Public Order: Busking and Live Music

Earl of Clancarty Excerpts

Tuesday 21st January 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

I can certainly give my noble friend the assurance that the guidance will achieve what he and the Government wish to see from it. I do not think that there is a difference across government on this issue. We believe that the tests and safeguards set out in the new anti-social behaviour powers will ensure that they will be used only where reasonable. Where behaviour is having a positive effect on a community, and I see busking as having that effect, it would not meet the tests for the new powers. Instead, the powers are directed against the anti-social minority who give street performers a bad name; I might illustrate them as being aggressive beggars and drunken louts.

[The Earl of Clancarty (CB)]

My Lords, does not the Minister think that Part V of the London Local Authorities Act 2000, which specifically targets busking as being effectively a potential criminal activity and which has allowed Camden Council to impose its draconian policy, should be repealed?

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

I do not intend to comment on the Camden case because it is subject to judicial review, as the noble Earl will understand. However, perhaps I can convey to the House the sentiments of the Mayor of London, who clearly believes that busking is an important part of street life in London. He is keen to encourage street entertainment and live music, not least because of the positive aspect it brings to the life of the city. As I have made clear, the Government believe that live music and street entertainment can play an important part in community life. The Government support the mayor’s position.

Visas: Artists and Entertainers

Earl of Clancarty Excerpts

Monday 9th December 2013 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[The Earl of Clancarty]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they have plans to improve the official information available, including on the United Kingdom Border Agency website, for long- and short-term visitors to the United Kingdom, and in particular artists and entertainers.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Home Office (Lord Taylor of Holbeach) (Con)]

My Lords, on 21 November Visa4UK, the UK’s online visa application system for overseas customers, was upgraded to make applications easier to complete. The content of the former UKBA’s website will be transferred to gov.uk by the end of March 2014. Those measures will make immediate improvements to the online customer experience for all users, including the artists and entertainers mentioned by the noble Earl in his Question.

[The Earl of Clancarty (CB)]

I thank the Minister for that helpful reply but does he realise that the official artists and entertainers information is out of date and does not include the permitted paid engagements scheme the Government introduced to improve the system? Can something be done more quickly to ensure that those planning to visit this country have access to the most up-to-date information at all times? They cannot wait on UKBA reorganisation.

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

My Lords, this is well recognised by us and we regret that the publication of the revised leaflet, of which the noble Earl will be well aware, has been delayed. We plan to publish the revised leaflet in the next few weeks on the existing website. It will move in due course to gov.uk as part of the wider web content migration. We are grateful for the contribution made by the noble Earl and representatives of the arts sector in developing the leaflet and for their helpful feedback on immigration systems for artists and entertainers.

Queen’s Speech

Earl of Clancarty Excerpts

Tuesday 15th May 2012 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Clancarty]

My Lords, I want to talk about the arts and the cultural sector, but to get to that point I feel that I have to talk about something else first, something that is in the way and which I have to get past: the economic policy of this Government, which in the last two years has cast a shadow over almost every topic that gets debated in Parliament.

Like a growing number of people, I do not believe in the austerity measures. Why do I say this? I am not an economist. I studied economics for one year at undergraduate level and I probably learnt three things: first, that there are many different economic policies; secondly, that there is much argument about which policies actually succeed—if any; and, thirdly and most importantly, that no economic policy can be separated from political intent. Austerity is no exception. It is not a politically neutral measure, although this Government have done a pretty good job so far of convincing the public that austerity is the only way and has nothing to do with ideology.

I do not agree with the political intent behind austerity measures. Many economists also do not believe that austerity works, and indeed see this measure as perverse, eccentric and historically discredited. The views of these economists, including Nobel prize winners such as Paul Krugman and Joseph Stiglitz, have not until now been championed enough—although I think that the tide is turning—because the parties in power in Europe have not been sympathetic; nor have they yet been championed enough by the Opposition in our Parliament, who have yet to state that they would reverse the cuts.

The arts, the cultural sector and the creative industries are precisely the areas in which this country should be investing for growth, and we should be reversing the cuts to do so—cuts, I should say, to an investment that has always been small by Treasury standards. To their credit, the previous Administration appreciated that such investment effects cultural growth, social regeneration, improvement of the environment and economic growth, and gave the arts a prominent place in their 2010 manifesto.

The Arts Council has this month released a guidance document for arts organisations to carry out their own economic impact assessments, which, through the case studies featured, prove the point of such organisations’ worth—yet again. I do not believe that organisations should be doing this, as too many are struggling enough with their finances anyway. But the two-year-old case studies of Anvil Arts in Basingstoke and of the AV Festival in the north-east gave results that stunned even local people. For example, in 2010 it was assessed that Anvil Arts contributed £6.2 million per year to Basingstoke’s economy, more than a fivefold return on the borough council’s investment.

The arts community has always known of the strong multiplier effect of the cultural sector, which politicians with any nous would pick up on. Yet, strangely for a Government who profess a desire for economic recovery, the arts have suffered an enormous demotion politically in the past two years. As the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Hudnall, pointed out, there is no mention of the arts or the creative industries—or innovation for that matter—in the Queen’s Speech. I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Hornsey, that there is no sense of strategy for the arts and culture. It is almost as though, in the past two years, the arts have become invisible as far as the Government are concerned. The cultural sector almost failed to appear in the national planning policy framework. Only a strong campaign prevented that. It was for the sector a big fall from grace from being, under the previous Administration, one of the four pillars of sustainable development.

Worst of all, one only needs to go on to the Lost Arts website to see the roll call of those arts organisations that have been drastically cut, are on the brink of folding or have now gone under, all as a result of cuts to state funding. Those organisations include Durham City Arts, now closed; the Theatre Writing Partnership, based in Nottingham and formed more than 10 years ago, which will close next month; Croydon’s Warehouse Theatre, which may well close; and Museums Sheffield, which has had to make a scandalously large number of redundancies—45 altogether. The list goes on and on.

This is a Government who neither properly appreciate the significance of long-term support for the arts nor understand the state’s crucial role at the grass-roots level or the preservation of our cultural history. If this Government were taking a long-term view, they would not have introduced the levy of VAT on approved alterations to listed buildings, nor would they have effectively capped charitable giving, which will have a hugely detrimental effect on the larger, more established organisations. I hope that both these measures will be reversed and that the Minister will respond on them.

The Government have, quite correctly, launched a very smart advertising campaign abroad leading up to the Olympics and Paralympics—the GREAT campaign —but it is an irony that, at the same time, they have so drastically reduced funding to the culture that the campaign is promoting.

This is a Government who react most when the short-term commercial possibilities of the creative industries are right in front of their nose. Tax breaks to investors in the form of the Seed Enterprise Investment Scheme are clearly welcome, although Steve Karmeinsky of City Meets Tech points out that there need to be tax breaks also for the start-up companies in which investors have an interest.

Robert Redford was quite right to slap David Cameron down for calling for the funding only of “commercial” cinema. Sundance, which, as we know, has been launched as a festival in the UK, was set up on the opposite premise: from the point of view of the film-makers. To make a general point, artists do the work that they do and then an attempt should be made to find audiences. This is a necessary risk at the level of the individual artist and the individual company. Yet paradoxically perhaps, at the larger scale—to take the sector as a whole—it is, as I have described, no risk at all to invest; it is absolutely the opposite. If we continue to cut the grass roots, to threaten arts education and to continue with local authority cuts to the arts, music and libraries, the mainstream also will be become fundamentally damaged—the commercial cinema and the commercial theatre, which are fed by the grass roots. This Government should give long-term support to the arts and cultural sector to promote cultural growth and help to kick-start this country’s economy. That is a plan for growth.