Live Music Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport
Earl of Clancarty
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Live Music
Earl of Clancarty Excerpts(4 weeks ago)
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The Earl of Clancarty (CB)
My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Brennan, on an excellent speech. In policy terms, the guidance provided for culture as an area of competence for the mayoral strategic authorities—we discussed this at length during the passage of the devolution Bill—is that it needs to be a consultation from the bottom up. The DCMS and the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government are, I hope, coming together on this. Every level of government should be involved, as well as stakeholders such as live music venues. I ask the Minister to confirm that. The danger with a larger governmental body will be rationalisation of assets.
On community assets, I applaud the Government’s intention explicitly to include cultural assets within that grouping, although I would still prefer them to have their own designation—as the noble Lord, Lord Brennan, asked for on another occasion. I welcome the £61 million the Government have set aside for that scheme, but I am disappointed that there was no reference to cultural assets in the recent announcement. It is important that local authorities and the public are fully aware that cultural assets are covered by this scheme, and the guidance clearly states this, with pertinent examples such as live music clubs and recording studios.
I am grateful to the Musicians’ Union for its briefing on the risk to live music in theatres. The disbanding of the RSC’s music department earlier this year is an unwelcome sign of the times; costs are cited and it is all too easy to replace real musicians with sophisticated software, which has its place in music but can never be a substitute for live music. I ask the Minister what thought the Government have given to those concerns.
Finally, European Movement UK calculates that over 25% of British musicians have lost all their work in the EU since Brexit, with average tour earnings down by 45%. In reality, nothing substantial to improve matters has happened in the last two years. With the cancellation of the 22 July UK-EU summit, when will this be discussed and resolved?