Regional Arts and Culture

Debate between Kevan Jones and Paul Blomfield

Tuesday 4th February 2014 Westminster Hall

[Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to open this debate, Mr Caton, particularly with you in the Chair. I am pleased to have secured it, not simply to highlight the disparity between arts funding for London and the regions, but to make the case for arts funding in general. I will argue not for regional versus national institutions, but that the whole country is strengthened by a more equitable distribution of funding.

We cannot consider the matter in isolation from wider economic trends. Last week, we saw reports that between 2010 and 2012, 217,000 new private sector jobs were created in London, whereas my city of Sheffield lost 7,500. We are clearly not alone: private sector jobs have been draining away from the north to London and the south-east. There is a direct relationship because arts funding is important not just for our social life throughout the country, but for our economic growth. The arts provide nearly 1 million jobs in the UK economy every year, and 67,000 cultural businesses contribute £28 billion a year. In addition to that direct contribution, the impact of a vibrant cultural offer has a decisive impact on those who are choosing where to invest, where to start businesses and where to study. It is hugely important.

The report, “Rebalancing Our Cultural Capital”, which was published just before Christmas, sadly contained figures showing what many of us already knew, but in much starker terms: that arts funding from the Department for Culture, Media and Sport and the Arts Council is massively tilted towards London, which received £68.99 a head compared with just £4.58 in the rest of England in 2012-13. The issue is not just about the Arts Council and the DCMS, though. Those funding imbalances form part of a bigger picture of disproportionate cuts to local authorities in the most deprived areas, and disproportionate private investment between London and the regions.

I am sure that those of us here today do not need reminding of the contribution made by the arts, but it is worth stressing that the arts shape places and communities, regenerate and energise, and invest in and develop future talent, so it is a problem if the benefits of the arts are not shared equally. “Rebalancing Our Cultural Capital” highlighted that, but the tension between funding in London and in the rest of England is not new. It was one reason behind the appointment of Jennie Lee, the country’s first arts Minister almost 50 years ago, and it was certainly behind her pioneering White Paper, “A Policy for the Arts”.

A great deal has been achieved. In Sheffield, we have some fantastic arts and cultural facilities. Last week, Sheffield Theatres was recognised as regional theatre of the year for the second year running. It welcomed audiences of almost 440,000 through its doors last year; produced 14 shows on three stages, including five world premieres; presented 72 productions by visiting companies; and transferred a new play to New York, as well as touring a large-scale play across the UK—but that success will be challenged if there are continual reductions in public funding. Public funding accounts for only 17% of the theatres’ turnover, but there is a tipping point. Further cuts would force price increases that would push our theatres beyond the reach of many local people for whom travelling to London theatres is already unthinkable. The problem is the same for our museums.

[Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that regional theatres are important as incubators for young talent? In the north-east, in Newcastle, Live Theatre has been a great incubator not just of acting talent, but writing talent.

[Paul Blomfield]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. I am well aware of the importance of the cultural offering in Newcastle, and I will return to the point about incubating young talent.

Sheffield can report great success for our museums. Museums Sheffield, which is one of our two successful museum trusts, welcomed 1 million visitors across three sites last year, 96% of whom rated the museums good or excellent—but Museums Sheffield has lost 40% of its staff since 2012. It becomes more and more of a challenge to maintain standards against that background, with a declining core grant year on year resulting from central Government cuts to local authorities.

--- Later in debate ---

[Paul Blomfield]

My hon. Friend makes an important point, and I will talk about private funding. The way in which different strands of public and private funding pose challenges for the arts is important, because it is often argued that we should look more actively for more private sponsorship of the arts. That is fine, but there too, the picture is weighted against the regions. Private sponsorship is exacerbating the problem, not solving it. In Sheffield, there are many deeply generous people, but we do not have major corporate sponsors. There is no private giving on any significant scale, not least because the London cultural organisations are hoovering it all up. In 2011-12, for example, 90% of all private giving to the arts by individual philanthropists was to London-based organisations. We need the Government and the Arts Council to redress the imbalance.

In its briefing for today’s debate, the Mayor of London’s office claimed that London needs the funds to compete with Paris, New York and Berlin, but Sheffield, too, is competing with European cities and beyond, and with decent investment, we can win. One of my constituents wrote to me with today’s debate in mind, saying:

“When friends and family visit they are always impressed by the quality of the performances in Sheffield. Often friends have never thought of Sheffield as a potential city break”—

quite wrongly—

“but after they visit they always want to come back.”—

quite rightly. It is not just London that needs tourism, and the point is that taxpayers from across the country are contributing to that London subsidy. To attract people to destinations outside London, we need action to rebalance our cultural capital. I recognise that the Arts Council is concerned with the issue, but what sort of message does it send out when the council’s 10-year strategy published in 2010 became the first public policy statement on the arts since 1965 to fail to acknowledge the scale of the imbalance in the distribution of resources?

The figures I mentioned at the start of the debate account for DCMS and Arts Council funding combined. Of DCMS direct funding to our national institutions, 90% goes to London. We can all accept the value of properly funding our national institutions—although they do not always have to be in London—but more can be done to ensure that national institutions, as my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne Central (Chi Onwurah) said, irrigate rather than drain the arts elsewhere in the country.

There are some great partnerships: Museums Sheffield has great links with the British Museum and the V&A, and there is really positive work between the British Library and our central library. I was at our Weston Park museum for the launch of the “China: Journey to the East” exhibition, which brought some of the best British Museum exhibits together with our own collection, inspirationally presented by our local team, but that was two years ago and it could not happen now in the same way, because many of the jobs have been lost.

[Mr Kevan Jones]

Does my hon. Friend also think that, although there are some good examples of collaborative working, there is a London snobbishness about the regions, in that there is a wish to retain certain artefacts in London? For example, the Lindisfarne gospels came to the north-east, to Durham, last year, which was a tremendous success. However, even though Durham university and Durham cathedral could adequately house them and have a permanent exhibition, there was the idea that it was somehow important that the gospels stay in London. Does he not think that moving some of our national treasures around the regions on permanent exhibition would be a way forward?

[Paul Blomfield]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. My suggestion, echoing that of “Rebalancing Our Cultural Capital”, that national institutions ought to do more to irrigate the system could be fulfilled through that sort of initiative.

I am conscious that other Members want to contribute to the debate, so let me turn finally to the significance of the decline in local council funding. Local authorities have borne a disproportionate burden of the cuts, and those in deprived areas more so. With less money available and increasing demands for social care and other vital services, where will money for the arts come from? Arts Council funding is rightly based on the principle of additionality, designed to add to the base provided by local authorities, but local authorities simply do not have the resources to maintain core funding at the level we need.

High Cost Credit Bill

Debate between Kevan Jones and Paul Blomfield

Friday 12th July 2013 Commons Chamber

[Paul Blomfield]

My hon. Friend makes an important point, and I intend to come on to the issue of rollovers later.

[Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)]

Canada has a Conservative Government at the moment. It is interesting that in this country a £300 loan, whether in store or online, has an APR of 74% and 70%, whereas in Ontario it is capped at 7%.

[Paul Blomfield]

It is indeed. If we look across the United States and some other European countries where regulation is the norm, we see a variety of approaches to capping interest rates and capping the total cost of credit. That is also an issue to which I will return.

Electoral Registration

Debate between Kevan Jones and Paul Blomfield

Tuesday 15th January 2013 Westminster Hall

[Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)]

The Lords has quite rightly rejected this Government’s attempt to gerrymander the new boundaries in their favour. Does my hon. Friend agree that they should concentrate on getting electoral registration up, so that when we redraw the boundaries, it will be done on the basis of the most accurate figures possible?

[Paul Blomfield]

I very much agree with that point, which I will move on to. The relationship between the boundary review and the number of people registered to vote—the basis on which we calculate boundaries—is an important issue. As it stands, the boundary review would exacerbate the problem, not simply because of under-registration, but because of the point in the electoral cycle at which that review would be conducted, with the next one being in December 2015.

I worry that individual registration threatens to make the situation worse, which is why I have argued that we should base our boundaries on adult population, not numbers of registered voters. Whether or not we go down that route, there is a need massively to improve voter registration, because if we do not, we risk creating a US-style democracy, with huge under-registration that excludes the disadvantaged and disengaged and focuses elections on the needs of the more privileged, so poisoning our politics.

I am sure that many measures will be proposed by my hon. Friends, but I want to concentrate on young people. From my election campaign, I can think of many examples of speaking to young people on the doorstep. At the outset of the conversation, it was clear that they had no intention of voting and that they would never have been on the electoral roll had it not been for their parents, but in many cases—the marked register confirms this—after that conversation and having engaged with the issues, they voted. That vote would otherwise have been denied them. The Government need to focus specifically on imaginative ways to ensure the effective registration of young people—working with schools, using social media and considering other ways to address that group.

I want to talk particularly about students. Not all students are young, but the vast majority are, and given the impact of Government policy on mature student entry, an even greater proportion of students will be young people in future. Many of them are worryingly disillusioned with democratic politics. The Liberal Democrats’ broken pledge on tuition fees—this is not a party point, but none of them is here to listen; it is of some concern that that great reforming party has chosen not to engage in the debate or to show any interest in enhancing electoral registration—has not simply damaged their party; it has damaged trust in politics for a whole generation of young people.

Both Sheffield’s great universities are in my constituency, with 32,000 of their students living there. They live there for at least 31 weeks a year, and many of them for 52 weeks; it is their main place of residence. They contribute to the economy and life of the city, and they have a right to have their voice heard in elections. At the university of Sheffield, there is currently block registration of all eligible students in university accommodation, but that is threatened by the legislation on individual voter registration. I assume that the Government do not think that our universities are guilty of electoral fraud, so I question the need to rule out block registration.

Even if that argument is not accepted, there is a need to mitigate that policy’s impact. The former finance officer of Sheffield university students union made the point about the difficulties of individual voter registration for students very forcefully. He said:

“When students first arrive at University and live in halls, amongst all the other things going on, registering to vote often isn’t a priority and it is comforting to know that it’s often done automatically. If this is changed then it would become another form to fill in during the whirlwind first few weeks away from home and some students, particularly those not engaged in democracy will not be registered.”

Sittings of the House

Debate between Kevan Jones and Paul Blomfield

Wednesday 11th July 2012 Commons Chamber

[Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)]

I recognise that for people watching from the Public Gallery and outside, this is clearly not the most important issue facing Parliament, but it is useful that we have found a short period to debate it. For those of us who can no longer describe ourselves as new MPs but are of the 2010 intake, it is the first opportunity to comment on our sitting hours.

I acknowledge, as have many Members, the thoughtful and helpful report presented by the Procedure Committee to provide a framework for this debate. I am surprised that the Chair of the Committee was surprised by the reaction of the press. We must recognise, sadly, that we have a press that all too often is willing to take every opportunity to undermine confidence in democratic politics.

The Chair of the Committee usefully made it clear in his opening remarks that this is not about the extent of the hours that we work but how we manage them to maximum effect. In that context, as a northern MP, I acknowledge the points that have been made by many Members. This is not, for me, about family-friendly hours—being away from home for four days a week is not an issue—but about how we can operate more effectively. An earlier start and end to Tuesdays would provide greater flexibility. It would not mean that we would not work late on a Tuesday but, as the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) said, it would give us more control over how we plan our work. It would mean that we could organise meetings inside and outside Westminster, at times when other people could attend, with greater confidence and without always having to pull out of them at the last minute. It would give us the opportunity, just sometimes, to have a night off. I must say that it would occasionally be good to be able to get away on a Monday or Tuesday in time to stock up the larder before the supermarket shuts.

As the Procedure Committee acknowledged, the main argument in favour of the current Tuesday hours was made by the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Sir Alan Beith), in his role as Chair of the Liaison Committee, in relation to Select Committees. As a member of the Business, Innovation and Skills Committee, I place great importance on my participation in it and find it enormously rewarding, but it is not beyond the imagination to bring our sittings forward for a 9 am private start and a 9.30 am public start. The same applies to Public Bill Committees, where I understand that that already happens.

[Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)]

The last time we did this, it created absolute chaos for Select Committees, not only as regards Members having to start at 9 o’clock but in trying to get witnesses here for that time. It did not work, and we will threaten our Select Committee procedures if we go back to that nonsense.