Edinburgh Festivals: Cultural and Economic Contribution

Tracy Gilbert Excerpts

Tuesday 8th October 2024 Westminster Hall

[Tracy Gilbert (Edinburgh North and Leith) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh East and Musselburgh (Chris Murray) on securing this debate. From the early days, it has been the people of Edinburgh who have pushed for the best. At the inaugural festival in 1947, the Minister for fuel and power banned the floodlighting of Edinburgh Castle, as coal rationing was still in place. However, the people of Edinburgh would not stand for that and generously donated their coal rations so that the castle could be lit from dusk to midnight during the festivals.

There is no doubt that the festivals are an economic success for Edinburgh and Scotland. The economic impact study published by BOP Consulting showed that the gross economic impact of the festivals in 2022 was £492 million for Edinburgh’s economy and £620 million to Scotland. However, a worrying development highlighted by that study showed that between 2010 and 2022, visitors spent more money on accommodation and less money on local public transport, entertainment and food and drink.

In 2010, visitors spent 37% on accommodation, which jumped to 51% by 2022. With the expansion of the short-term let market and the increasing numbers of hotels, that spend does not benefit our communities but rather industries that are ripe with insecure and low-paid work. Similarly, in 2010, visitors spent £11.4 million on transport, which tumbled to £4.1 million in 2022, reducing the ability of Lothian Buses and train companies to increase stretched local services, but also, crucially, indicating that the wealth of the festival delivery remains concentrated in the very localised area of the city centre.

I was lucky. At my state school, we were all given a recorder. I say lucky; I am not sure my parents felt the same. We had a school orchestra and our teachers ran theatre productions and our school trips took us to galleries and museums, so we knew that those places were for us. That must be everyone’s experience.

That is why I am impressed with projects such as the new Dunard music centre that I visited over the summer, a new venue in the constituency that is committed to delivering a model to enable up-and-coming amateur talent from Edinburgh to perform there, as well as having a ticketing system that will enable people to enjoy what is on offer. Similarly, I look forward to supporting impressive plans at Customs House in Leith for a community and creative hub that will bring Leith’s rich history and culture to life, and also long-established projects such as North Edinburgh Arts, which since 1998 has been based in the heart of the community in Muirhouse, supporting local people to access high quality arts and cultural opportunities. Its new purpose-built centre will open later this year.

Affordability is key to delivering arts for all—affordability of tickets, but also of studio and hire space. That is evident in the private sector, too, where Wasps Studios, whose ethos was to provide affordable studio spaces, have sadly moved—

[Clive Efford (in the Chair)]

Order. I call Patricia Ferguson.