Freedom of Speech

Baroness Featherstone Excerpts

Friday 10th December 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Featherstone (LD)]

My Lords, free speech, established by our laws and by our values, has always had its limits, but now it is under threat as we grapple with a world that seems to be full of hatred of “other” and intolerance of views that differ from our own, all amplified by the internet and social media and condoned and contributed to by those who should be setting an example of good behaviour—from the Prime Minister downward. We now have a proliferation of ways to abuse each other, whether it is because people disagree with us, or are richer than us, poorer than us, a different colour, religion, gender, class or sex, or even those who simply think differently. We have developed a sort of football team binary mentality: you are with us or you are against us.

And freedom of speech? Well, everyone is worked up about online safety—quite rightly—and we will no doubt have a worthy online safety Bill; we already have the recent inquiry, as has been said by the noble Lord, Lord Griffiths, who is a member of the same committee on which I sit and so declare an interest; and we will no doubt have a further onslaught of frenzied activity by numerous regulators and digital platforms, all of which are there to push back this tsunami of hatred, intolerance, harm and threat. All of this is sadly necessary and will curb, hopefully, the worst of the harm, lies, misinformation, cancel culture, bullying and hate, without curtailing free speech.

In the end, however, I would say that, whatever the medium, that is not the real villain; it is the human messengers and the message itself that the public, private and civil society sectors need to have a role in, as do we as individuals. That is why the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury is so right to frame the debate in the way that he has. I congratulate him on doing so and on his wonderful speech.

So why are we all so angry, so rude, so insecure, so scared, so mean and so judgmental? Obviously, I do not mean anyone in this House. As they say, fish rot from the head and in recent days, I am sad to say, we have seen the most unedifying behaviour on show from those from whom we expect better. But I will not personalise this, as tempting as it is. The issue is no longer about being able to distinguish right from wrong and truth from lies, or to care; the issue is making money and that there is no real loss of status for bad behaviour. This is decline and fall, because the pillars of our civility are being undermined. So, yes, fish rot from the head but the tail is also angry. We have had terrible rows around Brexit and trans, all of which should not be held in the manner they are—the “I’m right, you’re wrong”, and not allowing alternative views to be expressed without shouting, whether on Twitter or in the street. However, I actually believe that most people are good and most people are decent—they are, perhaps, too silent.

Most politicians, despite what is said about us, from councillors to Lords, know right from wrong, believe in public service and have a basic desire to use their time and energy for the betterment of the human race. Sadly, we had the recent example of the appalling murder of David Amess. Only then, the truth surfaced: that he was a brilliant constituency MP and much loved. Good news does not sell, but the media and us— well, apparently, we all prefer hate, aided and abetted by a terrible truth: we feel better if we denigrate others.

So, it is up to all of us to change our own behaviour and demand that those in public, private and civil society set a better example of behaviour. We need trusted mediums so that we can trust the message. We need facts. Truth is not arbitrary, it is actual, and without it, we have nothing. We need our institutions to rediscover their role in rectitude and uprightness. British values, of which we are rightly so proud, are falling, right now, into an abyss. The media, whether that be broadcast, internet-based, newspaper or platform, are all guilty, because arguments and misery sell.

Do not get me wrong, the media are the fourth estate and they have the wonderful ability to save us by exposing the bad, the evil and the guilty in a way that an individual cannot often do, but their modus operandi is sales, and if we look closely at the internet—or not even closely—the same is true. Clickbait is the model for sales of advertising. Sales and clicks are all, and they feed upon this frenzy of a downward cycle, cataloguing the cataclysm, with the emphasis on the negative and the nasty, the banal and the low-grade. Reality TV, 24-hour news, advertising, the competing society, the lack of social mobility and the inequality gap—all exist against the backdrop of a destabilising western democracy and political short-termism.

The deal always was that we behaved well because religions, parents, teachers, the police and our Government said we should, and they set an example of good behaviour and expected us to do the same. If we did, we were rewarded with approbation from our family, friends, teachers, the community or God, depending on our personal proclivity. From our establishments, our institutions and their leaders came a code of social conduct that we all basically understood. There was either a penalty for deviating from the expectation of good behaviour—such as social exclusion, civil or state punishment or excommunication—or there was the simple reward of doing the right thing to fulfil our own expectations of ourselves, stemming from our innate sense of good behaviour.

I am glad the rigidity has gone, but we certainly need to behave better on our own cognisance. I guess the trick will be to work out a new framework, for individuals and institutions—a new social contract that preserves this greater freedom while restraining licence—and all without having to resort to increasingly punitive but ultimately ineffective ways of keeping order, with ever more stringent laws, surveillance, rules, regulations, targets, punishments and curtailment of free speech, all of which achieve so very little in actually changing behaviour. It is time for some sort of radical change to give our young people a wider, broader and more challenging base; to teach them comradeship and bravery and a welcoming of discussion, argument and differing views and beliefs; to give them a new vision of how life can and should be.

Creative Sector

Baroness Featherstone Excerpts

Thursday 4th November 2021 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Baroness Featherstone]

That this House takes note of the impact of Her Majesty’s Government’s policy and spending on the creative sector in the United Kingdom.

[Baroness Featherstone (LD)]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords for coming today. I have no doubt that we are all going to benefit hugely from the rich array of experts, innovators, educators, business leaders and creators in this House who will give of their wisdom to the Government, trying to impress upon them the need to turbocharge their level of commitment to the creative sector in both policy and spending. I greatly look forward to the maiden speech of the noble Lord, Lord Spencer of Alresford—if I have the pronunciation wrong, I trust that someone will correct me. I welcome the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay, to his place. He shows a keen interest in his portfolio.

There is not a noble Lord in this House who does not value the creative sector—at least, I trust that is the case. That applies to the Benches opposite too; it would be churlish not to acknowledge the Culture Recovery Fund thrown, albeit late, to a sector reeling from the repercussions of Covid and Brexit. I hope we will hear today from some of those to whom that really was a lifeline, and that this impresses upon the Government the value of the creative sector to people in every part of this country. But it was the 11th hour when the realisation dawned that this sector, which contributes so massively to the economy—at over £115 billion gross value added in 2019—and which was growing at five times the rate of the rest of the UK economy before the pandemic, was going under. I thank the Government for that fund.

There is not a huge amount in the spending review to say thank you for, but as the Government tend to deflect all criticisms by holding up such fig leaves to hide a lack of genuine priority, drive and belief in the sector, and to save the Minister from doing it at the end, I will do it for them. I genuinely thank the Government for the extension of tax relief for museums, galleries, theatres and orchestras, the £850 million in post-pandemic support for culture and heritage institutions, and the £14 million a year in scale-up funding for creative SMEs. The problem is that the true priority the Government give to the sector lies behind those fig leaves.

The DfE Secretary of State’s letter to the Office for Students demonstrates this precisely. It says that courses that are not among the Government’s

“strategic priorities—covering subjects in music, dance, drama and performing arts; art and design; media studies; and archaeology—are to be subject to a reduction of 50 per cent”,

and, further, that the Office for Students

“should reprioritise funding towards the provision of high-cost, high-value subjects”—

suggesting that creative subjects are not of high value—and that the Government

“would then potentially seek further reductions”

in years to come.

Then there is the EBacc, where arts are excluded completely, and the lack of action on the vanished £90 million-a-year arts premium promised by the Treasury in March 2020. In the meeting yesterday, it was mooted that the money could be in the DfE settlement; let us see if the DfE actually allocates it to that purpose. What do we actually see, educationally speaking? A couple of most welcome but inadequate T-levels, because there is no evidence or conviction that the work is being done with employers to deliver even these small policies.

We have only to examine the way the Government negotiated the Brexit deal to understand the value they place on our creative community. For example, our music industry contributed £5.8 billion to the UK economy in 2019—which was obviously before Covid—yet when Brexit slapped our touring musicians and performers in the face, it was clear that no thought at all had been given to this during negotiations. Why? Why were these issues not high on the Government’s agenda before the catastrophe? It hardly supports the Government’s claim of how important the creative sector is to them when there have been 11 different Secretaries of State in DCMS in the last 11 years, serving about a year each. That is a pretty clear indication of the priority and importance that the Government award the portfolio. Although I am not prone to biblical quotations

“By their actions shall ye know them”.


I could go on and on, but your Lordships will be relieved that I will not. The point I am trying to drive home is that the Government have signalled so clearly, at home and to the whole world, that the UK creative sector is not a priority or important, whereas the message should be the exact opposite: it should be one of the top priorities on the government agenda. It is our secret weapon and our soft power success. I am sure that many of the issues noble Lords raise in today’s debate will helpfully point the Government in the direction of actions they must take to encourage, support and grow the sector. This is a moment of both opportunity and necessity, to build back better and level up by using the talents of the most precious commodity we have: our human capital in our unique and original thinkers.

From McKinsey’s 2018 report, Skill Shift: Automation and the Future of the Workforce, we know that creativity, critical thinking, decision-making and complex information processing are going to grow in the coming decade from an already high base. Our children and young people must not be fodder in educational sausage factories where creative thinking cannot flourish. No one should be enslaved by conformity. Not only is that a liberal mantra; it is also the credo for the future economic success of our nation. From Realizing 2030: A Divided Vision of the Future, a report by Dell Technologies and the Institute for the Future, we know that 85% of the jobs that will exist in 2030 have not been invented yet, and that 56% of business leaders say schools will need to teach how to learn, not what to learn, if students are going to be prepared for that. From the World Economic Forum 2020 report, we know that 50% of all employees will need reskilling by 2025 and that creativity, originality and initiative are in the top 10 skills.

So, it has been rough. Along with Brexit, Covid and diminishing fees from streaming, festivals, concerts, theatres, broadcast and record production, print magazines and arts teaching have been decimated, and this has undermined those working in the creative industries. Individuals have been squeezed to the point where their ability to maintain a professional living is vastly diminished, especially with living costs racing in the other direction. Those employers on whom much of the sector depends, whether directly or through production companies, are either cutting back or under threat. Imported production is not enough to take up the slack. Publisher advances for all but the top 150 novelists have all but disappeared. The position for poets and playwrights who are not screenwriters is dire. Local authority cuts are hitting not only local venues and museums but performers who work in the very important care and therapeutic sectors.

As I said, English universities are being told to cut arts subjects and those universities that have creative subject departments are awaiting with dread the Augar review implementation. Many in the arts rely on part-time teaching, research posts and freelance lecturing to supplement their artistic income. Outlets for visual artists, the private galleries that often depend on tourists and customers with high disposable income, are struggling. Not everything is suitable for selling online, and galleries are increasing the commission they charge artists because of rising rent rates and digital costs.

The inflexibility and complexity of the benefits system mean there is very little support for those in the creative sector. They are among those for whom some form of guaranteed basic income would make a huge difference, for the rules and regulations governing universal credit make it utterly unsuitable for those in the creative sectors.

There is nothing we need more in terms of building back better, levelling up and recovering from Brexit and Covid, which are, after all, stated government priorities, than the creative minds that will enable the UK to “STEAM” ahead. I said “STEAM” and I mean that. The Government make a false distinction between art and science; both are vital to advance the human condition.

On levelling up, of all sectors, the creative sector is the one that is growing in parts of the country that need new employment opportunities. For example, according to the Creative Industries Federation, between 2011 and 2020, jobs in the creative industries grew by 68% in the north-east and 61% in Yorkshire and Humber. Kingston University carried out interviews with major businesses outside the creative sector, including Deloitte, Mastercard and Lidl, and a weighted sample of 2,000 UK employers to find the answer to two questions: what challenges the UK faces in remaining globally competitive—having Brexited, that will be even more important—and what skills businesses are looking for to meet those challenges over the next 10 to 20 years. Its findings are absolutely decisive. Business across all sectors prioritise creative problem-solving skills and identify emerging economies as the key threat to the UK, because countries such as China and Singapore are investing in these skills to absolutely transform their economies.

We need a Government that understand and value the creative sector, and put their money and energy into it; that respect, capitalise and believe in the creative sector; that support and encourage our broadcast companies, recognising their irreplaceable value as the second-largest exporter of television programmes and formats in the world; that understand and support the BBC rather than undermining it; that stop trying to sell Channel 4 and recognise that it breeds the ecosystem that spawns new and emerging talent, as well as being financially successful; that ensure broadcasters have continuing access to European platforms; that invest equally in developing creative skills alongside science skills; and that fight for the rights of our intellectual property.

We need a Government that recognise that, in challenging times for the UK, the creative industries offer a platform for economic success; that shape our education and economy for the future, because the future will belong to countries who support innovation and creative minds; that recognise the part played by creative courses in the innovation economy and ensure that policies are retained and enhanced; that support freelancers, sole traders, part-timers and those with a portfolio of roles, who people the creative industries; and that ensure that the tax and welfare system supports them to thrive and earn well.

We need a Government that will intensify and strengthen our creative core by promoting creative subjects in schools, further education and university; that ask Ofsted to monitor the curriculum so that no school can easily drop art, music or drama; that encourage institutions and businesses to collaborate with schools to provide cultural education and offer high-quality careers advice; that ensure that high-quality apprenticeships are offered in the creative and digital industries; that increase diversity in the creative industries by working with the industry and listening to its needs, with more support for flexible apprenticeships; and that promote the value of live events, in music, small and public venues, regional theatres, local halls and festivals across the country, especially while we grapple with Covid.

The Arts Council expressed the challenge and the opportunity thus:

“Never has there been a more important time to stimulate the debate, share intelligence, work in partnership with the sector and beyond, so that the benefits of arts and culture are discussed as a mainstream issue”,


not just “at the margins”. The Creative Industries Federation and Creative England’s recent report The UK Creative Industries: Unleashing the Power and Potential of Creativity features newly commissioned data from Oxford Economics, which projects that, with the right investment, the sector could recover faster than the UK economy as a whole, growing by over 26% by 2025 and contributing £132.1 billion to the economy in gross value added. That is over £28 billion more than in 2020 and is more than the financial services, insurance and pension industries combined.

It is clear—and I hope Her Majesty’s Government really heed this debate—that government policy, funding and indeed attitude impact profoundly across the creative spectrum: advertising and marketing, architecture, crafts, design and designer fashion, film, TV, video, radio, photography, IT, software, computer games—this is a massive area—publishing, museums, galleries, libraries, music, performing and visual arts. I am afraid this Government are found wanting. I will finish with a quote from the Prime Minister, although I cannot do impressions:

“You know, sometimes I don’t understand what’s wrong with us. This is just about the most creative and imaginative country on earth – and yet sometimes we just don’t seem to have the gumption to exploit our intellectual property.”


Let us hope he listens to this debate for all the answers he needs.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Featherstone (LD)]

I thank the Minister. I will not detain the House long. I thank all noble Lords. I said at the beginning that they would give of their wisdom to the Government, and they have, in some wise and wonderful speeches from right across the House. I offer my congratulations to the noble Lord, Lord Spencer. I must confess that I googled him prior to the debate, and his hinterland is very interesting— I recommend reading about it.

The Minister’s response was a fine gallop through all the wonderful things the Government are doing, but the point of this debate and the point I have been trying to get across to him is that we need a fundamental change of gear, a shift of policy and funding. Of course, when you have a whole department, you do a lot of very good things, but it is not good enough. From what we have heard across this Chamber, I think that we want more. I thank all noble Lords for their contributions today, and let us carry on fighting for a sector that needs its champions.

Motion agreed.