Funding for the Arts

Will Quince Excerpts

Tuesday 13th September 2016 Westminster Hall

[Will Quince (Colchester) (Con)]

I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Wantage (Mr Vaizey) on securing this important debate.

Great art is everywhere in the UK, including in my wonderful town of Colchester; it is absolutely not only the preserve of London. I have long argued that funding for the arts is not sunken costs. Investment in the arts has a real economic benefit to our towns and cities—and even if that were not the case, we could look to the role played by the arts in tackling social exclusion, education, communication skills, loneliness, mental health issues, promoting the creative industries and urban regeneration. The list goes on.

For the past 10 years, the DCMS has surveyed engagement with the arts through a regular report, “Taking Part”. Encouragingly, the 2015 “Taking Part” study found that 77% of adults in the UK engaged with the arts in the previous year. That number, although impressive, has not seen a sustainable increase for 10 years and is much the same today as it was in 2005. Although the creative industries have achieved a great deal in the past 10 years, there is still a huge amount of work to do to ensure that the dynamic work of our arts and creative industries touch the lives of everyone in our communities.

We need to be clear about what we mean by engagement with the arts and, in my view, move away from attendance to participation. We all know of the well documented social benefits of the arts—I have just mentioned a number of them—but are those really being achieved at present? Attendance is great but I firmly believe that it is largely through participation in the arts that huge opportunities exist for social benefits.

Most public money still goes to subsidise those who are watching productions or visiting galleries, and although I accept that there are programmes for participation in most publicly funded arts organisations, it is only by redressing the balance and shifting the emphasis from attendance to participation that we will really start to see the step change in social benefits of the arts that we all want. Subsidising 100 people to watch a symphony orchestra will have a social and economic benefit, but what is the return on investment? Subsidising 100 children to learn how to act, sing or design a set has a clear social and economic benefit. It is far easier to measure the return on investment with that and, I would argue, it represents a greater social benefit.

Another issue I have raised with the Department for Education is schools’ relentless focus on EBacc subjects, which I understand is leading to fewer and fewer students taking up music and drama at GCSE and A-level. That could have catastrophic consequences for the long-term sustainability of the arts in this country. Now more than ever, the Arts Council has a role to play in showing that music, drama and the arts more generally are relevant and a serious option for either a career or recreational activity.

Should we continue to invest in the arts as much, or perhaps, as my right hon. Friend suggests, invest more? Many would argue not, and although I disagree with them, I take their point. We know that many arts organisations continue to innovate and to rely less and less every year on public subsidy. There is far more of a focus on being cutting edge and groundbreaking while bearing in mind the need to produce art that the public actually want to come and see.

Someone does not need a grant to write a smash-hit play or musical. To be frank, some of the best productions start on little or no budgets in small theatres and grow organically. In my view, we should encourage arts organisations to have a medium-term strategy to move towards being financially sustainable for attendance, and then we could continue to publicly fund or subsidise their participation programmes and match-fund innovative works and productions. Why not be creative and look at accelerator funding, funding research and development and matched crowd-funding initiatives? Alongside that, I believe that we should continue to support the arts through tax breaks, such as the theatre tax relief that my right hon. Friend mentioned earlier. Why not just let them keep more of the money that they earn?

In conclusion, I support my right hon. Friend’s call for an increase in funding for the arts, but I ask that the focus shift from attendance to participation, as I believe that only by doing that will we see our arts organisations become more self-sufficient and see a significant return on investment, both economically and in social benefits.