries. The Digital Economy Act 2010 was an extremely good first step: it is not perfect, but it is nevertheless a matter of great regret that none of its provisions have yet been enacted. Things are being done—the City of London police are doing extremely good work, and I strongly support their new initiatives to pursue online intellectual property crime—but a very strong signal would be sent if letters could be written to serial file-sharers who are in breach of copyright law, telling them that what they are doing is not only wrong, but jeopardising the success of the creative industries on which we depend so much.
Jim Sheridan (Paisley and Renfrewshire North) (Lab)
Let me begin by telling the hon. Member for Maldon (Mr Whittingdale) that the film “World War Z”—or zee, to the Americans—involved actors. It was not people in Glasgow who were walking about as zombies.
I must admit that I am a repentant son to the creative industries. When it was announced that the Select Committee would be looking into the whole issue of the creative arts, mine was a very luddite approach. I took the view that inquiries of that kind were for arty-farty types—and I am certainly not one of them. However, as I have said, I am now repentant. I was wholly mistaken. Since the inquiry I have learnt how much the creative industries have benefited the UK economy, and I now realise that “arty-farty types” could not be further from the truth of what today’s creative industries look like. People in the creative industries are dynamic, innovative and, more important, young. We must continue to encourage those young people and allow them to thrive, because without them we would lose a great part of our economy and a beacon for British culture.
Paul Farrelly
Does my hon. Friend agree that it is important for education, particularly arts education, to be available to everyone across the spectrum? Evidence given to our Committee expressed great concern about the originally proposed EBacc, which would have narrowed choice in state schools and hence narrowed the background of people going into the creative industries. Does my hon. Friend agree that we must be ever vigilant in reining in the over-eager Secretary of State for Education, so that in his enthusiasm he does not do unintended damage that we might all come to regret?
Mr Iain Wright (Hartlepool) (Lab)
I will focus on the industry part of the creative industries. The creative industries should be a key part of any industrial strategy. They employ 1.5 million people in this country, generate more than £36 billion for the UK and account for a 10th of all UK exports. I will go through the different sectors.
The British film industry directly employs 44,000 people and generates £2.1 billion of foreign sales every year. Like other hon. Members, I welcome the Government’s continuation of Labour’s film tax relief, which provides long-term certainty to investors and allows the filming of international blockbusters to take place in Britain. I particularly welcome the fact that “Star Wars: Episode VII” will be shot in the UK. I hope that it will be more like “The Empire Strikes Back” than “The Phantom Menace”.
The UK music industry is also an astonishing international success story. My hon. Friend the Member for Stalybridge and Hyde (Jonathan Reynolds) stole my thunder by mentioning the Stone Roses, who I went to see at Glasgow Green on Saturday night, as well as Joy Division and New Order. Given that I follow my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Luciana Berger), perhaps I should mention that yesterday was Sir Paul McCartney’s 71st birthday. Why he is not yet Lord McCartney of Penny Lane baffles me.
Our strength in music is not confined to the Beatles or even to the Stone Roses and New Order. British artists had 13.3% of global album sales last year, which is the highest on record. British music accounted for one in seven of all artist album sales in 2012, which is again the highest share ever recorded. UK artists have claimed the spot of the world’s No. 1 selling album for five of the last six years. Last year, five of the top 10 global sellers were by British artists. British music leads the world.
Paul Farrelly
Does my hon. Friend agree that our creative industries, especially music and film, are under severe threat from piracy? On Google, the top sites for music downloads are pirate sites. Does he agree that we must encourage Google to make greater efforts and be more co-operative in the fight against piracy?
Mr Wright
My hon. Friend makes a fair point. If I have time, the central part of what I want to say is that a strong and stable intellectual property regime, with protection for copyright, is vital.
Our publishing industry is the fifth largest on Earth. More than two-fifths of the revenue from the publishing sector is generated from export sales, which is more than in any other nation. The video games industry is one of the fastest growing parts of the world economy and Britain is seen as the pioneer in games design and innovation.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport (Mr Edward Vaizey)
I begin by congratulating the hon. Member for South Shields (Mrs Lewell-Buck) on her excellent maiden speech. She is not in her place and is no doubt already working for the people of South Shields elsewhere in the building. I thought she talked about—I will check the record—a new library opening in her constituency. That was music to my ears, because what we have today is a slightly surreal situation: because Opposition Members are determined to attack the Government, they end their speeches by saying that everything is doom and gloom, yet the majority of their speeches were taken up with extolling the cultural vitality of the areas that they represent.
As one would expect, I heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Truro and Falmouth (Sarah Newton) about the vibrancy of films, film-making and museums and galleries in Cornwall, and from my hon. Friend the Member for Daventry (Chris Heaton-Harris) about his chairmanship of the Northampton Theatres Trust, with 700 performances and audiences of 250,000. We heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Damian Collins) about the Folkestone triennial and the huge work that the great philanthropist Roger de Haan is doing there, and from my hon. Friend the Member for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes), a former local government cabinet member for leisure, about the thriving scene in Hampshire.
We heard, too, from the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Tristram Hunt), who has taken a tour as a judge for the ArtFund to see the great museums all over the country, but he failed to mention the CBE that has recently been awarded to Emma Bridgewater, who runs the fantastic Bridgewater Pottery in his constituency. We heard from the former Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Exeter (Mr Bradshaw), about the municipal museums and theatres in his constituency, and from my hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster and Fleetwood (Eric Ollerenshaw) about the vibrancy in his area. We heard from the hon. Member for Stalybridge and Hyde (Jonathan Reynolds) about how successful Manchester is, and I look forward to visiting Manchester next month for the Manchester international festival.
We heard, of course, from two Liverpool Members—the hon. Members for Liverpool, Walton (Steve Rotheram) and for Liverpool, Wavertree (Luciana Berger)—about the success of culture in that city. The hon. Member for Stockton North (Alex Cunningham) spoke about the Riverside festival and made reference to the success of Gateshead. And so it goes on, from Swansea West and from Strangford, where we heard about the success of both television and film investment in Northern Ireland, and specifically about Derry or Londonderry. [Interruption.] Opposition Members try to shout me down, but the virtues and vibrancy of culture throughout this great nation will not be silenced.
I could talk about Margate, Wakefield, Houghton hall in Norfolk, the Yorkshire sculpture park and the Zurbaran painting saved by a great act of philanthropy by Jonathan Ruffer. The fact is that the arts are thriving in this country. That is because of the success of our policies. If we talk about support in the regions, I would mention the Cultural Olympiad, chaired by Tony Hall, that happened under this Government—a huge success, bringing culture all over the nation.
Today, we announced the four cities on the UK capital of culture shortlist—the UK capital of culture created by Phil Redmond, who did so much to make the Liverpool capital of culture such a success. I have just finished reading his excellent autobiography, “Mid-Term Report”. Eleven different places around the UK applied to become the UK capital of culture. That is not a country on its knees culturally; it is a country where all parts of the nation are celebrating the success of cultural and creative industries.
A lot of hon. Members’ contributions were about the northern museums. We have an Adjournment debate on that very matter straight after this vote, so I will say a lot more about it in a few minutes’ time. We heard contributions on this issue from the hon. Members for York Central (Hugh Bayley), for Manchester, Withington (Mr Leech), for Bradford South (Mr Sutcliffe), for Stalybridge and Hyde and for Worsley and Eccles South (Barbara Keeley). On national museums in general, I can first of all assure hon. Members that there is absolutely no reason at all for any of the northern science museums to close.
The Science museum has taken responsibility for MOSI, with visitor numbers going up by 30%. It is striking a deal with Tyne and Wear museums, too, and the Victoria and Albert museum is working with Dundee. There is the new Tate extension and the rehang, and there are Tate partners all across the country. There is the Imperial War museum in Salford, and the Imperial War museum in London is currently closed because of new galleries to commemorate world war one. There is the new extension at the Natural History museum. During all of this there is the maintenance of free admission to our national museums. [Interruption.] That is another success story. [Interruption.] Opposition Members can try to shout me down, but they cannot deny the truth: success in the regions, success in our towns and cities, success in our national museums.
Because the Opposition cannot deny that, they claim it is their success. I do not deny the successes of the last Government, but nor should they deny the successes of this Government, because we are the ones having to make the difficult decisions because of the budget deficit they left us. They are forced to put forward policies that are imaginary and to suggest we are doing nothing, so they talk about skills and education without acknowledging the first ever national music education plan or the extension of the In Harmony scheme—set up by the last Government, extended by this Government—and they do not acknowledge the achievements of our cultural education plan, the first youth dance company, Film Nation bringing together the film charities, which is a £7 million fund, and Heritage Schools, which is a £3 million fund.
The Department for Education and DCMS are working together to put £50 million a year into education, too. There is also our creative employment programme, run through the Arts Council, and 6,500 creative apprenticeships being supported by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills. The Next Gen report is changing the teaching of computer science in schools, and acknowledging the importance of the arts. Creative Skillset has been given £16 million to support skills, and there are the BRIT schools, set up by the last Conservative Government, and acknowledged in this debate.
Paul Farrelly
I want to pay the Minister a single, straight-edged compliment. He is very well respected across the creative industries. He has got energy, and from our experience in north Staffordshire with the Wedgwood museum, we know he is a man of action, so could I press him on this? When is he likely to take action on the recommendations of the Sieghart review to extend the public lending rights to e-books and audiobooks in our libraries, and so help authors and this vital element of our creative economy?
Mr Vaizey
That was a good question, asked just as our brilliant Education Secretary, who does so much to support reading in schools and libraries, takes his seat. We will be making an announcement on that soon.
On skills, we are delivering; on access to finance, we are delivering with the enterprise investment scheme; and on tax credits, I have not even had time to mention not only the maintenance of the film tax credit, but its extension to television, and the rejuvenation of our animation industry and, soon, the video games tax credit.
The case for our regional strategy has already been made from the Opposition Benches, with Members talking about what is happening throughout the country. Also, my Secretary of State is putting together our international strategy to work with our national museums and performing arts organisations to fly the flag abroad and help Britain punch its weight. May I take this opportunity to welcome the appointment of Ian Livingston, chief executive of BT? He runs a successful company, and he is joining a successful Government to make the case for Britain abroad, to help our companies export abroad, and to help companies invest here because of the skills we have in our creative industries.
Let me say one last thing: DCMS is here to stay. We have moved buildings, but that is a metaphor for this Government. We have better offices, and they cost less, because with this Government we get more for less. We get the tough decisions being made. Opposition Members cannot get on their feet and have a debate about the arts until they come clean. Are they going to put more money into the arts? Are they just going to give a nudge and a wink, and say we do not like this cut here and we do not like that cut there, because they have to go on the record and tell the country and tell the arts what financial support they are going to give? I will give way to any Front-Bench Member who can tell me now—