Regional Arts and Culture

Thérèse Coffey Excerpts

Tuesday 4th February 2014 Westminster Hall

[Dr Thérèse Coffey (Suffolk Coastal) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to contribute to this debate, and I congratulate the hon. Member for Sheffield Central (Paul Blomfield) on securing it. Arts and culture add to our quality of life, and we all recognise their importance at a national and local level.

Arts and culture already have a vibrant presence in the regions, and some arts initiatives do not require any commercial support. I pay tribute to the investment made by TV companies such as ITV and Channel 4, and by the BBC, which continues to fund productions by independent companies. I might also mention Glyndebourne, which manages to be rather successful without a single penny of subsidy, or the extraordinary Melvin Benn, who brings the greatest of modern culture to places around the country—including my constituency, where he stages the wonderful Latitude festival. Of course, I recognise that much of the arts requires substantial support from the public purse, or from the pockets of the public via funding redirected from their purchase of lottery tickets. I value the contribution that the lottery makes to bringing a wide variety of culture to large parts of the country.

I want to recognise the extraordinary cultural legacy in my constituency of a gentleman called Benjamin Britten, the centenary of whose birth we celebrated last year. In my constituency, we have sustained his extraordinary legacy, which has involved children and world-class artists. On 22 November, the centenary of Benjamin Britten’s birth, we held an event called Friday Afternoons. It is estimated that 100,000 children from around the world contributed to that celebration of probably one of the greatest ever British composers. In that vein, I will give a quick plug for the director of Aldeburgh Music, Jonathan Reekie. He has served with great distinction, and I want to thank him. He was recognised in the Queen’s birthday honours last year and is moving to take up the leadership of Somerset House in London. That will be a great loss for our regional arts and culture.

Other institutions that have been recognised by the Arts Council include Red Rose Chain and Eastern Angles. If anyone wants to visit the east of England, I urge them to come and see an Eastern Angles production, because they will be blown away by the creativity achieved on budgets that are, to be blunt, not very large. The Arts Council has made more money available to the regions, although I recognise that it is nowhere near as much as is available in London.

I completely endorse the comments from the hon. Member for Sheffield Central and the right hon. Member for Exeter (Mr Bradshaw) about how much more challenging it is to get philanthropic donations outside London. I hope that the Government take that on board. I was particularly pleased to see the autumn statement building on the great work that has been done on tax credits for film and high-quality TV—that has, by the way, led to a great renaissance in Northern Ireland, with the production of “Game of Thrones” and the development of the film and television industry in Belfast—by committing to launching a consultation this spring on the introduction of a tax credit to support regional play writing, which would benefit theatres that commission new work.

I turn to local government. The right hon. Member for Exeter is right that we should support creative local governments and say, in a pantomime fashion, “yah-boo” to the baddies—the philistines of local government. I do not want to be too political about this, but when certain councils announced that they would cut every penny of funding to libraries or the arts, there was a risk of shroud-waving. Councils around the country have recognised that investing in the arts locally is as important as investing in new roundabouts. In Basingstoke, where I used to work, the council took a decision in the ’60s to do something about that to attract businesses. The council recognised that Basingstoke needed a cultural offering to encourage executives to locate there and to make the town feel good about itself. I commend councils that have continued to recognise the importance of arts and culture funding.

Returning to central Government, I applaud the work done to try to secure the status of European city of culture. I congratulate Hull on winning city of culture this year; we know how much good that designation has done for Derry/Londonderry during the past 12 months. I also want to say “well done” to Alan Davey from the Arts Council. I was on the Culture, Media and Sport Committee at the start of the Parliament, and there was a deep intake of breath when it became clear that things would not be done as they had been before. I think that the Arts Council has done extraordinarily well. By focusing on quality rather than simply spreading money around, it has improved the quality of the offering available around the regions.

I want to celebrate what is happening in the arts and culture outside London. I recognise that there will always be a case for national funding, but we must encourage Sir Peter Bazalgette and Alan Davey to continue to think about those of us outside the M25. Long may culture and the arts rule!