Arts and Creative Industries

Stephen Williams Excerpts

Wednesday 19th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Kerry McCarthy]

I think in Bristol we have not yet quite forgiven Wales for stealing “Casualty” from us, but I appreciate what my hon. Friend says about the links between cultural institutions and the important work that Cardiff does elsewhere.

It is impossible to talk about Bristol without mentioning the Oscar-winning Aardman and the amazing output of the BBC’s natural history unit, which is a real money-spinner for the BBC and funds its other work. It is estimated that the Banksy exhibition in 2009 brought £10 million into the city and doubled the turnover of local businesses during the height of the recession.

Back in 1975, the Arnolfini centre for contemporary arts was an important part of the regeneration of the Bristol harbour site. In 2002, Andrew Kelly, the director of the Bristol Cultural Development Partnership described it as

“one of the first examples in the United Kingdom of the arts used for encouraging inward investment and economic regeneration leading…to a likely total investment in the site of £600 million and the creation of over 3,500 jobs”.

Now, we are creating an enterprise zone in the Bristol Temple quarter with a focus on the creative and digital sector, and Arts Council funding has been approved for artworks at the historic Bristol Temple Meads station, which will act as a gateway to the quarter. There are also plans for a long-awaited and much-needed arena. When Sir Peter Bazalgette, the chair of Arts Council England, visited Bristol earlier this year, he said that it was a city that had “got things right”, highlighting strong partnership working in particular.

It is important that funding for the arts in Bristol should continue. Bristol Old Vic and the Bristol Cultural Development Partnership, which was praised by the Arts Council chair as an example of a “great regional arts alliance”, have both already received significant cuts. Funding cuts are disproportionately affecting educational programmes such as the Acta community theatre in Bristol, which last year worked with 1,000 people of all ages and backgrounds, over 80% of whom had never been to a theatre.

In Bristol, it is not just the highbrow, publicly funded, mainstream creative scene that is thriving; the city is also renowned for its counter-culture scene. Banksy is obviously the most notable example of that. A 2010 PRS for Music survey showed Bristol as the UK’s most musical city, with more songwriters per capita originating from the city than from any other place. Bristol is probably best known for the groundbreaking group of musicians that emerged in the 1990s and included Massive Attack, Tricky, Portishead and Roni Size. I have talked to DJ Krust, who was involved in that scene, about its DIY ethos. Those involved started by putting on events in empty warehouses and no one turned up. Eventually, however, they started selling tickets and created an incredibly innovative scene that influences people to this day. It emerged in a similar way to the punk scene that sprang from squats in London and elsewhere in the 1970s.

DJ Krust told me that those involved did not need or want public funding. That raises interesting questions about how we can ensure that such creativity thrives without the stultifying effect of trying to get funding, assessing outcomes and all the bureaucracy that goes with that. We need to support it, perhaps simply by not repressing it. The Minister once confessed to me that he was an ardent fan of the Redskins, and he will understand the point that I am making. As well as the Adeles and Coldplays of this world, we need acts that are innovative and edgy and that have something important to say.

[Stephen Williams (Bristol West) (LD)]

I join my neighbour in celebrating the artistic creativity of our city. Perhaps she would like to visit the Bristol Institute of Modern Music, which is based in King Square in my constituency, where a lot of the pop musicians of the future are being trained without public subsidy.

[Kerry McCarthy]

I am well aware of the institute, and I hope to visit it at some point.

My final point is linked to what I was just saying. It is increasingly difficult for musicians to make a living these days, due to the growth of piracy and illegal downloading and to the growing prevalence of low pay and no pay in the creative industries. Recent research by the Musicians’ Union showed that more than half of professional musicians worked for less than £20,000 a year and that 60% had worked for free over the past year. This is not just a problem for musicians; it is an issue across many creative industries. Equity’s most recent survey of members found that over 69% earned either nothing or under £10,000 a year. We need to get a grip on this situation; otherwise, we could end up with a British music scene that, although still successful, was dominated by the privately educated, the winners of “The X Factor” and products of the BRIT school. A survey in 2010 found that 60% of acts in the charts had attended private school, compared with just 1% two decades ago.

A number of Members have mentioned the Stone Roses. Someone told me earlier that they had seen the brilliant Shane Meadows film about them that has just come out. They said that we just do not get bands like that any more—working class lads who have made good and really inspired other people from the same background as them. Now, it is all Mumford and Sons. I do not know whether the Minister is a fan of theirs, but I know the Prime Minister is. It would be sad if that was the only music that could thrive in Britain today.