Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Bill

Robert Neill Excerpts

Report stage
Monday 20th November 2023 Commons Chamber

[Sir Robert Neill (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con)]

My right hon. and learned Friend is making an important and eloquent speech. Can I emphasise the point that he makes about certainty, and return to the intervention by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kenilworth and Southam (Sir Jeremy Wright) about the importance of having clarity on what the test will be and at what stage it applies? We all understand proportionality tests, and we certainly all understand classic judicial review tests, but it is important in this emerging market that people know at which stage which test applies. I appreciate the Minister saying that he will clarify that later in his speech, but I am not sure that the wording proposed by the Government gives us that clarity. Will my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for South Swindon (Sir Robert Buckland) consider what more needs to be done around that?

[Sir Robert Buckland]

What my hon. Friend outlines is precisely what we are seeking. In making these arguments, we are not in some way the friends of big tech; we are not here to represent a particular sectoral interest. My amendment was drafted by me and by senior counsel from Monckton Chambers, including Philip Moser KC, who regularly appears both for and against big tech in these matters. I thought it right to seek some independent pro bono advice on the operation of competition law to make sure that, in developing the law in this way, we do not create entirely untested mechanisms that would—guess what?—require litigation to clarify.

The point is that we should be seeking to minimise more interpretive language that will require to be tested in the courts. That is why I take slight issue with what was said by the hon. Member for Pontypridd (Alex Davies-Jones), whom I respect very much. In amendment 186, I seek to replace the word “indispensable” with “necessary”, because I think that is a much clearer term that everyone would understand and that would, in itself, be a high threshold for the affected company in demonstrating consumer benefit in the countervailing consumer benefit test.

I think that, rather than trying to use and develop new language, we should look back and learn from the experience of telecoms regulation. One of the problems in, in effect, handing considerable power to the new digital markets unit is that the legal landscape relating to this activity is unformed. Unlike the landscape that underpinned the Competition Act 1998, we do not have the advantage of years of EU and UK court interpretation that was then applied by guidelines issued by the CMA.

Classical Music: Funding and Support

Robert Neill Excerpts

Wednesday 29th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Bambos Charalambous]

The hon. Gentleman makes an excellent point. Music education should also be part of this conversation. It may be outside the scope of the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, but we need to make sure that young people have that musical education and also careers to go into. If we cut the orchestras, we cut the opportunities for people who pick up a musical instrument in school and want to progress in the field of music.

The recent devastating decisions to which I just referred are, of course, those taken by bodies such as Arts Council England and the BBC. They are going to negatively affect the funding of the English National Opera, the Britten Sinfonia, the Welsh National Opera, Glyndebourne’s touring opera and, of course, all the BBC orchestras in England. In addition, decisions have been taken to reduce funding to established orchestras such as the London Symphony, the London Philharmonic and the Philharmonia.

Thankfully, we heard last week that the BBC Singers have been given a temporary stay of execution, but this reversal came only after a huge public outcry, and the reversal itself calls into question how such decisions have been taken. More than 150,000 people have signed a petition condemning the cuts, and there have been open letters from appalled global leaders in classical music, including more than 800 composers and many choral groups.

[Sir Robert Neill (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con)]

I warmly congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing this debate. He and I were at a meeting yesterday with members of the company of the English National Opera. They are in the most precarious situation, because they simply do not know whether they will have sufficient work to keep their families in necessities after the end of this season. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the behaviour of the Arts Council—the supposed promoter of excellence in the arts in England—has actually been the reverse of what is supposed to happen? By hitting companies such as the English National Opera, the most accessible of our opera companies, and touring companies such as Glyndebourne and the English tours of the Welsh National Opera, the Arts Council is reducing the spread of excellence in art to people outside London, rather than spreading it out. That is the exact reverse of what the previous Secretary of State, my right hon. Friend the Member for Mid Bedfordshire (Ms Dorries), told it to do. It makes no sense at all, does it?

[Bambos Charalambous]

The hon. Gentleman makes an excellent point. I will address that issue later, but it is true that the companies that have been cut do a lot of touring work and provide access to parts of the UK that would not necessarily be able to access orchestras or opera.

It is important to note that the BBC Singers’ future still remains highly uncertain, with no plan outlined for their future security. Meanwhile, the BBC is still planning to cut the budgets of its concert, philharmonic and symphony orchestras by 20%. I know that the Minister will argue that the Government do not have direct responsibility for the cuts I am referring to, made as they are by both the BBC and Arts Council England, but let us be clear: the relationships that the Government have with those bodies have a profound influence on the decisions that are taken. It is the Government who set the political environment and the cultural zeitgeist in which decisions are taken. While it is right that the arm’s length bodies are operationally independent, it is also right that major decisions that impact on our cultural and artistic ecosystem can be challenged and questioned.

In the case of the Arts Council England funding announcement for 2023 to 2026, the then Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Mid Bedfordshire (Ms Dorries), set a directive that told the body where its funding should go. That brings into question the arm’s length principle on which Arts Council England was founded. There is a lack of transparency in how recent decisions at the BBC and the Arts Council have been reached. The Government can, if they choose, create an environment in which classical music is nurtured by the arm’s length bodies taking decisions on the ground, but sadly, what we see at the moment is the opposite. Therefore, I would be very interested to hear from the Minister how the Government plan to support our classical music infrastructure against the recent onslaught of damaging decisions.

First, I want to speak in more detail about a couple of those decisions. Let us look at Arts Council England’s decision to cut the English National Opera’s annual grant of £12.6 million and replace it with £17 million over three years, with a stipulation that the ENO must move out of London. That decision was announced in November 2022, but in January of this year, Arts Council England announced a review of opera and musical theatre. That review is called “Let’s Create”, but some may think it would be better named “Let’s Destroy” following Arts Council England’s cuts to the ENO and other national portfolio organisations. What sort of chaotic organisation makes the decision to cut first and carry out a review later?

Following a large public outcry and campaigns by the Musicians’ Union and Equity, it was announced in January that the national lottery would make an additional grant to the ENO of £11.46 million. That still represents a cut of 9%, and the uncertainty about the ENO’s future and its need to relocate has meant that productions for this year have been cancelled. Redundancies have also been made in the ENO Chorus, which is one of the most diverse choruses in Europe.

Those decisions by Arts Council England appear to have been informed by the levelling-up agenda, plus the direct instruction of the then Secretary of State to move money away from London. However, the ENO has long been at the forefront of offering a commendable outreach programme to local communities and has a strong record of supplying free tickets to the young, as well as relaxed performances for those with sensory needs. Forcing the move of the ENO with the likely loss of its existing orchestra and technicians will not lead to levelling up, but to levelling down overall. The Government really need to step in to ensure that the cultural infrastructure of London is not damaged irrevocably by decisions such as this and the others I mentioned earlier. One area’s cultural offer should not be damaged in the name of another’s.

That brings me to another set of worrying decisions: those taken at the BBC. Again, these have taken place within the cultural climate and overall policy agenda set by the Government. As I stated before, the BBC’s decision to take the axe to the BBC Singers appears to have been reversed for now, but how appalling it is to even contemplate dismantling one of the world’s most renowned ensembles in what will be its centenary year.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Robert Neill (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con)]

I only intervene briefly in this debate to repeat my congratulations to the hon. Member for Enfield, Southgate (Bambos Charalambous) on securing it, and to make a few quick points to the Minister to supplement those that he has already made.

I declare my interest as chair of the all-party parliamentary group on opera, and I have performers in my family as well. It is precisely because of that connection that I have seen at first hand the effect that the cuts imposed by Arts Council England have had on people who are dedicated professionals and who contribute to the economy of this country in a significant manner. We should not forget the value of classical music to the arts offer of this country, but it also makes a massive change in enriching lives—be it teachers in schools enriching the lives of children—and in enriching communities through community choirs and concerts such as the Bromley festival of speech and music, of which I have the honour to be joint president with my wife, bringing folk together and using music to pull them together.

However, all that needs an infrastructure and an ecosystem to support it, and some of that requires public support. By the nature of the profession, it cannot entirely operate from the ticket office. That is why the damage done by Arts Council England’s behaviour is so extreme and egregious. To cut the very companies that have done more to promote access to the arts is perverse in the extreme.

English National Opera in particular performs in English—it is the only company that does—and it is more than willing to tour outside London, if given the chance, but it has not been. It has a more diverse audience and a more diverse workforce than any other company. It is much more user-friendly, if I can put it that way, to those who have not had an experience in classical music and the arts to get into. I have been to recent productions at the ENO. It has a much younger, more diverse and enthusiastic audience than might be seen in many other houses. Every one of its performances is selling at about 95% box office capacity.

We have the perverse situation of the director of music, heaven forbid, for Arts Council England claiming that she did not believe there is any longer an audience for “grand opera”, whatever she meant by that. I always rather thought grand opera was in five acts by Giacomo Meyerbeer in Paris in the 1850s. It is not putting on La Bohème, Carmen or Akhnaten, a modern opera by Philip Glass that is sold out at the ENO. If the people who are supposed to be running the arts do not understand the art form themselves, where on earth are we going to get to?

The behaviour of Arts Council England has left Ministers exposed to criticism, because although it is an arms-length body, ultimately the blame will fall on Government. It also demonstrates that there are serious questions about its current viability as the guardians of arts in England. Its mission statement, when it was created, was to spread excellence in the arts throughout the country and to make excellence more accessible. As I pointed out earlier, and as the hon. Member for Enfield, Southgate rightly said, its decisions have actually been the reverse. The former Secretary of State, my right hon. Friend the Member for Mid Bedfordshire (Ms Dorries), condemned the way Arts Council England carried out her ministerial instruction. Ministers can give strategic instruction to Arts Council England, although, of course, they do not get involved in individual funding decisions. I say to my hon. Friend the Minister: that which is instructed can also be uninstructed. There is no doubt that Ministers can set the tone in the way in which Arts Council England supports things.

There is a way forward to save the ENO, with sensible compromise and a very modest injection of funds in the overall scheme of things, which will keep the company in being and enable it to continue to do good work. I hope the same will be done with such things as the Glyndebourne tour. It is bizarre that some of my friends in the corporate world—my corporate lawyer friends, dare I say it?—will be able to pay the prices to go to the Glyndebourne festival, where there is no cost to the public purse, but the public funding that enabled Glyndebourne to go out to non-traditional audiences in places such as the Marlowe Theatre in Canterbury, or to Northampton or to Norwich, is the very thing that has been cut. It is exactly the reverse of what was intended. An organisation that does that has to answer serious questions about both its competence and its processes.

I hope the Minister will reflect on three points. First, Arts Council England announced it will have an independent review of its approach to opera and classical music. I think the Minister is entitled to say to it, as a matter of strategic importance, that that must be genuinely independent. At the moment, there is a real suggestion and concern that Arts Council England—its members have about 162 notes in their register of interests within the same sector—will be marking its own homework. There has to be a properly independent and rigorous review with the involvement of people—there are many of them in the UK—who are active professionals.

Secondly, Arts Council England itself needs a review. It is due for a departmental review before too long anyway, as it is some time since its last one. It ought to look at its transparency and decision-making processes. The board papers are never published. The information available would never pass muster in a local authority or health service trust, for example. That must change and the review should look at that, as it should at the composition of the board and the recruitment of its executive team.

Thirdly, if I might return to a separate matter, touring visas have been a real problem for many people. Now that we are in a much better position with the Windsor agreement and a better relationship with the European Union, there is the suggestion, which has been signed off as being entirely consistent with the trade and co-operation agreement by Sarah Lee KC, that we could have a bespoke visa-waiver agreement with the EU for touring artists for up to 90 days in a period of 180 days. That would be doable and we would not have to reopen the TCA. With the better atmosphere that the Prime Minister has now created, that would be a practical way forward.

Those are sensible points that I hope the Minister will say she will take away and act on.

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[Sir Robert Neill]

Let me add my congratulations to the Minister on what will happen in the coming weeks. I hope she will accept that there is a particular issue in relation to London, which professionals will clarify for anyone who talks to them. Most choristers in opera companies or orchestral players, for instance, will not rely entirely on their work for the opera company or orchestra concerned for their income; they top it up because they are able to do outside freelance work, such as session work, and also teaching work, sometimes at the colleges in London. There is an ecosystem that supports them and enables them to do their mainstream classical work, which is not the best paid. If they are taken out of the area where that ecosystem is, and where those alternative or additional employment opportunities are, it becomes much harder for them to survive. That is why plucking them out of London, or Manchester for that matter, does not work in practice in the way in which it may seem to work in theory.

[Julia Lopez]

I was going to make the same point about the importance of the ecosystem. However, these things can become self-fulfilling, and if we never attempt to spread the benefits of the arts beyond the capital city, they are always going to happen. This is about trying to achieve a balance. As London MPs, it is incumbent on us not to be over the top about the level of funding that has gone outside the capital. The capital still receives by far the lion’s share of arts funding and we are grateful for the richness it gives our capital, but we should bear in mind that a lot of communities have no arts funding at all and it is important they should have access.

Oral Answers to Questions

Robert Neill Excerpts

Wednesday 15th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

We are actually delivering the biggest rail investment since the Victorian era. I would just gently point out to the hon. Gentleman that, compared with when Labour was last in office, the investment going into the north is 30% higher every single year under this Conservative Government. We are delivering for communities across the north, with more trains, buses, stations and roads, because a Conservative Government do not just talk about it; they get on and deliver it.

[Sir Robert Neill (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con)]

I hope very much that, later today, we will hear news of help for motorists and small businesses, but motorists and small businesses in Bromley and the rest of outer London are going to be hard hit later this year by the Mayor of London’s stealth tax in the form of an ultra-low emission charge that will cost money and jobs. Is it not time to revisit the Local Government Act and revise it so that such charges can only be imposed on London boroughs with the consent of the boroughs themselves?

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. He is right that the Mayor of London should listen to the voices of commuters, families and small businesses as he inflicts his damaging tax on them. This Government will always be on the side of those people and this Budget will deliver for them too.

Oral Answers to Questions

Robert Neill Excerpts

Thursday 9th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Julia Lopez]

As a musician himself, the hon. Gentleman is a tremendous champion of the music industry, and I appreciate all the work he does. He has raised a series of points. On an individual level, the Government have put forward a substantial package to help people through the cost of living crisis. That is an extension of the cultural recovery fund. We also have the Arts Council England fund for supporting grassroots live music. He highlighted issues about US visas, which I am very concerned about and on which we are engaging with US counterparts. I encourage him to get the industry to engage with that consultation, and I am happy to engage with him on some of the issues he raises.

[Sir Robert Neill (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con)]

Many musicians are self-employed and lose out on cost of living payments, particularly early on in their careers, because of the operation of the minimum income floor. They have variable incomes early on, which was raised on Monday with Department for Work and Pensions Ministers. Will the Minister and her DCMS colleagues give their support to meeting representatives of self-employed musicians, to find a workable way through and to make sure that they are not unfairly penalised by how they build their careers in their early stages?

[Lucy Frazer]

The Department is very alive to the challenges facing freelancers, and we are looking at this in the creative sector vision. I know that my hon. Friend is passionate about this area, particularly in relation to opera. I assure him that it is something on which we continue to engage with other Departments.