Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Earl of Clancarty Excerpts

Report stage
Monday 27th October 2025 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[The Earl of Clancarty]

102: After Clause 52, insert the following new Clause—
“Amendments to the Localism Act 2011: assets of cultural value(1) The Localism Act 2011 is amended as follows.(2) In section 87 (list of assets of community value)—(a) in subsection (1), after “community” insert “and cultural”,(b) in subsection (2), after “community” insert “and cultural”,(c) in subsection (3), after “community” insert “and cultural”,(d) in subsection (5), after “community” insert “and cultural”, and(e) in subsection (6), after “community” insert “and cultural”.(3) After section 88 (land of community value), insert—“88A Land of cultural value(1) For the purposes of this Chapter but subject to regulations under subsection (2), a building or other land in a local authority's area is land of cultural value if in the opinion of the authority the primary use of that building or land—(a) substantially furthers the cultural well-being or cultural interests of a local community or the nation, or(b) provides a necessary venue for the furthering of specialist cultural skills, including (but not limited to) music venues, recording studios, rehearsal spaces, visual artists’ studios and other creative spaces.(2) The appropriate authority may by regulations—(a) provide that a building or other land is not land of cultural value if the building or other land is specified in the regulations or is of a description specified in the regulations;(b) provide that a building or other land in a local authority's area is not land of cultural value if the local authority or some other person specified in the regulations considers that the building or other land is of a description specified in the regulations.(3) A description specified under subsection (2) may be framed by reference to such matters as the appropriate authority considers appropriate.(4) In relation to any land, those matters include (in particular)—(a) the owner of any estate or interest in any of the land or in other land;(b) any occupier of any of the land or of other land;(c) the nature of any estate or interest in any of the land or in other land;(d) any use to which any of the land or other land has been, is being or could be put;(e) statutory provisions, or things done under statutory provisions, that have effect (or do not have effect) in relation to—(i) any of the land or other land, or(ii) any of the matters within paragraphs (a) to (d);(f) any price, or value for any purpose, of any of the land or other land.””Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment expands the existing assets of community value scheme to also include assets of cultural value.

[The Earl of Clancarty (CB)]

My Lords, my Amendment 102 would add cultural assets to the existing scheme of assets of community value. We addressed that scheme earlier in Amendment 87D from the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey. I am grateful for the support of the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, and my noble friend Lord Freyberg. I am grateful too for the supportive correspondence on this from UK Music and the Music Venue Trust. I declare an interest as an officer for the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Visual Arts and Artists.

I have made a significant change to this amendment since Committee. Instead of running a separate and parallel scheme, as I previously proposed, cultural assets are more simply added to the community asset scheme, so that it becomes a scheme of assets of community and cultural value. This is then a more modest amendment in terms of cost and administration, but would nevertheless still achieve the intended outcome: to help protect the spaces or buildings where our arts take place and which are so important to local people and the locality, as much as to the country as a whole.

These are also spaces which are presently so much under threat for a variety of reasons. Such spaces include grassroots music venues, 125 of which—16% of England’s total—closed in 2023. We are also talking about rehearsal spaces, recording studios suffering under the pressures of energy costs and business rates, theatres, arts centres and visual artists’ studios, which are becoming increasingly unaffordable to artists at the beginning of their careers.

It can be argued, of course, that “community assets” might include cultural assets. But while there is clearly overlap, cultural spaces are not what the community asset scheme was primarily set up for. There is then a strong argument that the addition of cultural assets to the scheme would considerably strengthen the protection of these spaces, if such spaces are in reality considered to be as much part of the local community fabric as community spaces in the narrower sense.

Of course, needs change for both community and cultural spaces. It therefore needs to be borne in mind that the existing community asset scheme is not a forever scheme. A timescale and flexibility is built into it. The importance of the scheme lies in two things: first, the power to local people that the scheme enables and, secondly, the chance to say, “Hold on, we continue to need this space”. It is the chance to protect something that is in danger of being lost without being replaced, and that chance ought to be demonstrably afforded to cultural spaces as much as to a pub or community hall. Also, the specific addition of cultural assets to the scheme would inevitably draw on other parts of the local community, who would otherwise not be engaged with the powers that the scheme enables. That, surely, is what localism is all about.

Many of your Lordships will have heard the Prime Minister talk yesterday on “Private Passions” on Radio 3 about his love of music and support for the arts, although the action required to protect and develop the arts does not yet match the rhetoric we have now been hearing for some while. In some cases—for instance, with the cuts to DCMS funding—we seem to be going in the opposite direction. The creative industries themselves are identified by this Government as a growth area, and growth is what the Bill is all about. What I propose in this amendment is not a silver bullet but another test of the Government’s commitment— specifically here, to the arts at the local level. It would therefore be a significant step in the right direction. I beg to move.

--- Later in debate ---

For now, I hope the noble Earl will consider withdrawing his amendment.

[The Earl of Clancarty (CB)]

I thank the Minister for that actually very interesting reply. I would be very grateful if she could write to me about the scheme she mentioned. I re-emphasise that this is about community assets; it is not about cultural assets as such. The whole intention of my amendment was to put them on an equal footing.

I thank everyone who participated in the debate, and for the support for my amendment. I also support the amendments tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson, which seem eminently sensible.

I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, for her support, too. I say to her that I do not consider my amendment to be a substitute for the proper funding of our local authorities; I think of them as occupying two completely different parts of the brain, if you like. It is important to re-fund our local authorities, and I hope that this Government will do that in earnest, including funding our regional arts. Our local authorities are our most important funder of the arts in this country, but their funding has been diminished hugely—and not just in recent times.

The hour is late, so I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 102 withdrawn.

Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Earl of Clancarty Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 22nd October 2025 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Clancarty (CB)]

My Lords, I support Amendment 71 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering, to which I have added my name. I support Amendment 82 as well.

First, I briefly pay tribute to those who have argued for the agent of change principle for much longer than I have, including the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, the noble Lords, Lord Clement-Jones, Lord Foster of Bath and Lord Spellar, among others—some of whom, as the noble Baroness pointed out in Committee, are sadly no longer with us. I am not going to repeat the arguments for the agent of change principle that I made then. Suffice it to say, as I have been making clear, it has been widely supported on a cross-party basis across the whole of Parliament. It has the backing of the music industry, in particular many household names including Paul McCartney. I thank UK Music and the Music Venue Trust among others for their briefings.

As the noble Lord, Lord Foster of Bath, said in Committee, the committee led by the noble Baroness looking at the 2003 licensing legislation was delighted—that was the word it used—that the then Government agreed with it. However, experience has since then proved—and it is now widely understood—that the guidance that has been in place is simply not enough. It is not working.

My main point is to take issue with the Minister’s statement in Committee that embedding these principles in law

“risks increasing the number of legal challenges to developments”.—[Official Report, 4/9/25; col. 1031.]

In disagreeing with this conclusion, it is worth quoting fully what the Music Venue Trust says in response to that statement by the Minister. It states:

“In terms of legal challenges, we believe the opposite. The Music Venue Trust mostly makes planning objections because developers do not have to abide by agent of change, and therefore do not. If they had to abide from the off, we think this would greatly reduce the number of objections we would put in … in cases where objections did have to be placed, they would be resolved much more quickly because the objector would have legislation to point to, which would empower the local authority to respond emphatically”.


The Music Venue Trust points in particular to the significant distinction between Scotland, where the agent of change is statutory, and England, where it is not. In comparative terms, the process in Scotland is straightforward and open; in England, it is characterised by avoidance and prevarication.

I want to make just a couple of other points. First, the Government’s consultation that is currently out on pubs, many of which are also live music venues, makes it even more imperative that the agent of change is legislated for to create the certainty which is now required. Secondly, we are awaiting the imminent publication of the London Nightlife Taskforce report, which my noble friend Lord Freyberg referenced earlier today and which will certainly address planning regulations in relation to the current concerns and live music venues. Whatever happens to this amendment, I hope the Minister will look carefully at the recommendations contained within that report, which will have relevance also to the country as a whole.

Finally, this is an important amendment. If the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, wished to take it to a vote, I would certainly support her.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, live music events and things like that improve people’s lives and the quality of life. You are going down there. You may annoy one or two people, but most people will benefit from them. They are an important part of community involvement, and making sure that they remain is something that this House should be taking seriously.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Earl of Clancarty (CB)]

Why will the Government not make it statutory? This is a very simple question.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I think I have explained several times during the course of the Bill that I do not think it is correct to say that the National Planning Policy Framework is a statutory framework in itself: it is not. It sits within the statutory framework of planning. We need it to be more flexible than a statutory framework, so it can change as times change. When we bring in these policies, they will not be coming through as pieces of law. They will be planning policies, so that they can be flexible and adapt to the situation as it changes. That is a very important part of planning. The National Planning Policy Framework must maintain that degree of flexibility: otherwise, every time we want to change it, we will have to come back through Parliament. That would not be agile enough to deal with the changing situation.

Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Earl of Clancarty Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 22nd October 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Coffey (Con)]

My Lords, I have tabled Amendments 87A and 87D in this group. Amendment 87D is a bit of an outlier, so I will come to that later in my contribution. In essence, Amendment 87A is supposed to be a bit of a helping hand to the Government in achieving the outcome that they are intending, whereas the Government’s Amendment 64 really is a huge overreach. I should start by thanking Alexa Culver for helping draft Amendment 87A.

Government Amendment 64 would allow the Secretary of State, in effect, to force through planning permissions, even when material considerations such as failing EDPs, water shortages and insufficient infrastructure would normally warrant planning refusal. In the press release that was put out, although it did not directly mention the amendment, the closest explanation that could be found was:

“Ministers will be able to issue ‘holding directions’ to stop councils refusing planning permission whilst they consider using their ‘call-in’ powers. Under existing rules, they can only issue these holds when councils are set to approve applications”.


The suggestion is that this amendment would allow the Government properly to use their call-in powers.

It is possible that this explanation is a red herring and does not match the much broader powers contained in Amendment 64. At the moment, Written Ministerial Statements can govern the procedure for call-in; there is no need for legislation to improve or refine the process. I have suggested an alternative to the Government through Amendment 87A. Planning authorities are allowed to refuse planning permission only when there are justified grounds to do so. If that refusal is appealed, of course, the Secretary of State can call in that appeal, known as recovering the appeal. Therefore, the Government’s stated concern around obstructive or hair-trigger refusal is a fairly minor one to legislate for.

The challenge here is that we need to try to make sure that we improve other parts of the Bill. To give a bit more detail, the clause would permit the Secretary of State to pass a new type of development order that prevents local planning authorities refusing to grant planning permission, for example where there is insufficient water supply or the like. Up until now, development orders have been used only to govern or constrain how planning authorities positively grant consent. This amendment turns that around for the first time and allows the Secretary of State to prevent refusals of planning permission.

Development orders have to be made by statutory instrument—although I believe it is through the negative procedure—but there are no obvious constraints on how the power can be used. The bars to refusal can be used to override local, real-world, on-the-ground constraints to development, and planning authorities may be forced to consent, for example, where EDPs are failing or unimplemented.

On the speed of impact, there are widely publicised water shortage issues in many parts of the country and I am very concerned that, given that this clause is expected to come into force on the day, we could see a flurry of directions being issued. Amendment 87A—by the good help of Alexa Culver, as I say—would not have entire overreach but would potentially help the Minister achieve their aim.

Amendment 87D is on something very close to my heart: considering local communities. They go to a lot of effort to register assets of community value, but at the moment the regulations are such that there are very few examples of buildings being protected from demolition under existing permitted development rights. Those are a pub and, I think, two other examples of some social issues. I think a theatre is a good example. I have seen this at first hand when a community came together. Registering an asset of community value is not the most straightforward of processes, but they did. When the owner of said community assets was starting to get fed up, they literally just pulled the buildings down, not even allowing the local community the chance to buy those assets from the developer.

I am conscious that the Government will have legislation later this year about local communities. I really do not want to have to return at that stage to press the case; I want to get these changes made now. When we bring in legislation to empower communities, which happened in the Localism Act and which I know the Government say they support, let us not continue to have legislation where the rug can be pulled away from those local communities. In the particular case it was a sports centre and a theatre, both much cherished and both used in marketing for housebuilding in that area and as reasons for people to move there. We are talking about all these new communities. Unfortunately, those things could be built and within a day they could be pulled down to make space for more houses—exactly what happened in that community in Suffolk. It may be the only example. I have not investigated right around the country, but I feel so strongly about it and this Bill has been my first opportunity to try to rectify what I genuinely believe is a wrong. I hope that the House will support that later tonight.

[The Earl of Clancarty (CB)]

My Lords, I rise briefly in support of the outlier Amendment 87D from the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey. I have Amendment 102, likely to be heard on Monday, which seeks to extend the current assets of community value scheme to include cultural assets, so I have a particular interest in how the scheme as it stands at present does and should work.

The noble Baroness’s amendment and mine were considered in the same group in Committee; she pointed out that, as she said just now, some if not all cultural buildings had already been added to the Town and Country Planning (General Permitted Development) (England) Order 2015. This has been a move in the right direction, but I certainly agree that assets of community value should be added. Strangely, we have a situation where, through the 2015 order, certain cultural venues such as concert halls and theatres are protected but community assets as such are not, which feels incredibly inconsistent, certainly in relation to the community asset scheme as it stands now.

I find what the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, has described today, and in considerable detail in Committee —about how a new owner can ride roughshod over a community—not just wrong but, frankly, outrageous. Legislation is not always the right thing, as the Minister points out quite a lot, but I think this is a perfect instance of where a gap in the law ought to be plugged and ought to be addressed in the community’s interest. I will certainly vote for Amendment 87D if the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, takes it to a vote.

[Lord Banner (Con)]

My Lords, Amendment 64 has been packaged in the media, and even in the Marshalled List, as augmenting the Secretary of State’s power to call in an application, but, as the Minister made clear in opening, in fact it does not do that. It leaves Section 77 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990, which is the call-in power, unchanged. What it actually does is augment the holding power, under Section 74 of the 1990 Act, so that the Secretary of State can issue restrictions on the refusal of planning permission to facilitate consideration of the call-in power. In that context, I seek some clarification from the Minister as to what is intended procedurally, were this amendment to become law.

Currently, there are procedural safeguards in place in relation to called-in planning applications: there is a statutory safeguard in Section 77(5), which gives either the applicant or the local planning authority the right to be heard before an inspector appointed by the Secretary of State. That, plainly, will not be changed, because there is no proposal to amend Section 77, but the obligation for the Secretary of State to cause a hearing to be heard is also the subject of a policy that exists in the Planning Inspectorate’s guidance on call-in proceedings. The policy in the Planning Inspectorate guidance is that the right of a local authority or an applicant to be heard under Section 77(5) is to be exercised by means of the inquiry procedure. The public inquiry procedure, of course, allows for greater scrutiny of the evidence and greater public participation than a mere one-day informal hearing.

Is the Minister prepared to offer a commitment on behalf of the Government that there will be no dilution of the procedural safeguard in the Planning Inspectorate’s published policy and that the right of a local planning authority to insist on an inquiry and to exercise its statutory right to be heard through the inquiry procedure, as opposed to a lesser procedure, will not be diluted and will remain?

Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Earl of Clancarty Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 4th September 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

I am grateful to have the opportunity; I fear that my preparation will not be as polished as customary.

The genesis for this group of amendments was the ad hoc committee on the scrutiny of the Licensing Act 2003, which I had the great honour to chair. I would just like to record my deep sadness that, since that time, two of the leading members of that committee, Baroness Henig and Lord Blair, who contributed greatly and lent a great deal of knowledge and expertise to its work, have very sadly passed away. I know that Baroness Henig supported me vigorously when I tabled similar amendments during the passage of the levelling-up Act.

I am delighted to say that, for Amendment 110, I have the support, for which I am most grateful, of the noble Earl, Lord Clancarty, the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, and the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay. The noble Lords, Lord Hunt and Lord Parkinson, for family reasons cannot be here this evening, but I know that I have their staunch support. Sadly, on Amendment 111, I am very much on my own, but there we go. I recognise the noble Lord, Lord Foster, who was also a leading light and a great authority on that committee, and I am delighted he is in his place this evening.

The purpose of tabling these amendments is similar in one respect to that of the previous group. We have, if you like, the principle of agent of change, which is recognised by the Government, but I would like to see it enshrined in law. I welcome that there has been a recent press release from the Government, as analysed closely by the Institute of Licensing and many of those in the industry who follow this. The press release from the Government is very good news indeed. Obviously, it might be from a different department to that of the Minister who will be summing up the debate this evening. The Government have announced reforms to planning and licensing laws aiming to reduce bureaucratic barriers and fast-track the revival of town centres with a wave of new cafés, bars and music venues. What is important in adopting the two amendments—there should be nothing in them that is objectionable to the Government—is simply to establish the principle that, where people wish to put a new development in place against an existing music or other cultural venue, the onus is on those developers to ensure that the change of use will be recognised and that the ongoing existence of the current venue will be secured.

Why is this important? In 2024, the number of venues making a loss increased from 38.5% to 43.8%, so this is an industry which is very much under threat. If you look at developments since 2020, the impact of Covid probably hit this sector—music venues and the hospitality sector more generally—more harshly than any other sector.

I welcome the fact that the agent of change principle is guidance in the NPPF, and Section 106 agreements between local councils and developers have been vital tools. However, I make the strongest possible submission to the Minister that there are real concerns that they are not being respected as they should be, and I would just like her to agree—or, if she feels that the Government could come forward with amendments that are better crafted than those that I have drafted, I would welcome that indeed. I would like to see Amendment 110, which would insert the new clause “Agent of change: integration of new development with existing businesses and facilities”, and Amendment 111, inserting the new clause “General duty of local authorities”, given the force of statute. With those few remarks, I beg to move.

[The Earl of Clancarty (CB)]

My Lords, I have added my name to Amendment 110, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering, on the agent of change principle. As the noble Baroness says, just one example of the effect of this amendment is that it would be of significant help to grass-roots music venues, which are such an important part of the music industry’s ecology. Bands and individual artists cut their teeth in such live music settings. The loss of those venues is then a loss not just to the local community—which is important in itself—but to the music industry as a whole.

Precisely because of their importance within the overall ecology, the Government should do everything possible to protect those venues, which is a major reason why the existing guidance should be turned into law. As the Music Venue Trust says, with almost every constituency housing a grass-roots music venue, this amendment would, unusually, have an impact on over 720 venues across England, in communities from small villages to big cities.

As UK Music points out, this has been inspired by similar protections in Australia. In cities such as Melbourne, it has helped to revitalise the night-time and cultural economies. When a similar Bill was introduced in Parliament in the UK in 2018, it had the backing of music stars such as Paul McCartney, Chrissie Hynde, Brian Eno, Feargal Sharkey and many others. In 2019, the agent of change principle was made statutory in Scotland. It remains a material consideration for the rest of the UK—better than nothing but not nearly as effective as it might be.

The Government are keen to build new housing, so there is immense practicality about this amendment as well as a moral right in the principle. It would pre-empt and avoid complaints and ill feeling, potential court proceedings and the loss of important cultural assets. As Caroline Dinenage pointed out in the other place earlier this year, such legislation is

“supported by the whole live music sector, from the operators of our smallest clubs, pubs and venues to the biggest arenas and stadiums. It will benefit the breadth of our cultural infrastructure, from our historic theatres to our pulsating nightclubs”.—[Official Report, Commons, 9/6/25; col. 710.]

Potentially, one can add sports venues—anywhere where sound is a significant aspect of the activity concerned. Any loss of these assets will have an effect on the local and wider economy, not to mention local pride in cultural facilities.

There is a strong argument that locally appropriate soundproofing should be a default concern for new builds in particular. Also, as the Music Venue Trust points out, full legislation would decrease red tape and speed up the planning process, meaning that housebuilding would be speeded up as well. The Music Venue Trust makes the important distinction about how the process operates in Scotland and England. In Scotland, because the agent of change principle is statutory, an objection submitted by the Music Venue Trust can refer directly to the national legislation alongside the impact of omitting the principle, so that as soon as the planning committee receives the objection, it can go straight back to the developer to ask them to change their plans. It is a relatively simple and speedy process. In England, because it is not statutory, there is a constant back and forth between the Music Venue Trust’s emergency response service and the local authority, with the same venue often appearing in their service multiple times for different applications. Sometimes the venue does not even appear in a noise impact assessment. All this contributes to a slower and fundamentally unsatisfactory process in England, leaving many applications awaiting decisions for far too long. These are significant concerns that making the agent of change principle statutory would address.

This is a very important amendment. Such legislation was a recommendation of the DCMS Select Committee’s 2024 special report on grass-roots music venues. The Government need to take this very seriously. I fully support it.

[Lord Foster of Bath (LD)]

My Lords, I apologise, as other parliamentary responsibilities mean that I have not been able to take part so far in this very important Bill. However, in view of my previous involvement in issues around live entertainment and particularly music venues, I was anxious to speak very briefly in support of the noble Baroness’s two amendments.

When I was in the other place in 2012, I had the honour of leading the arguments in favour of what became the Live Music Act, which had been sponsored in your Lordships’ House by my noble friend Lord Clement-Jones. The purpose of that Act was to reduce regulation on performers and on venues to ensure more opportunity for live music and the growth of live music venues within this country.

More recently, in 2017, I had the opportunity to serve on your Lordships’ committee—ably chaired by the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh—which looked at the 2003 licensing legislation. During our deliberations, we discovered that, notwithstanding the aims of the Live Music Act, the number of live entertainment venues, and particularly music venues, was reducing. One potential cause was the protests made by residents and occupants of premises that had been built after the existing venues. That caused a great deal of problems; hence we came forward with the proposals to introduce the agent of change principle that has already been referred to.

--- Later in debate ---

Amendment 185H, on assets of cultural value, is an interesting approach. There is already listing, and other activities can be done, but again this is a potential opportunity for communities to engage with their cultural assets. My late mother danced at the Cavern Club and the Jacaranda. That has certainly gone through a few changes over the years, but we would not want it suddenly to disappear. Assets of community value should be recognised for the stories and the heritage they bring to communities in not just the great city of Liverpool, but many others around the country. I beg to move.

[The Earl of Clancarty (CB)]

My Lords, I rise to speak to my Amendment 185H in this group, which is a probing amendment. I ask the Government to give some serious thought to it as it addresses a gap in our thinking about the arts and arts practice. I am grateful for the support of the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering. I am also grateful to UK Music for its input into this amendment.

This amendment would establish a system for locally identifying and protecting physical assets of cultural value—that is to say, the spaces or buildings in which the arts take place, be it a music venue, a rehearsal space, a recording studio, an arts centre, a theatre or a visual artist studio, to list just a few potential examples, and one can think of others. This amendment is intended to work alongside and complement the community value scheme. I should also say that I support Amendment 112 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey.

At the national level, my amendment would be helpful to and complementary to funding bodies such as the Arts Council, whose concern is primarily for artists and arts organisations, although I acknowledge that its new creative foundation fund will be concerned specifically with the repair of selected buildings.

Of course, most arts are being produced in local, non-residential physical business spaces, public and private. Sometimes they are purpose-built. They are most often furnished for a particular cultural use. If individual artists and organisations do not have access, or lose access, to the spaces in which to work or rehearse then they cannot work—or at least, they cannot do so in the optimum environment, irrespective of the value of their work commercially or the value placed on it through support by a funding body. That is the crucial importance of buildings to the arts, which we always seem to be in danger of overlooking. Buildings are always somewhere, and always in local communities.

I want to address one potential criticism of such a scheme, which is that the arts should not be preserved in aspic; fashions change and new ideas come in. However, the great danger in the present day is the unnecessary loss of assets which are still relevant and still have currency, but without there being any form of replacement.

The Music Venue Trust cites examples of music clubs which have had to close days after they have sold out events, such are the often overwhelming contemporary pressures on our cultural assets. Of our grass-roots music venues, 125—16% of all GMVs—closed in the UK in 2023. Last year, 25 closed, but we are still talking about an overall downward trend. GMVs are, of course, important at the local level but a circuit of clubs for performers is of national importance. The loss of so many grass-roots music venues threatens that circuit.

I will cite one other example: theatres. The theatres at risk register 2025, compiled by the Theatres Trust, finds that 40% of theatre buildings face closure without urgent investment. Sometimes, of course, such buildings also have strong architectural merit.

There is a real concern for our cultural assets in the current climate of economic uncertainty, alongside other pressures such as those discussed in the last group. Such pressures include energy and other running costs, rent, business rates and the depletion of council resources, alongside the selling off of council buildings and the contemporary pressures of housebuilding and redevelopment. All these things are piling enormous pressures on our cultural buildings, which ought to be understood as having a significant value, both in themselves and as part of the local infrastructure. The loss of such buildings is a loss—often an irreplaceable loss—not just to the arts, but to local communities, which often take huge pride in their own cultural facilities. The crucial thing, which this amendment specifically addresses, is that we do not think enough about the particular relationship between culture and locality. Local cultural value is not the same, necessarily, as local community value. I hope the Minister will agree with that.

At present, it is all too easy for our cultural facilities to quietly disappear without any local protective system in place to question that disappearance. As I have intimated, this is currently happening across the whole country. Such a system would give power to local people for the protection of their own cultural buildings and spaces. As well as the social effect, there is the effect on the local economy and the ripple effect that can be created in additional jobs and trade. Of course, this is something local people understand more than anyone.

In summary, the value of the scheme—it is not just for the arts in the abstract, but for the local people themselves, whom these cultural facilities serve—is the crucial point. The scheme has a significant geographical local dimension. I look forward to the Minister’s reply.

[Lord Fuller (Con)]

My Lords, I support my noble friend Lady Coffey in her Amendment 112. When I first read this, my mind immediately went to pubs—historic pubs. Of course, we are losing pubs as an accelerated rate. But then I realised, having done some research, that since 2017 it has not been possible to demolish a pub without seeking planning permission. So, my noble friend’s concept comes straight into the ambit of other non-pub things. But then my mind went to the Crooked House, that wonky pub in the West Midlands. I will not say that the owners were crooked, although there have been arrests and there is a police investigation. That building was on the local environmental record.

I wonder whether the noble Baroness might consider strengthening her proposal, because this is not something that is done locally on an ad hoc basis by the local council. Historic England publishes some criteria—pubs aside—for other assets that are not quite yet assets of community value. Of course, “assets of community value” is not as restrictive as you might think: there is no restriction on gifting the pub or on it being sold. The designation does not even last forever; it is for only five years, provided that the use is maintained. I just wonder whether there is any merit in saying that, where a property meets that Historic England designation on the proper national criteria, her anti-demolition provisions ought to be extended to those pro tem, so that at least we do not accidentally and carelessly lose these buildings—non-pubs, or other community buildings —accidentally. We could give additional breathing space to local communities to put a bid forward for protection.

Local Government: Funding

Earl of Clancarty Excerpts

Monday 27th January 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

The English Devolution White Paper sits at the heart of the reform we want, and that will involve both funding and money. I understand the pressure for urgent reform of council tax, but we have to be committed to keeping taxes on working people as low as possible. It is for local authorities to decide where they set their council tax. The Government will consider longer-term options to improve council tax billing and all those things, but council tax is a well-understood tax and it has very high collection rates. In terms of business rates, we published a discussion paper, Transforming Business Rates, which set out the priority areas for reform. We have had very good engagement on that and we will publish our update in due course.

[The Earl of Clancarty (CB)]

My Lords, what guarantee can the Minister give that the most locally funded arts and cultural services—including libraries—such as at district council level, will not be further lost in this reorganisation, against a background where, it has to be said, cuts to such services are continuing in many localities?

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

As the noble Earl said, arts and leisure services took an absolute bashing as local government funding was successively cut over recent years. The purpose of devolution is to put control for that back into local hands and to make sure that more of the money spent in Westminster gets spent in the local areas to protect the services that people really care about and feel are important to them. I hope that will include those key leisure, arts and cultural services that make life around this country so rich and wonderful.

National Insurance: Employer Contributions

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Thursday 9th January 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I am always very happy to meet colleagues from NALC and have done so several times in the past, as the noble Baroness knows. The issue here is that parish and town councils have not traditionally been funded in the same way. It is for upper tier councils to decide. We have provided additional funding for upper tier councils. The local government funding settlement saw a 3.7% real-terms increase in funding. If upper tier councils choose to provide that funding, they are able to do so, but local councils also have the ability to precept, as she will know.

[The Earl of Clancarty (CB)]

My Lords, in the arts, already struggling theatres and museums are among those affected by these changes. What consideration has been given to mitigate this effect in the arts sector as a whole?

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

The noble Earl raises a key point. We have looked very carefully at charities and the voluntary sector. Many arts organisations have charitable status and there has been significant support in the tax incentives for charities. In fact, charities receive a better tax incentive in this country than in most other European countries. I know that it is not ideal and, as I say, it is not a decision we wanted to take. Unfortunately, the financial situation left to us by the last Government meant that we had to take it.

European Union

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Monday 7th October 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Twycross (Lab)]

I will take the proposal back to the department.

[The Earl of Clancarty (CB)]

My Lords, the Minister should agree that in the cultural area the UK should have much closer relations with the EU. Although the language has changed, we have not yet seen any action at all to address the specific concerns of the arts and creative industries. When will that happen? Every passing week represents lost opportunities and revenues for many artists and creatives who continue to face huge difficulties in Europe.

[Baroness Twycross (Lab)]

There is a genuine commitment and determination from the Government to address this. I thank the noble Earl for his question on this point.

Spending Commitments to Local Councils

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Monday 22nd July 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

Under the previous Government, 19 councils needed to seek additional support from the Government to balance their budgets for this year. This Government are committed to ensuring councils have the resources needed to provide those public services. We are already working closely with local government and other departments to understand the specific demand and cost pressures facing them. We urge any council experiencing financial difficulties to approach the department as early as possible so we can help work through a plan to resolve them.

[The Earl of Clancarty (CB)]

My Lords, councils have many demands placed on them, but a test of how effective the Government will be is whether they can reverse the cuts to cultural and leisure activities, including libraries. This is for the simple reason that they have usually been the first services to be cut.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

The noble Lord is a great champion of libraries, culture and arts in this Chamber. The severe pressure that local authority funding has come under in recent years has had a particular impact there. We will want to look closely at whether we can help alleviate those pressures. Libraries provide such a fantastic resource for our communities, as do the leisure facilities that local authorities provide.

Local Government Finances

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Thursday 21st March 2024 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Clancarty (CB)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, for the opportunity to speak in this debate. Like my noble friend Lady Bull, I will talk about the arts and cultural services.

A good place to start is by quoting the briefing that the Local Government Association provided for the debate in this House on the arts in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Bragg, on 1 February:

“Councils have a key role to play—they are the biggest public funders of culture, spending over £lbn a year and running a wide range of other services. They are also place shapers and have a convening and supporting role in setting the context in which the arts can flourish. The arts are discretionary, but councils invest because they see the value to local people”.


One could of course add, “when they have the funding to do so”. The quote is valuable because it describes the intricacy of the relationship between the arts and the local community. On the one hand, the arts are a good in themselves in many different ways—they are something that local people can take pride in, and they may have a national or international reputation—but, on the other, the arts are also inextricably bound up in the identity of a local area. They are or can be a part of the character of that community.

How should all these varied arts be funded? I believe they should continue to be funded primarily through local government funding. That is still the most efficient and comprehensive means by which we can fund the day-to-day activities of the arts and other cultural services: efficient because local governments are the experts in their areas, and comprehensive because every area of the country is covered by local government and therefore much better at levelling up than the patchiness of the levelling up fund, whose purpose in any case ought to be properly understood as additional to the core funding of local government.

The great tragedy of the last 14 years is that, not only for the arts, we have seen at least a partial dismantling of this inherently efficient and comprehensive system. The specific point about the arts in relation to the funding cuts, as the noble Lord, Lord Hall of Birkenhead, pointed out recently when interviewed by the Observer on these cuts, is that they have been a “canary in the mine”. The noble Lord said:

“What we learn in Birmingham will soon matter across the country”,


and we are seeing that in Hampshire, Nottinghamshire and many other councils. It is the arts and other cultural services such as libraries, community and leisure activities that have been the first to feel the effect of long-term cuts. Indeed, around seven years ago Nicholas Serota made the point that the biggest crisis in the arts was in local government funding. It was seven years ago too that we had a debate in this House on local government funding and the arts—for which the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, did the summing up for the Liberal Democrats—which was in effect a warning sign to the Government that, bleak as the picture was then, it was going to get bleaker unless the matter was addressed. As we know, it has not been addressed, with a cliff edge having been reached in some cases.

The Government have had all the warning signs, but the Secretary of State for DCMS, Lucy Frazer, recently gave an interview for the Stage in which she said:

“It’s disappointing when local authorities make decisions to cut the arts”.


What is of course far more disappointing is the refusal by this Government to take responsibility for a situation for which they are ultimately responsible. The evidence is in front of them: it is not about well-managed authorities or otherwise. It is always possible to pick out councils that can be understood as examples of good practice—or in some cases good fortune, as recipients of the levelling up fund—but that does not describe the overarching narrative across the country of decreasing funds and the cutting of services, and of the irreparable loss of infrastructure, including buildings, as others have referred to. It is this that Lucy Frazer and the rest of her Government refuse to acknowledge.

I applaud the Government for giving the arts and the creative industries such a prominent position in the Budget, and one hopes that prominence will continue. However, theatres, museums and orchestras will have a sense of relief, more than anything, that tax relief, which was originally increased to counter the effect of Covid on the arts, has been set permanently at a higher rate. That shows perhaps more than anything how much some organisations that have normally depended on local government funding have come to depend on what was originally a temporary measure.

Staying with the Budget, capital projects are welcomed and will not be turned down, but what the arts really need is that basic help with day-to-day funding for which local government has been key. As a colleague pointed out to me earlier in the week, the Budget is not a spending review.

I will touch on one other area, the nature of the arts themselves. It is impossible in this discussion not to bring in funding streams other than local government, such as the Arts Council, which has started to fund through the Let’s Create strategy much that would once have been funded by local government, such as community arts projects, side by side with professional arts and arts facilities. For a long time my worry has been where this leaves professional artists and performers. Both community arts and professional arts are important, but there is an increasing danger that the professional arts are being shut out. That needs to be addressed because it is happening due to local government cuts.

It has become clear that we do not have a strategy for the arts that includes local government funding. We need more joined-up thinking, including between DCMS and the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities. On funding of the arts overall, we are still moving in the wrong direction. I understand that the Arts Council has been asked how it can now make further savings of 5%. This makes no sense. As the LGA says:

“Public funding is an essential part of the ecology of the arts and culture in the UK”.


The Arts Council found that in 2020, for every £1 generated in the arts and culture, an additional £1.23 gross value was generated in the wider economy. Our arts and creative industries are the growth area in this country. They stimulate growth, as my noble friend Lady Bull pointed out. It is high time we reinvested in them, not least at the hugely significant local government level.

Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

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Committee stage
Thursday 18th May 2023 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Clancarty (CB)]

My Lords, I support Amendment 387 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Randall of Uxbridge.

This is not an area I usually speak on, and I apologise for not having spoken at Second Reading. I am prompted to speak for two reasons. The first is that I live in a national park—which is not so unusual, given that national parks account for 10% of the land in England; many colleagues will live in or near national parks. The second prompt was the very concerned letter that Trevor Beattie, CEO of the South Downs National Park—the newest national park, where I live—wrote to the Guardian in November last year, following the reporting of the 40% cut in real terms in government funding to England’s national parks in the last 10 years. I found this quite shocking, particularly considering current environmental concerns, and I asked an Oral Question on this back in January.

On the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Randall of Uxbridge, I am grateful for the helpful briefings from National Parks England and the Campaign for National Parks. I thank Trevor Beattie, South Downs chair Vanessa Rowlands and the rest of their excellent team for the morning I spent in Midhurst last week hearing about the work they do, as well as their ambitions for the future. I very much stress “ambition”. Other noble Lords have provided the technical detail but my argument is really a simple one of principle, or ambition, being turned to practical effect. If we believe that the national parks and other protected spaces are to be considered key resources in the fight against climate change and for nature recovery—not just conservation but recovery and biodiversity—they should be given as many tools as is required to be as effective as possible in these significant and urgent ambitions. Certainly, from my visit to Midhurst there is no doubting the expertise and dynamism of those who work for the parks, and these are measures that they would like to see in place and on a firm legislative footing.

It is clear that we live in a world now with quite different perceptions about nature and our relationship to it than the one that existed when the national parks were set up in 1949, when neither climate change nor biodiversity were concerns, let alone truly urgent ones, and the public have certainly become more aware of the issues and the need address them. The parks ought then to be afforded the legal powers commensurate with our modern understanding of the issues involved. National parks are special places. Almost 30% of the area of national parks is recognised as internationally important for wildlife.

Having said that, it is true of course that the fight against climate change and for nature recovery is a global one without any respect for borders, particularly in the case of climate change. One of the important phrases I heard last week was “permeability”, the importance of the borders and parks being permeable—that people, particularly children from all backgrounds, be encouraged to come into the parks. Another was “taking nature to your doorstep”, which links with what the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, was saying: that outside a park, there is movement in both directions because nature, or indeed environmental concerns, as I said, do not stop at the borders of the park. It seems that all this is about the NPAs having a strong voice that resonates both inside and outside their boundaries. Of course, access is not just about enjoying the parks for their own sake or in the interest of well-being, important though these aspects are. There is an immense educational value here too that needs to be tapped. So, maximising access to protected landscapes should play a significant role in levelling up.