Arts and Culture: Economic Regeneration

Baroness Jones of Whitchurch Excerpts

Tuesday 29th January 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lady Quin for initiating this debate, and for the characteristically powerful way in which she set out the importance of the arts in regional regeneration. She made a compelling case, drawn from her own experiences, the themes of which have found resonance from all around this Chamber this evening.

I welcome the Minister to his role and look forward to his response. I hope that he will be able to give some reassurance that the future policy of arts in the regions will be an improvement on our experience of the coalition’s record over the first half of its term of office.

At a time when our economy is stagnating, and business leaders vent their frustration at the Government’s lack of a growth strategy, investment in regional regeneration ought to be an obvious priority. It makes sense in helping to tackle the growing disparity between rich and poor, and between those in work and the unemployed, which holds back our recovery. We know, for example, that since May 2010 the number of long-term unemployed has risen by 60% across the UK as a whole, but by 83% in Yorkshire and 123% in the north-east. Similar disparities exist for youth unemployment. Meanwhile, figures for individual and business insolvency also show disturbing patterns, with the north suffering more than the national average.

Unfortunately, the current Government do not appear to have a coherent regional strategy. They were all too quick to scrap the regional development agencies when they came to power, but the local enterprise partnerships put in their place have limited scope and have been widely criticised for failing to distribute grants and loans effectively. Incidentally, I would be interested to hear from the Minister what proportion of LEP funds have been used to support the creative industries.

The lack of a regional strategy was confirmed recently by a government-commissioned report by the noble Lord, Lord Heseltine, No Stone Unturned in Pursuit of Growth. It is a searing indictment of the Government’s lack of understanding that the impetus for growth, based on new ideas and enterprise, will be driven not from the centre but from communities, cities and regions.

These same criticisms equally apply to the Government’s arts policy. The Government give every impression that, at the time of austerity, culture is expendable. We take the opposite view. Culture is not a fluffy add-on. Culture and tourism account for 7% of the UK economy, providing more than 3.5 million jobs; with a spread throughout the UK.

We believe that this is a key part of growth strategy for our economic recovery, as well as being the lifeblood of an innovative, diverse and civilised society. The cultural sector should be at the heart of the regeneration of our towns and cities, providing new leisure activities for families, encouraging businesses to move to the area and providing new talent and enterprise.

The record of the previous Government is a testament to the development of the UK as a world leader in creative talent. I point to initiatives such as free access to national museums and galleries; investment in regional theatres; the Renaissance in the Regions programme which revitalised regional museums; and the Creative Partnerships that worked with more than 1 million children around the UK.

As we have heard today, and in the last decade a number of northern cities have used the arts to drive their renaissance. These were cities such as Liverpool, the European City of Culture, which generated £800 million for the regional economy; Bradford, where the National Media Museum created an extra 536 jobs; the Birmingham Creative City initiative, which aims to create 100,000 jobs by 2020; and the Newcastle/Gateshead collaboration, which has created 1,200 new jobs. As we have heard from the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, not only the cities but small businesses and small enterprises from around the country are being revitalised, which can help to drive culture forward.

Unfortunately, instead of building on these initiatives, under this Government investment in regional and local culture has gone into sharp reverse. They have been hit by a perfect storm of squeezed funding. As we have heard, the Arts Council budget has already been cut by 30%, resulting in 21% staff cuts and a halving of their regional sites. Numerous arts organisations around the country have been forced to scale back their activity. Meanwhile, the cuts of 33% in local authority grants are squeezing local arts projects, with the LGA reporting that by 2020 up to 90% of cultural budgets will disappear and that high-profile councils such as Newcastle were already facing a 100% cut in their arts activities.

The regional impact of these cuts has been confirmed by the Audit Commission, which has said that,

“the most deprived areas have seen substantially greater reductions in government funding as a share of revenue expenditure than councils in less deprived areas”.

Can the Minister give details of any discussions held between his department and DCLG to seek to ensure that arts provision in the most deprived areas is protected?

Then there is the issue of corporate giving, initiated by the previous Culture Secretary, Jeremy Hunt. My noble friend Lady Quin referred to this. His idea was that the shortfall would be filled by boosting philanthropy. In fact, as we have heard, the contrary is the case. Figures released in 2011 have shown that corporate giving was down by 11% and individual giving down by 4%. There is also a widespread view among arts leaders around the UK that this strategy fundamentally misunderstands how philanthropy works, and how little it is likely to benefit smaller arts organisations outside London. Perhaps the Minister could clarify the department’s current thinking on this.

Finally, as we have debated on several occasions, the policy of Michael Gove, the Education Secretary, in excluding creative subjects from the EBacc sends a longer term message about the downgrading of the arts in the Government’s growth plan. As the noble Lord, Lord Rogers, has argued:

“Our writers, artists, designers, dancers, actors and architects are the envy of the world”.

I share the passion of the noble Lords, Lord Rogers and Lord Shipley, for the importance of arts in education. However, for the future it seems that these will not be the skills and attributes that the Government expect to drive our economic recovery. If the Minister disagrees with this analysis, perhaps he could explain what discussions have taken place with Michael Gove to ensure that creative skills are put back in the centre of the curriculum, where they belong.

If we are to measure the actions of the coalition so far, we can conclude that it does not see investment in the arts and culture as a central plank of regional regeneration. There has been little leadership on the issue from Ministers, little investment in new regional and local arts initiatives and no attempt to make it a statutory obligation for local authorities to fund the arts. It is a sad indictment, and a depressing legacy for a Government who took over at a time when the UK arts were renowned as being world-leading. What will change in the future to rebuild the confidence of the arts sector in the policies of the Government? What positive symbols of change might we expect to see by 2015, and how does the Minister expect the arts to generate the funding essential for them to play their part in ensuring that regions and localities can thrive again? I look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say.