Skills for Theatre (Communications Committee Report)

Lord Willoughby de Broke Excerpts

Wednesday 16th May 2018 Grand Committee

[Lord Willoughby de Broke (UKIP)]

My Lords, I am grateful for the opportunity to speak briefly in the gap. I had better declare my interest as chairman of the St Martin’s Theatre company, which puts on “The Mousetrap” at the St Martin’s Theatre, the world’s longest-running play and unashamedly commercial, I am afraid. I am also honorary governor of the Royal Shakespeare Company. I quite agree with what the noble Lord, Lord Best, said in his opening remarks about the success, national and international, of British theatre. However, unlike the noble Baroness, Lady Quin, I end on a very gloomy note.

What is coming down the road is the EU Commission’s eco-energy working plan 2016-19. This means that every single theatre in Britain, whether it is the National Theatre, the RSC or the regional theatres that we have heard so much about, will have to change all its lighting without exception. The total cost of this has already been estimated at £1 billion across the country. The National Theatre thinks that it will have to spend £8 million to redo all its lighting. What that means for St Martin’s I have no idea, and I do not want to know yet, but for smaller theatres it means that they will have to close, if these proposals become law.

In case noble Lords think that I am exaggerating, I have a couple of quotes here. Paule Constable, who is responsible for designing “War Horse” and “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time” says that she will not be able to continue to do her work any longer if this regulation comes into force. She says:

“I can’t do my job”.


Equally, Nick Allott, the managing director of Cameron Mackintosh Ltd, which has given us “Les Misérables”, “The Phantom of the Opera” and “Hamilton”, even warned that it might be curtains for those big, long runs altogether. He is quoted as saying:

“I can’t see a situation where we'd allow flagship productions to carry on in a simpler visual state”.


He adds, rather touchingly:

“We’re not being luvvies about this”.


This regulation is due to come into force on 1 September 2020 at the moment, which is after we leave the EU in 2019—there are about 318 days to go, I think. It seems possible—the Minister may be able to enlighten us—that when we leave the EU, we might not have to bring these regulations into British law. That would obviously, at a blow, save these theatres due to the lighting not being a problem.

Equally, I fear, like Cassandra, that there is a proposal to fast track these regulations to get them into law in October 2018. Again, perhaps the Minister can enlighten us on this, if not today then in writing, placing something in the Library with copies to all Members of the Committee and anyone who has spoken this afternoon. Perhaps he could also indicate whether the Government intend to put these regulations into law once we have left the EU, having regard to the extraordinarily damaging consequence of doing so. I look forward to his reply in due course.

[Lord Grade of Yarmouth]

I am so pleased that the noble Lord has brought that to our attention. I was not intending to speak on this but it is more serious than has been recounted. The lighting that will pass muster under the new regulations is completely useless for the theatre. Perhaps you could do “A Shot in the Dark”, but basically no lighting that passes the new regulations will be useful in the theatre. Therefore, it is not just a matter of the cost of replacement; the fact is that there are no replacements—it is an absolute catastrophe.