Arts Council England: Funding

Peter Bottomley Excerpts

Wednesday 18th January 2023 Westminster Hall

[Sir Robert Neill]

That is certainly true; as a London MP, I am conscious of it too. Of course there is more than one issue at play. One is the distribution—where the money goes. Secondly, there is the question of which institutions and sectors are worst affected by what happens. It does seem that the performing arts have been particularly hard hit. When I look at the trustees of the Arts Council, there seems to be a lack of experience in the performing arts as opposed to the visual arts. We should perhaps return to the composition of the board and management and whether relevant experience of those sectors is there.

[Sir Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) (Con)]

rose—

[Sir Robert Neill]

I give way to the Father of the House.

[Sir Peter Bottomley]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. Whether one’s experience is in the performing arts or the visual arts, everybody knows that it takes three to four years to put on a good opera of international standard or to put on an exhibition of paintings of international standard, with the co-operation of everybody involved. It seems peculiar that Ministers did not say to Arts Council England, “We understand that and, if you need to make changes, you need to make them over a six-year period, not a six-month period.”

[Sir Robert Neill]

My right hon. Friend makes a fair and valid point. When this matter has been debated in the past, Ministers have argued that this is an arm’s length body over which they have little control. With respect to the Minister, I am not sure that that entirely holds water. The Arts Council has said that a former Secretary of State, in its phrase, “instructed” it in relation to the distribution of some of the moneys.

That is a legitimate policy decision and stance for any Secretary of State to take, but it proves there is a power to instruct and intervene. That should not apply to the day-to-day running of an arm’s length body, but Ministers have an ability and right to set strategic direction and to ensure that there is proper governance and oversight and, at the end of the day, basic equity in how its operations and funding decisions, involving large sums of public money, are taken.

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[Sir Robert Neill]

It is certainly right that the arts offer real economic opportunity for many young people, and some of those smaller organisations are the breeding ground from which people come. That is true of ENO itself. Many international stars started at the English National Opera, and that is also true of smaller organisations. That reinforces the point I was making: there is not a strategy for any of that. The Arts Council does not appear to have a strategy for anything.

It seems that the funding decisions in this round were to meet a financial envelope. Fine—let us have a proper discussion then with the Department about how we produce a strategy to meet that financial envelope. But none of that was done. That is why we need a much more strategic approach; this is a serious matter.

Looking at the overall potential economic risk, the 2020 report from the Centre for Economics and Business Research found that in a single year—2018; that is the latest we have—the arts and culture industry directly generated £28.3 billion in turnover, £13.5 billion in gross value added, 190,000 full-time equivalent jobs and £7.3 billion in employee compensation in wages and fees: in other words, into the economy. This is big business; for the UK, this is big business that we excel in and which drags in people to visit us. Also, it enables people throughout the UK to have their lives enriched.

What I do not want to see as part of a levelling-up strategy is a cut-down English National Opera or equivalent doing a reduced orchestration, reduced cast and no-proper-chorus version of one of the great operas, be it “Carmen”, “La Traviata” or “Tosca”, in a shed somewhere outside one of our major cities. That is short-changing the people in regional England. They are entitled to see a proper performance like those we get from WNO and the Glyndebourne tour and which ENO would happily do.

ENO has always made it clear that it is more than willing to do more work outside London. Funnily enough, it was planning to do a performance in Liverpool, of all places, before the covid panic, and none of that seems to have been taken into account by Arts Council England. It is short-changing people in the regional parts of England to suggest that they should get a second-rate version of that which is available in London. No wonder the former Secretary of State, my right hon. Friend the Member for Mid Bedfordshire, was so angry at the way her policy had been misinterpreted—all the more reason for Ministers to intervene.

Let us look at ENO as an example of the economic benefit that one company can bring. It produces £1.75 for every £1 of spend—it actually brings money into the economy with all the knock-on expenditure that comes from people going to the theatre, and that is true across most of the theatrical world. To put all that at risk without a proper strategic basis seems ridiculous. The loss of touring by Glyndebourne and WNO means that some 23,000 fewer people will have the chance to see high-quality opera in this country than before. That is a funny type of levelling up.

[Sir Peter Bottomley]

In addition to the performances, does my hon. Friend agree that it is a betrayal of all those who helped Vernon and Hazel Ellis restore the Coliseum from 2000 to 2004, having bought the freehold and made it into the largest and best theatre in London again? What did Arts Council England think would happen to that building, which has been funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund, the National Lottery, English Heritage and the like?

[Sir Robert Neill]

It may demonstrate the lack of thought in the Arts Council England process. It apparently wanted English National Opera, although no longer based in London, to still run the Coliseum as a commercial venue—a taxpayer subsidised version competing against west end theatre. That does not seem either competent or terribly Conservative, for that matter; it certainly is not a good use of public money.

At the same time, Arts Council England wanted English National Opera to relocate to The Factory in Manchester, a venue that was not built to take unamplified singing—no one had bothered to check. Singing there has to be on a mike. Basic due diligence might have found that one out. The Factory, which, I am told, has been a pet project of some of the senior management of Arts Council England in the past, is a venue that does not have a set of users. It is £100 million over budget. I do not think that forcing a company that has been well established for 100 years or so in London to fill what has become an Arts Council England white elephant was necessarily a very good idea—particularly because Opera North, which performs in Manchester, was not even told. If it had been, it could have said what the audience figures were and probably told Arts Council England that opera cannot be done in The Factory anyway. It is the lack of basic competence, strategic thought and good management that is terrifying in all this. That is why there is a compelling ground for intervention.

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[Sir Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) (Con)]

That is because I am going to go back in time and it might bore other people, Mr Bone. The first chairman of the Arts Council I met was Sir Ernest Pooley, who succeeded John Maynard Keynes two years after I was born. Given that Arts Council England is for the encouragement of music and the arts, Pooley and Keynes would have been delighted at the competence with which it took our cultural institutions through the pandemic. The three rounds of emergency funding were executed in a way that nobody criticised. It was quite remarkable, and very effective.

The most recent Arts Council England report available on its website is from 2020-21. The chairman, Sir Nicholas Serota, talks about the three outcomes and the four investment principles, none of which give any indication that the council might have conceived cutting off the ENO and the Coliseum at the knees. Tributes to those who have cared for, led and participated in the ENO and the Coliseum should be put on record. I will say again that Hazel and Vernon Ellis, together with the major public funders and private individuals and trusts, deserve to be recognised. One of those funders was the National Lottery through Arts Council England. I do not know whether those taking the decision that was announced recently were aware of the Arts Council England funding for the Coliseum and its restoration, so that Sir Oswald Stoll’s Frank Matcham theatre could be restored on the anniversary of its first opening.

I think mistakes were made. I do not how much of it was to do with the Government, how much of it was to do with Arts Council England, and how much of it was to do with time pressures. The fact is that what was done clearly would not work and was not right, and it seems to me that the principle, both for Arts Council England and for the Government, is to say, “Is it necessary, is it right and will it work?” I will leave it to the Minister to explain not what has gone wrong but how he will put things right. I suggest that, afterwards, he writes to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, saying that the Worthing Borough Council bid for the connected cultural mile from the railway station to the lido, going past the museum, should be approved.

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[Stuart Andrew]

My hon. Friend has made that point clearly. I know that those discussions are ongoing. I hope we will hear something by the end of March.

ACE’s investment in opera, orchestras and other classical organisations will represent around 80% of all investment in music. Through the ’23 to ’26 investment programme, opera will continue to be well funded, with it remaining at around 40% of overall investment in music. Excluding the funding for the ENO, that is more than £30 million per year for opera alone. Organisations such as English Touring Opera and the Birmingham Opera Company will receive increased funding, and there are many new joiners, such as OperaUpClose and Pegasus Opera Company. The Royal Opera House and Opera North will continue to be funded.

Some Members have set out a view that where an organisation is headquartered is a blunt instrument when it comes to levelling up. My noble Friend the Minister for Arts set out a view on this late last year. He said:

“Touring is important…We do not, in any respect, disparage or undervalue that vital work, but… There is a difference in having an organisation based in your community from just being able to visit it as it passes through your town or city.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 15 December 2022; Vol. 826, c. 852.]

That said, the Government will continue to work with the Arts Council to understand all the impacts of its investment in arts and culture, including opera.

We remain committed to supporting the capital. We recognise and appreciate that London is a leading cultural centre, with organisations that do not just benefit the whole country but greatly enhance the UK’s international reputation as a home of world-class arts and culture. That is clearly reflected in the next investment programme: around a third of the investment will be spent in London, equivalent to approximately £143 million per year for the capital. Historically, Arts Council spending per capita in London has always been significantly higher than in the rest of the country, at £21 per capita in London but just £6 per capita in the rest of England.

[Sir Peter Bottomley]

If I have a spare place, I could invite the Minister to come to “Carmen” with me in a week-and-a-half’s time at the ENO. Most people there will not be Londoners; people come to London for the show, so I think that those figures are not quite right.

I say to the Arts Council and the ENO, through the Minister, that if they had sat down together they could have worked out a better future. There are six weeks now for the Minister to encourage them to do that. If they do not succeed, he should come back here and there will be a much rougher debate.

[Stuart Andrew]

My hon. Friend has obviously missed the other debates, because they were fairly rough, I have to say.

[Sir Peter Bottomley]

That was the warm-up!

[Stuart Andrew]

There have been questions about the arm’s length principle. I want to make clear that were any arm’s length body, including the Arts Council, to breach the terms set by the Government, or to be found to be acting unlawfully, we would take the steps necessary to review the matter and determine the appropriate action.

There has been criticism of the board. I do not think it is fair to totally criticise the expertise that we have on many of those boards. They have a great deal of expertise in the performing arts. The board features musicians, concert hall chief executives, a Royal Shakespeare Company governor, a theatre chief executive—I could go on. Those are people who are obviously interested in the arts.

On the process, applicants receive lots of guidance, all of which is set out very clearly. Applicants know the criteria they are applying against and will have received, or be in the process of receiving, feedback on their applications. The Arts Council also runs webinars and is available to support organisations as they make those applications. In addition, there is a complaints process that is published on its website. If anybody has concerns about any process that has taken place, they can follow that. I will happily speak to hon. Members if they want more information.

I believe the arm’s length principle is right, and successive Governments have observed that. That said, no organisation should avoid scrutiny. A number of points have been raised today, particularly around consultation, and I will raise those with the Arts Minister, my noble Friend Lord Parkinson.

My hon. Friend the Member for Gosport (Dame Caroline Dinenage) was right that we should point out that there have been no cuts to the Arts Council’s core cash settlement. In fact, in the spending review, the Government increased that settlement by more than £43 million over the period from April 2022 to March 2025. That means that the Arts Council investment programme will soon be supporting more organisations in more places than ever before, all off the back of our unprecedented cultural recovery fund, which supported around 5,000 organisations and sites during the pandemic, and the ongoing increased rates of creative tax reliefs.

I am grateful for the opportunity to set out how the Government—