Supporting the Creative Economy

Sharon Hodgson Excerpts

Thursday 13th February 2014 Westminster Hall

[Mr Whittingdale]

The Minister is entirely right. I am pleased that the Government are talking about extending the tax credit not only, as already proposed, to high-end television drama, animation and electronic games, but potentially to regional theatre, because theatre is the breeding ground for many of our greatest talents.

Still on film success, we talked to the film companies and asked why they came to make films in this country. A lot was to do with the extraordinary talent that we have here—the skills—but they also said that, without question, had the tax credit not been in place, they would not have been able to come here.

[Mrs Sharon Hodgson (Washington and Sunderland West) (Lab)]

Might one of the other reasons film companies come here be our heritage? For instance, “Harry Potter” was filmed up in Northumberland at beautiful Alnwick castle. Looking around the world, or trying to build a set such as Alnwick, would have cost a fortune. Does he agree that that also can be a reason for people coming to this country to film?

[Mr Whittingdale]

Of course it is. In particular, historical dramas make use of some of our great heritage assets. There are a large number of reasons why people want to come to Britain to make films, but without the tax credit, they probably would not. We pay tribute to the previous Government for introducing it, and to this Government for continuing it.

I would be interested to hear from the Minister an update on the progress of discussions with the European Union on the introduction of the electronic games tax credit, because that, too, is welcome. The games industry is under pressure, and we have lost some companies already, so it is important for that tax credit to be achieved soon.

In examining the creative industries, we received a lot of evidence about an issue that lies at the absolute heart of their success: intellectual property rights. For a long time, Governments have sought to address some of the problems created by online distribution. In the previous Parliament, the Government passed the Digital Economy Act 2010, which was a valiant attempt to put in place measures to deter online piracy. Unfortunately, it has not come into force.

I will not recap the whole history of what has happened since the Act was passed—the judicial reviews, the arguments and so on. However, the principle behind it is that people who illegally download copyrighted material, and so jeopardise the success of the music, film, television, and, I suspect, in due course, games industries, need to be told that what they are doing is not only illegal, but poses a real threat to the economic viability and success of those industries. It was suggested that that should be done through the dispatch of warning letters. Once people were identified as serial downloaders, their internet protocol addresses should be identified and the internet service providers asked to send letters.

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[Mrs Sharon Hodgson (Washington and Sunderland West) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow the Chairman of the Select Committee, the hon. Member for Maldon (Mr Whittingdale). This is an excellent report. I welcome the Select Committee’s investigation of how we should best support our creative economy. The hon. Gentleman made the case very well in his opening speech.

The UK’s creative industries are known worldwide for their cultural capacity to shape, influence and inspire. As the hon. Gentleman covered in detail, the success of the British film industry and the choice of this country as a location is a great example of that, as is the British fashion industry. Our fashion designers dominate the catwalks of London, Paris, New York and Milan; British musicians, songwriters and composers top the charts and dominate the international airwaves; and British architects and designers shape skylines and create beauty all around the world. That is important for not just our international cultural presence but the benefits to our economy.

As we have heard, Britain’s creative industries account for more than 1.5 million jobs and contribute more than £70 billion to the economy. That should be all the reason we need to know why it is imperative that we do everything possible within our power to support such an increasingly crucial sector, and it is why the report is right to address issues that affect it, such as the protection of intellectual property, tax reliefs and education and skills.

I chair the all-party group on art, craft and design in education, which was set up to champion high-quality and inclusive arts education in our schools. I therefore particularly welcome the Select Committee’s recommendation, as well as the Secretary of State’s intervention during her speech at the British Museum last month, for STEM—the focus on science, technology, engineering and mathematics—to be expanded to STEAM, as we just heard from the Chair of the Select Committee, to improve the status of arts education in our schools. That recommendation must be supported, especially when there are concerns that changes being implemented by the Department for Education—such as those to discounting codes and the exclusion of creative subjects in the gold-standard English baccalaureate performance benchmark—will turn off the talent tap for our creative industries, so undermining their long-term development.

If we are to support and expand our creative industries, that must be through not just reforms to public funding and protection of intellectual property, as the report calls for, but investment in the future work force by ensuring that children not only have access to high-quality, inclusive arts education, but are positively encouraged and supported to develop their skills.

[Damian Collins (Folkestone and Hythe) (Con)]

It is said that many students who attend private schools have the opportunity to develop greatly their artistic talent and flair through their longer school day and study periods. Does the hon. Lady agree with the Secretary of State for Education that we should consider extending the school day to give more young people the opportunity to study the arts and creativity as part of their everyday studies?

[Mrs Hodgson]

I will come on to the difference between the state and the independent sector later in my speech, but I agree that there is room to extend the school day from, say, 8 am until 6 pm, especially with regard to child care. During that extra time, children can obviously be doing all the extra-curricular stuff that is available in the independent sector. That would be ideal, but the issue is how that is funded and who pays. We know that some schools currently offer extra-curricular lessons in music and other things, but they must be paid for. The divide is between who can and who cannot pay. Nevertheless, we should definitely debate and explore that idea further.

Although the traditional subjects of English, maths and the sciences are and will always be important, so that young people are numerically and scientifically literate in the 21st century, it is also important that young people are creatively and culturally literate. As we have heard, the gaming industry is a perfect example of where both the traditional and the creative can be merged to create competitively skilled employees.

At this point, I should declare an indirect interest as the mother of a young man currently at Teesside university studying computer games art, having done precursor courses at Gateshead college. According to figures cited in the Select Committee’s report, the boxed and digital UK video game retail market was worth almost £3 billion in 2011, so I hope that he is going into a thriving industry and will get a job after all his studies.

Web-based games such as “Moshi Monsters” and “RuneScape” have more than 100 million registered users between them. With two out of every three households playing video games—a number that I am sure will keep rising as they become an ever more pervasive feature of smartphones—it is an industry booming like never before, and it is crucial that our education system is geared towards creating the pioneers of tomorrow, including my son, I hope.

It is right that future games developers should be competent in maths and the sciences, and I welcome the introduction of computing to the English baccalaureate, to allow young people to become literate in coding from an earlier age, but we must remember the important creative aspects of the gaming industry such as drawing and design skills. Hence the title of my son’s course: games art. Those skills have created such British successes as “LittleBigPlanet”, “Tomb Raider” and “Grand Theft Audio”, as we heard from the Chairman of the Select Committee. The most recent edition of “Grand Theft Auto” has sold more than 30 million copies worldwide.

The value of creative subjects lies not only directly in supporting the creative industries, but in imparting the soft skills that benefit young people for employment in other sectors. That is precisely what we mean by a rounded education. As Josie Barnard, senior lecturer in creative writing at Middlesex university, said in evidence to the Select Committee:

“Students who are taught creative writing are taught creative thinking.”

That could be said of all creative subjects, from drama and art to music, all of which involve problem solving and the importance of practice, providing young people with the ability and confidence to overcome situations in the workplace creatively.

Despite all that, reforms implemented by the Department for Education over the past three years have made access to creative subjects harder for young people. According to the Cultural Learning Alliance, the impact of those changes is already being felt, with art GCSE take-up declining by 14% between 2010 and 2013, while geography take-up has risen by 15%. We cannot fail to be cognisant of the effects that the reforms are having.

One of those reforms involves changes to discounting codes, so that subjects such as fine art and photography will be credited as just one GCSE rather than two in the school league tables, even though they have different teaching pathways and practices and distinct teacher specialisms. How is that fair, when pupils are encouraged to take multiple sciences, humanities or languages, with good reason? We would find it absurd to restrict a child by discounting French and German or chemistry and physics, so why do we accept discrimination against creative subjects?

The impact of that discrimination is that schools are pressured to deter or even prevent students from doing similar creative subjects, so as not to effect their league table status. Alongside that has been the introduction of the English baccalaureate as the gold standard performance measure for schools, which has further compounded the focus on the traditional subjects of maths, science and geography, rather than on the creative subjects, to maintain or increase ranking in the school league tables.

In a recent letter to Rachel Payne, senior lecturer in education and media at Oxford Brookes university, the Department for Education stated that it

“recognises that the arts form an integral part of children’s development and believes that every child should experience a high-quality arts education throughout their time at school”.

That prompts the question: why is the Department knowingly and deliberately undermining creativity in our schools? That is not an unsubstantiated criticism. Recent research by Ipsos MORI found that 27% of schools withdrew non-EBacc subjects from their curriculum this academic year, and that art was one of the most commonly withdrawn subjects, at 17%.

Even the Government’s own figures have shown that the take-up of creative subjects decreased in 2012, with design and technology down by 5.1% and art and design down by 2.4% from the previous academic year, while others in the EBacc standard have increased. That decline has rightly drawn criticism from the great and the good of the cultural world. Martin Roth, director of the Victoria and Albert Museum, was recently quoted as saying that

“if subjects such as art, design, music, drama and dance are pushed out of the curriculum, Britain’s creative economy will be destroyed within a generation.”

That is quite a strong statement. Vikki Heywood, chair of the Royal Society of Arts, described the reforms as “half-baked” and warned that they will be detrimental to the potential of our creative industries.

Last November, the inaugural art party conference in Scarborough, organised by Bob and Roberta Smith, was held purely as a reaction to the DFE’s changes. It aimed to promote and celebrate art by providing a forum for discussing the future of art in the UK. That conference brought together organisations such as the National Society for Art and Design in Education, the Art Fund and the Cultural Learning Alliance.

Not only will including art within STEM allow children and young people to gain creative skills, to be dynamic players in the labour market, but it will allow young people from poorer backgrounds to experience the vast array of culture that this country has to offer, and even to have the opportunity to shape our national culture.

I raised this matter in correspondence with the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport late last year, citing concerns that the National Youth Orchestra has been criticised for recruiting extensively from the independent school sector. This brings me to the point made by the hon. Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Damian Collins) some moments ago. This is not a criticism of the National Youth Orchestra, as all it is doing is recruiting the most talented kids, but this is a shocking indictment of the lack of opportunity and encouragement in our education system for involvement and progression in the arts. The independent sector, rightly, values such involvement highly and, of course, funds it.

Of course, this lack of involvement severely reduces diversity in our cultural sector. That was raised recently by Stephen McGann, who spoke about how young people from working class backgrounds struggle to enter the acting profession, owing to a preference for those in the independent sector who have had access to high-quality drama teaching throughout their school lives.

If the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport is not successful in her campaign to change STEM to STEAM in the eyes of the Secretary of State for Education, the trend in downgrading arts education will continue and a two-tier system will be created, where arts and design subjects are seen as inferior to the traditional subjects, particularly in the state sector.

[Damian Collins]

Perhaps the hon. Lady is using too broad a brush. There are many excellent schools in the state sector. I highlight Brockhill Park school for the performing arts, in particular, which is a comprehensive school in my constituency with an outstanding record in the arts and in getting young people passionate and excited about them. There are many great successes across the state sector, still.

[Mrs Hodgson]

I agree. We can all highlight the exceptional state school that is really good at music, drama or dance, but regarding the majority, the figures speak for themselves. These subjects are being dropped, and in the teaching profession numbers are dropping in initial teacher training for arts and drama teachers. We have to look at this long term. In the short term, we will not see any damage, but if this trend continued in the long term, I definitely believe that we would.

If we are to have high-quality, inclusive arts education, we must have highly qualified teachers. However, there are concerns about the numbers of qualified art and design teachers entering the state system, with just 350 initial teacher education places allocated for art and design teachers in this academic year, compared with just short of 600 in 2009, which is much fewer than the vast majority of other subjects. To respond to the hon. Gentleman’s intervention, those figures show the decline. This is further proof that the Government and the Secretary of State for Education are marginalising creativity, because they regard creative subjects as soft and do not value the opportunities that studying these subjects can bring, and that is why I hope that the Minister can assure current and future parents that their child will be taught to a high standard by a professional teacher who knows how to do it, especially in subjects that not only fill their minds but feed their souls.

If we are to maintain our cultural importance around the world and the creative power of UK plc and, in addition, create a diverse cultural sector made up of people from all walks of life—not just as contributors, but as consumers—we must invest in high-quality, inclusive arts education and allow children to find and develop their talents or simply express themselves through the various artistic mediums available. If not, where will we find the next Julie Walters or Idris Elba—not from our state sector?

If we do not give children the opportunities to creatively express themselves, we will end up jeopardising recent growth and the substantial economic input from our creative industries, owing to a weakened and depleted creative labour market and, indeed, lessened patronage of creative works from a generation who have never been inspired.

The creative subjects feed our soul, so reminding us of the creative capacity of humanity. Why do we all love to listen to music, visit art galleries and see a play or a musical, a ballet or an opera? Because they move us in ways that nothing else can and connect us to our deepest emotions. I hope, therefore, that the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport and this excellent Select Committee report prevail over her Cabinet colleagues on the issue and that the Government take seriously the Committee’s many other recommendations.

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[Mrs Hodgson]

Jolly good man.

[Nigel Adams]

Yes, he is a jolly good chap.

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[Angie Bray]

The hon. Lady makes a reasonable point, and I tend to agree with her.

There are many ways in which to provide a balance to help everyone. The Hargreaves report recommended the establishment of a digital copyright exchange, which got expanded into a copyright hub, set up in July 2013. The key point about it is that anyone may access it online to find out anything about the complexities of copyright and about who owns what rights. The idea was also to make licensing arrangements easier with a one-stop shop.

Our Committee has made plain its firm support for the establishment of a global repertoire database, based in the UK, making us a global centre for copyright exchanges. We remain of the view, however, that participation in a copyright exchange should preferably be voluntary.

It would be childish of me not to mention some areas in which the Government are showing a remarkable and positive lead in promoting and nurturing our home-grown creative industries. As I said earlier, the Chancellor has demonstrated his commitment and delighted the film and vision-effects industries with another dollop of tax relief, meaning that big-budget productions will get the same 25% tax relief that smaller firms already enjoy for the first £20 million that they spend. He has also widened the criteria for those who can apply for the relief.

All that is a huge encouragement to film makers to make their movies in the UK, thereby investing often considerable sums here. It is clear that such relief easily more than pays for itself. Other beneficiaries of the new points system, which will adjudicate the recipients, will be those who work in special and visual effects, again where the UK excels. We look forward to the Government’s introducing video games tax relief as soon as possible as well.

By the way, an interesting suggestion was put to us by Fox as a way of illustrating the economic value to countries and local communities of providing locations for film production. The idea would be to include in the opening credits of films some brief information about the economic benefits and job opportunities as a consequence of the film being made in a given location.

The Committee has expressed concerns, as we have heard repeatedly this afternoon, about the downgrading of arts subjects in the curriculum, although the Government have responded by stating that a key measurement of a school’s performance will continue to include art, design and music. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Damian Collins), who suggested that extending school hours would provide an opportunity for schools, which are perhaps sending children home at 3 o’clock in the afternoon, to introduce more arts, drama and music.

I put on record that one of my local schools, Twyford, has an excellent record in music. Indeed, I saw some of its members playing with the English Chamber Orchestra only last night. Some state schools still take arts and music seriously, but I want to see longer hours meaning that there is more opportunity, because we have to widen such opportunities. I have noticed recently that people have noted the fact that so many public school people are becoming the big names as actors and actresses, because they get the drama opportunities.

[Mrs Hodgson]

As I said earlier, I agree, but my concern is the funding for all the extra-curricular lessons and opportunities. Some of the necessary items, such as a musical instrument, are outside the reach of a lot of children. What solutions does the hon. Lady suggest to ensure equality, so that all children get those opportunities?

[Angie Bray]

I can assure the hon. Lady that last night all the children playing in the orchestra had their violins and cellos with them. Obviously, there must be access to musical instruments, and in the case of Twyford, there certainly is. We need to work that out. First, we need everyone to agree that we are going to have those longer hours. We must then ensure that we make the best use of them to build the skills base.

[Angie Bray]

I certainly do. I hope that music money will be spent wisely because, as someone who studied music, I am keen to ensure that nobody loses the opportunity to build their skills base, which is important for the country.

[Mrs Hodgson]

Does the hon. Lady share my concern about the discount codes? Although children might still be allowed to take creative GCSE subjects, some schools may have a perverse incentive to deter children from taking multiple GCSEs in creative subjects because they are discounted on the league tables.

[Angie Bray]

I am most concerned to ensure that we make full use of those longer hours for the arts.

Our report welcomes the greater focus on computing in schools as part of the digital age. There is no doubt that our video games and special effects industries will flourish even more with a new generation of creatives who have the highest level of IT and programming skills. We have a number of universities that are building a global reputation for media production, including Bournemouth university and the well-thought-of course at my local university of West London. We were given a strong impression on our trip to Los Angeles that, tax relief aside, the UK is such an appealing location for film making because the skills base is already available here. We need to build on that success story.

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[Mr Vaizey]

I do think it is a good thing for young people. That is absolutely brilliant. Again, we tend always to look at what we say is going wrong and not good enough and often fail to recognise what is right in front of us, which is that tens of thousands of our young people are brilliant musicians enjoying a brilliant music education. Funnily enough, I was lucky to visit Twyford school with Howard Goodall several years ago and watch its choir in action. It is a phenomenal state school—I emphasise that—with phenomenal music teaching. I recognise what my hon. Friend says.

That is where we are in terms of music education. But we went further and introduced the first national cultural education plan, which, again, has put on the table heritage schools. English Heritage is now working with schools to ensure that heritage is taught in our schools. There are many other initiatives to ensure that our children enjoy as wide a cultural education as possible.

Clearly, the Secretary of State for Education has his own agenda in terms of ensuring, rightly, that we continue to drive up standards in our schools. He is utterly passionate about education and about not leaving behind too many children who, in the past, for whatever reason, have been written off, as have their life chances. He has determined to introduce rigour into the curriculum. The Department for Education has listened to concerns that have been enunciated. We now have the new progress 8 system, which allows schools to take into account the arts and arts education.

There is an either/or element when we debate the arts in education. No one has made teaching the arts illegal in schools. The Secretary of State is also about empowering our teachers and head teachers to lead their schools. A good head teacher and a great teaching staff will recognise the importance of the arts and the fantastic bonus that great arts teaching brings, not just in introducing children to the arts, but enhancing their academic achievement in many other subjects.

[Mrs Hodgson]

Nobody doubts that the Secretary of State cares about all this. We are not saying that it is a competition or a matter of either/or. The fact is that there are unintended consequences to the baccalaureate. The number of art teachers being trained has dropped by 14%. The discount codes are deterring young people from taking more than one GCSE in arts subjects. This has to be looked at. The reality is there in black and white in the figures. Will the Minister say something about the proposal in the report for STEM to become STEAM and whether the Government will take that on board?

[Mr Vaizey]

The hon. Lady mentioned discount codes. The Government recognise the differences between artistic disciplines, and it is important to get it across that decisions on discount codes are made on the basis of a detailed scrutiny of the exam specifications, rather than on a general view of the subjects concerned. Where substantial overlap between two specifications exists, the subjects will be discounted. Those decisions can be reviewed and are being reviewed in the case of drama and dance. I emphasise again the Department for Education’s continued support for music and dance schemes, which equates to some £18 million-worth of bursaries over the next three years, which is a huge amount of support. The Department has also listened to concerns about the EBacc and that is why we now have the new progress 8 measure, which allows schools to have their teaching of arts subjects taken into account when measuring their progress and success.

We have had a lively and well-balanced debate with contributions from both sides of the House and from hon. Members who are passionate advocates and supporters of the creative industries, even when not taking part in this debate.