Category: Culture

Michelle Donelan – 2023 Speech at Bloomberg

The speech made by Michelle Donelan, the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport at Bloomberg in London on 27 January 2023.

Good morning, thank you all for coming here today – and thank you to Bloomberg for hosting this morning.

I am really delighted to be here, opening this event, and as Digital Secretary, to be in charge of what I think is one of the most important portfolios in government.

Last year, this small island became just the third country in the world to have a tech sector valued at over $1 trillion – behind only China and the United States, and first in Europe by some distance.

Our sector is worth more than double of Germany’s and three times more than France’s, and is home to hundreds of unicorns – including household names like Deliveroo and Monzo.

And perhaps most importantly, we are world leaders in the kind of tech that is going to dominate our future, like AI.

And this didn’t happen by accident.

We got here thanks to the people in this room – thanks to your ideas, and your passion and your entrepreneurial spirit.

We also got here because we have a clear vision for where this country is going, and a government that is prepared to match that ambition with action.

I believe that Britain is uniquely placed in the world to become the world’s number one when it comes to tech.

Now that we are outside of the EU, and with our proud history of being a nation where we offer measured, proportionate regulation, that sparks and enables innovation, where we also really value and encourage the entrepreneurial spirit,

One where entrepreneurs have both the stability, but also the freedom, to invest and innovate.

And that’s why in the decade or so since the start-up scene first began springing into life, the UK has seen a sustained explosion of investment and growth.

It happened because we brought together a potent mix of four key fundamental things:

The right people.

The right money.

The right ideas.

And the right regulation.

Which is why all of these four things underpinned the government’s Digital Strategy.

And if we want to take things to the next level – to the very top – then we need to double down on all of those four things.

To double down on people – through things like addressing the skills gaps, which is the theme of one of my roundtables.

And having spent three years in the Department for Education prior to this, I have first hand seen how the skills element really can play a key role.

And for me just two stats illustrate the urgency of that challenge very clearly:

Firstly: digital roles are now increasing four times faster than the workforce as a whole.

And secondly: there are an average of 173,000 vacancies per month for digital occupations in the UK. Those unfilled roles are costing us up to £150 billion a year in lost GDP.

So we need to continue to focus on people.

This is a country that has on average produced a Nobel Prize winner every year for the past two decades, and we need to keep it that way.

We need to continue as well to focus on money: to keep venture capital investment flowing through, prioritise our science and tech budget and work together to drive investment in our 5G and gigabit networks.

On ideas – we need to continue to foster investment in research and development, to help our world-class universities even more world-class graduates, and skills that will drive the tech sector forward even faster.

And we need to keep providing the right regulation – to create the kind of competitive and innovative environment where people can start the next Deliveroo or DeepMind, and can scale it up, and go on to become global success stories.

So we already have the right list of ingredients. We just need to double down on them.

And I will just finish by saying I think it is the perfect time to be so ambitious and bold.

There is no doubt that this is an extremely challenging time for our economy.

We have just been through a once-in-a-century pandemic, we are experiencing war in Europe, soaring inflation and an increase in the cost of living across the globe.

But let’s not forget our world-renowned tech ecosystem sprung up in the shadow of the 2007/8 financial crisis.

And if any country has the brain power and ingenuity to repeat history, and use tech to drive us out of another challenging period, I genuinely believe it is this one.

The Business Secretary, the Chancellor and I will work closely with all of you over the coming months to make this happen. We will ensure that your views and your ideas are represented as your voices in government.

And on that note, I would now like to hand over to the Business Secretary, Grant Shapps.

January 27, 2023
Paul Scully – 2023 Speech to the Betting and Gaming Council Annual General Meeting

The speech made by Paul Scully, the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport on 26 January 2023.

Good morning everyone.

I would like to start by thanking you for the invitation to speak today. And thank you for hosting it in such a convenient location for me to get to after DCMS questions in Parliament this morning.

I am aware that you’ve seen a few different faces in the role of gambling minister in recent months and years. I took over the role in October, and I have enjoyed getting stuck into the varied and challenging issues in my remit, not the least of which is gambling.

I have already met a wide variety of gambling stakeholders, including some of you, and I look forward to meeting more of you soon.

Today, I want to recognise the contributions BGC members make to our national economy, but also talk about our reforms to make sure our gambling regulation suitably protects consumers from harm in the digital age.

As you all know, our Gambling Act Review is a priority for the department, and our white paper will set out our vision for the sector in the coming weeks.

In my role as Minister of London, I am fully aware how important entertainment sectors are in boosting the economy of a local area, by providing jobs and attracting tourism.

I also know how online businesses provide high skill tech jobs across the country. BGC members’ ongoing commitment to apprenticeships is also welcome, and I can only encourage that to continue.

Michael has already spoken about the recent report from EY which quantified some of these benefits, as well as the benefits to the economy and the exchequer more broadly. And it’s not always just in revenue terms.

The millions of customers who engage with your businesses every month are for the most part choosing to spend their money on a leisure product they enjoy, and the majority suffer no ill effect. It’s important not to discount the social and entertainment benefits to customers when we think about gambling policy.

But part of making sure the sector can flourish is making sure that we have the right regulation that protects people from harm.

There are, to be blunt, still too many failings happening.

Some customers continue to slip through protections and are allowed or even encouraged to spend too much. Some go on to suffer real and serious harm, including taking their own life in extreme cases.

I commend the actions you have been taking to address this risk, and of course the ASA and Gambling Commission have been working hard to continuously improve regulation.

Our Act review, however, is a real opportunity to make sure we have the balance right.

To make sure we respect people’s choice to gamble and the enjoyment they get from it. But also to follow the evidence and address the products and practices which increase the risk of harm.

In short, it’s an opportunity to build this county’s status as a world leader in gambling policy.

I know you’ve all been engaged since the Call for Evidence launched and are patiently – or impatiently – awaiting the white paper.

I also recognise regulatory certainty is important for your businesses. We do want to have the white paper out in the next few weeks to give you that solid foundation, and so we can get on with implementing reforms.

I want to be clear though, that the white paper is not the final word on gambling reform. It will be followed by consultations led by both DCMS and the Gambling Commission. I want the industry to stay engaged as policies are refined, finalised and implemented.

In particular, I know one policy you’ll want to hear more on is so-called affordability checks for online customers.

I’m not going to preempt the details of the white paper, but there are a few things I can stay at this stage.

The first is that ‘affordability checks’ is the wrong title for the protections we’re envisaging. That word suggests that the government or Gambling Commission are going to set rules on how much people can ‘afford’ to gamble.

Let me be really clear here, it is not the role of government or the gambling commission to tell people how much of their salary they are “allowed to” spend on gambling.

A one size fits all approach is not the intention here. It may be more accurate to call them ‘financial risk’ checks – checking that a higher than usual level of spend is not itself an indicator of harm.

The Commission has already identified key areas of concern, for example particularly vulnerable customers who can be harmed by even quite small losses – perhaps they have been declared bankrupt.

Alongside that is high spending binge behaviour with the potential for lasting financial harm, and high sustained losses over a longer period of time.

I also think ‘financial risk’ is a more appropriate term as a consideration of financial circumstances can only ever reveal that one type of risk – financial.

I’ve heard from operators about the hundreds of markers of harm which are continuously monitored for every customer. While we all know loss and debt is often a major harm for people who are in the grip of a gambling problem, it’s not the only element.

I don’t think we would be providing better protections to consumers by moving to a black and white world where only financial indicators are considered. It is essential that operators use all the information they have on customers and their wider risk profile to inform the right interventions.

I also want to say a little about how this and other measures will be implemented after the white paper.

I’ve already said that the white paper will be followed by consultations on details. When it comes to financial risk checks, the coming months will provide the opportunity to nail down and test the logistics for frictionless checks, to design the necessary data safeguards, and to establish the best possible framework for identifying and acting on financial risk. I strongly encourage you all to remain involved in the discussion, and responsive to the issues.

Of course, making our regulatory and legislative framework fit for the digital age is also about looking at where regulation has become outdated – where it no longer provides the protection that was once intended.

We want to make common sense changes to update the rules, preserving safeguards that do protect against gambling harm, but replacing unnecessarily restrictive controls with ones which make things better for customers and businesses. I’ll be meeting again with some of you from the land based sector in the coming weeks to talk about these issues.

And part of the reason for getting these controls right is the economic headwinds which I know gambling businesses, particularly land based ones, are not immune from.

I am acutely aware that many of you are still recovering from the impact of the pandemic, and recent increases in energy costs have hit your sectors particularly hard. I’m pleased we have the Energy Bill relief scheme, and I’m grateful to the BGC for its hard work to gather and submit the data to inform government decisions.

So, we are putting the finishing touches to our white paper, making the final decisions and preparing for publication. We’re a matter of weeks away from you all seeing it, and then we can start the process of nailing down details and implementing reforms.

As the Gambling Commission CEO said at his recent briefing for operator chief executives – the relationship between the industry and those charged with regulating it does not need to be antagonistic.

Indeed, the BGC and its members have been very helpful throughout the review in providing data and information as requested. I hope that the spirit of positive engagement can continue after the white paper.

I hope you enjoy the rest of your AGM, and thank you again for inviting me.

January 27, 2023
Barbara Keeley – 2023 Speech on Arts Council Funding for England

The speech made by Barbara Keeley, the Labour MP for Worsley and Eccles South, in Westminster Hall, the House of Commons on 18 January 2023.

I declare that I am chair of the all-party parliamentary group on classical music. It is a pleasure to speak with you in the Chair, Mr Bone. I thank the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill) for securing the debate and for the way he opened it, and all right hon. and hon. Members who have contributed to it.

I start by congratulating colleagues across both Houses and the wider arts sector on achieving the apparent 12-month reprieve announced yesterday for the funding of the English National Opera. It does not settle all the questions raised about the damage done by the decision, but I am pleased that there can at least be a longer-term conversation about the ENO’s future, which is right. The ENO has worked hard to increase access to opera, bringing it to younger and more diverse audiences. It has delivered innovative education and health projects throughout the country, and it is right that this is finally being recognised. However, the back and forth of the decision has caused acute anxiety among the ENO’s 300 full-time employees and the 600 freelancers whose job security was put at risk. The screeching U-turn is further indication of the total lack of strategic planning involved in the national portfolio organisation funding decisions that we have been debating.

First, I want to reflect on the arm’s length principle of arts funding, which we have heard about in the debate. At the core of the recent dispute about arts funding is the issue of who makes decisions about arts funding and what the criteria for those decisions are. When the answers to those questions are unclear, there will always be discontent and frustration about how the investment of taxpayers’ money is being made.

Andy Slaughter

My hon. Friend makes a very good point: there is a lack of transparency. I am very lucky that the two main theatres in my constituency, the Bush and the Lyric, have maintained their grants—in one case, it has slightly increased—but every organisation was on tenterhooks waiting for the announcements, and they will be next time as well, because they have no idea on what basis Arts Council England makes a decision. Other theatres in London, such as the Donmar Warehouse, have lost 100% of their funding. What is the rationale behind this?

Barbara Keeley

Indeed. It is important to focus on that principle. The arm’s length principle has been in operation since public subsidy for the arts began in the aftermath of the second world war. At the inception of the original Arts Council, Keynes wrote that:

“It should be a permanent body, independent in constitution…but financed by the Treasury”.

However, as we have heard, the former Culture Secretary, the right hon. Member for Mid Bedfordshire (Ms Dorries), issued a clear instruction to Arts Council England last year and ordered it to move money outside the capital through a reduction in the London budget. Even the places at which the additional investment would be targeted were decided with input from DCMS, with removals and changes to the “Let’s Create” priority places, which had been originally identified in Arts Council England’s 2020 strategy.

As we heard earlier, the former Culture Secretary has now criticised the decisions made by Arts Council England for their “undue political bias”, and accused the leadership of pulling a “stunt” to try to reverse levelling up. We have heard a variety of ways of describing the very strange decision making, but we have to see that it was this directive that led Arts Council England to the decision to make cuts to the English National Opera, the Welsh National Opera, Glyndebourne’s touring and other organisations, such as the Britten Sinfonia, the Oldham Coliseum and the Donmar Warehouse. The comments made show that Ministers and Arts Council England had not thought through the implications of the directive, both on art forms such as opera and on the other arts organisations I mentioned.

Sir Oliver Heald (North East Hertfordshire) (Con)

Will the hon. Lady give way, just for one second, so that I can put on the record my views about the English National Opera?

Barbara Keeley

No; I will run out of time.

Through the directive, Ministers and Arts Council England reallocated a shrinking budget for London. I recommend to the Minister an excellent blog post from Border Crossings that can be found on Twitter and makes the point that we cannot level up at the same time as cutting. That is the problem: the aims have become confused. It is this inconsistency and short-sightedness that is so frustrating for so many arts organisations.

The second major issue with the NPO decisions—we have heard much about this in the debate—is the glaring lack of any art form-specific strategy, planning or consultation. Opera is the major victim of this approach. Before the reprieve—the reversal of the ENO decision—overall funding for the sector was down by 11 %. It is reckless and irresponsible to remove £19 million of funding with no strategy in place. The decisions should be based on evidence and audience data, not on a whim.

Under such acute constraints, it is the expense of touring that is often the first activity to be sacrificed, as we are seeing already. As we have heard, Glyndebourne has had the subsidy for its touring budget halved, so has been forced to scrap its entire autumn tour, which would have held performances in Liverpool, Canterbury, Norwich and Milton Keynes. As my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan) rightly said, Welsh National Opera has responded to a 35% cut by removing Liverpool from its touring plans. As we have heard, it is estimated that the cuts to those two companies alone will deprive 23,000 people from access to opera throughout the country. In addition to that gap, the consequences for the arts ecosystem will be severe, given that there are already pressures on the workforce and on skills retention.

Jennifer Johnston is a mezzo-soprano who was born in Liverpool. She told me about the impact that the Arts Council funding allocations will have on young students at the Liverpool Philharmonic Youth Choir. These young people in Liverpool come from backgrounds where there is no money for singing lessons, with their fees for the choir paid by bursaries. She said:

“Now that live staged opera isn’t going to come to the city, these young singers won’t have a chance to see any at all. They don’t have funds to travel, and the educational workshops carried out by both Welsh National Opera and Glyndebourne now won’t happen.

It’s a simple equation—inspire a young person by showing them excellence in an artform and demonstrate what they could achieve if given the chance, defeating assumptions of elitism and thoughts of ‘Opera’s for posh people, not for me’.

These young people now won’t have the chance to be exposed to, and be inspired by, live staged opera, and are unlikely to want to train as an opera singer in the future. Arts Council England funding cuts will therefore affect life choices, making a nonsense of the idea of ‘levelling up’.”

I am interested to hear the Minister’s response to those comments. How does his Department intend to ensure that there is support for the next generation of England’s opera singers when there is no coherence to the decisions being made about the sector?

There are other arts organisations that have had their income slashed in this funding round, with little apparent sense in the decisions. We have heard that Britten Sinfonia was entirely cut from the NPO programme, despite being the only orchestra based in the east of England. Many other regional orchestras were funded only at standstill. Meanwhile, the funding settlement for producing theatres is short-sighted and risks having a negative impact on the programming of regional theatres—as we have heard in the debate—as well as compromising the UK’s cultural reputation in the longer term. Sam Mendes, the former chief executive of the Donmar Warehouse, has been predicted that it will “wreak long-lasting havoc” on the industry.

Speaking of the Donmar Warehouse, it received a 100% cut in its Arts Council funding. Its representatives told me that the hit to their budget means they will no longer be able to create work outside London and will have to reduce or cease altogether their excellent CATALYST programme, which supports 13 people a year with paid training to develop the next generation of writers, artists and administrators. Given the flexibility in exit funding that has suddenly been found by Arts Council England for ENO, will the Minister say whether Minister similar flexibility can be found for the Donmar Warehouse? It is really important that Arts Council England is transparent and equitable in its funding processes, as the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst said earlier.

The combination of a top-down approach from DCMS and poor planning have given the impression that the Government’s goal is more about political gimmickry around levelling up than a true rebalancing of power to the regions. It is a fact that 70% of the organisations that are being entirely cut from the programme are based outside London, including the Oldham Coliseum, the Britten Sinfonia and, as highlighted so effectively by the hon. Member for Newbury (Laura Farris), the Watermill Theatre. In addition, the lack of consultation, which has been most clearly evidenced by all the reaction to the decision about ENO, speaks of insincerity in making the changes. That risks the very existence of our essential cultural organisations and makes it more difficult to achieve regional parity in arts provision.

Before I move on, I want to make the point that it has rarely been more important to get these decisions right, because having weathered the challenges of the covid pandemic—the Father of the House said that situation was well handled by Arts Council England—and a decade of funding cuts to the arts, organisations now face a perfect storm of other challenges, including increased energy and operating costs and a cost of living squeeze on their audiences.

The U-turn on ENO is an admission that the choices announced in November were not well considered. This situation could have been avoided if there had been proper consultation with the sector, as many contributors to this debate have said. I hope that DCMS will now undertake an internal assessment of the process behind the NPO funding round for 2023 to 2026, so that this chaotic approach is never repeated. It is vital that we now have a transparent and equitable process.

There are still some important decisions to be made to ensure that ENO can continue and so that future decisions are made based on strategy and in consultation with the sector, with a particular focus on supporting the organisations that we have heard about today, such as the Donmar Warehouse, Welsh National Opera, the Glyndebourne tour and the Watermill Theatre. They need to continue their vital work outside London and I hope to hear more from the Minister about what can be done to ensure that.

January 25, 2023
Richard Sharp – 2023 Letter to BBC Staff Following Allegations of a Conflict of Interest

The letter sent by Richard Sharp, the Chairman of the BBC, to the organisation’s staff on 23 January 2023.

Dear all,

You may have seen reporting over the weekend about the nature of my appointment as Chairman of the BBC.

As Chairman of the BBC I have a responsibility to you, and to our audiences, to make sure that the BBC is always held in high regard, and I don’t want this episode to distract from the important work that you are doing. I wanted to write to you directly to set out the facts.

Prior to my appointment, I introduced an old friend of mine – and distant cousin of the then Prime Minister – Sam Blythe, to the Cabinet Secretary, as Sam wanted to support Boris Johnson.

I was not involved in making a loan, or arranging a guarantee, and I did not arrange any financing. What I did do was to seek an introduction of Sam Blythe to the relevant official in Government.

Sam Blythe, who I have known for more than forty years, lives in London and having become aware of the financial pressures on the then Prime Minister, and being a successful entrepreneur, he told me he wanted to explore whether he could assist.

He spoke to me because he trusts me and wanted to check with me what the right way to go about this could be. I told him that this was a sensitive area in any event, particularly so as Sam is a Canadian, and that he should seek to have the Cabinet Office involved and have the Cabinet Secretary advise on appropriateness and indeed whether any financial support Sam might wish to provide was possible. Accordingly Sam asked me whether I would connect him with the Cabinet Secretary.

At the time I was working in Downing Street as a special economic adviser to the Treasury during the pandemic, and I had submitted my application to be Chairman of the BBC. I went to see the Cabinet Secretary and explained who Sam was, and that as a cousin of the then Prime Minister he wanted to help him if possible. I also reminded the Cabinet Secretary that I had submitted my application for the position of BBC Chairman. We both agreed that to avoid any conflict that I should have nothing further to do with the matter. At that point there was no detail on the proposed arrangements and I had no knowledge of whether any assistance was possible, or could be agreed.

Since that meeting I have had no involvement whatsoever with any process. Even now, I don’t know any more than is reported in the media about a loan or reported guarantee.

I am now aware that the Cabinet Office have a note of this meeting, and that this included advice to the Prime Minister that I should not be involved, to avoid any conflict or appearance of conflict with my BBC application.

The Cabinet Office have confirmed that the recruitment process was followed appropriately and that I was appointed on merit, in a process which was independently monitored. Moreover they have confirmed that they gave advice at the time that I should have no involvement whatsoever in any process which might or might not take place, precisely to avoid a conflict or perception of a conflict of interest.

This matter, although it took place before I joined the BBC, is a distraction for the organisation, which I regret. I’m really sorry about it all.

I am proud and honoured to have been appointed as the Chairman of the BBC. I have never hidden my longstanding relationship with the former Prime Minister, however I believe firmly that I was appointed on merit, which the Cabinet Office have also confirmed.

We have many challenges at the BBC, and I know that distractions such as this are not welcomed.

Our work at the BBC is rooted in trust. Although the appointment of the BBC Chairman is solely a matter for the Government, I want to ensure that all the appropriate guidelines have been followed within the BBC since I have joined. The Nominations Committee of the BBC Board has responsibility for regularly reviewing Board members conflicts of interest and I have agreed with the Board’s Senior Independent Director, Sir Nicholas Serota, that the Committee shall assess this when it next meets, reporting to the Board, and in the interests of transparency publish the conclusions.

I look forward to continuing our work together.

Best wishes,
Richard

Richard Sharp, BBC Chairman

January 24, 2023
Peter Bottomley – 2023 Speech on Arts Council Funding for England

The speech made by Sir Peter Bottomley, the Father of the House and the Conservative MP for Worthing West, in Westminster Hall, the House of Commons on 18 January 2023.

Mr Peter Bone (in the Chair)

I will call the Father of the House next; I am grateful to him for being willing to wait until the end.

Sir Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) (Con)

That is because I am going to go back in time and it might bore other people, Mr Bone. The first chairman of the Arts Council I met was Sir Ernest Pooley, who succeeded John Maynard Keynes two years after I was born. Given that Arts Council England is for the encouragement of music and the arts, Pooley and Keynes would have been delighted at the competence with which it took our cultural institutions through the pandemic. The three rounds of emergency funding were executed in a way that nobody criticised. It was quite remarkable, and very effective.

The most recent Arts Council England report available on its website is from 2020-21. The chairman, Sir Nicholas Serota, talks about the three outcomes and the four investment principles, none of which give any indication that the council might have conceived cutting off the ENO and the Coliseum at the knees. Tributes to those who have cared for, led and participated in the ENO and the Coliseum should be put on record. I will say again that Hazel and Vernon Ellis, together with the major public funders and private individuals and trusts, deserve to be recognised. One of those funders was the National Lottery through Arts Council England. I do not know whether those taking the decision that was announced recently were aware of the Arts Council England funding for the Coliseum and its restoration, so that Sir Oswald Stoll’s Frank Matcham theatre could be restored on the anniversary of its first opening.

I think mistakes were made. I do not how much of it was to do with the Government, how much of it was to do with Arts Council England, and how much of it was to do with time pressures. The fact is that what was done clearly would not work and was not right, and it seems to me that the principle, both for Arts Council England and for the Government, is to say, “Is it necessary, is it right and will it work?” I will leave it to the Minister to explain not what has gone wrong but how he will put things right. I suggest that, afterwards, he writes to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, saying that the Worthing Borough Council bid for the connected cultural mile from the railway station to the lido, going past the museum, should be approved.

January 23, 2023
Laura Farris – 2023 Speech on Arts Council Funding for England

The speech made by Laura Farris, the Conservative MP for Newbury, in Westminster Hall, the House of Commons on 18 January 2023.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill) on securing this debate. I recognise all the things that he referred to in his opening remarks—a lack of transparency, accountability and engagement with the sector—in a decision that was reached on a treasured regional theatre in my constituency, the Watermill Theatre. It was truly a bolt from the blue for it to learn that there has been a 100% cut in its funding for the next three years.

One thing that has been frustrating in the process since then is the fact that the Arts Council did not really substantiate its decision with reasons, and it was so reluctant to produce written reasons when we invited it to do so. I had to remind the council that it is a public body and susceptible to judicial review. When the decision came, it was impossible to discern why the Watermill did not meet the relevant criteria. It had met them all in every previous round of funding and was not alerted to the fact that any criteria had changed. The Arts Council was unable to explain why, if it was a regional decision based on levelling up, the other theatre in Newbury, which we also love, was successful when the Watermill was not. Eliciting the final decision was like getting blood out of a stone, and when it came it simply set out generalities, such as the assertion that the Watermill lacked ambition.

The Watermill is an 18th-century watermill that has been converted into a theatre. I cannot improve on the description written in The Mail on Sunday, which said:

“What a location! Forget the glitz of the West End: try walking up a country lane, past waddling ducks, to this lovely little theatre in a converted mill.”

Its aesthetic beauty as a venue is absolutely treasured by our community, but we also treasure the quality and diversity of its productions. It is not just a standard repertory theatre that takes shows on tour: it produces its own work and pumps it around the country. It most recent touring production of “Spike” went from the Watermill to Blackpool, Glasgow, Cardiff and Darlington. It is also an artery theatre through which West End productions come and other productions flow on to international destinations, including Broadway.

The theatre takes its commitment to diversity and improving access seriously. It is in the heart of a tiny village, so in 2022 it did a rural tour. “Camp Albion” took its productions to villages, which are often completely neglected in the consumption of the arts. Overall, the theatre reaches 20,000 people annually through its various community engagement programmes, including children with autism, deafness and many other special needs. It has a deep commitment to the Arts Council’s outcomes, which the council even acknowledged in its decision letter.

We have been confronted with a deeply disappointing decision. We have found it incredibly difficult to know what mandate the Arts Council was working to, or why. I find it difficult to avoid the conclusion that this was capricious decision making, which undermines the status of the Arts Council as a guarantor of our national arts output. If the council is watching, I respectfully request that it reverse its decision because it has devastating consequences for the future of the Watermill Theatre in Newbury.

January 23, 2023
Jonathan Gullis – 2023 Speech on Arts Council Funding for England

The speech made by Jonathan Gullis, the Conservative MP for Stoke-on-Trent North, in Westminster Hall, the House of Commons on 18 January 2023.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Bone.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill) on securing this important debate. Culture is so important. I was delighted to spend time before the Christmas break at Springhead Primary School in Talke Pits, which worked closely with the Royal Shakespeare Company and the New Vic Theatre to stage a First Encounters production of Shakespeare’s “Twelfth Night”. Seeing kids as young as reception sat engrossed throughout that play, having learned about it in advance, was very special indeed. Mr Anderson, the headteacher, is doing a fine job.

My mother always told me that I should learn to read the room, but perhaps I am about to go against that—although I am sure that will not shock many Members here. I want to congratulate Arts Council England on its investment in the great city of Stoke-on-Trent. This £6.8 million investment, from 2023 to 2026, has taken us from having one national portfolio organisation—the New Vic, which is actually in neighbouring Newcastle-under-Lyme—to now having eight such organisations. They include the fantastic Portland Inn Project, based in Stoke-on-Trent North, which will have a profoundly positive impact.

Because of that investment, Stoke-on-Trent City Council, under its leader Councillor Abi Brown and Councillor Lorraine Beardmore, the relevant cabinet member, has been working tirelessly to look at how we can improve that partnership working further. Arts Council England has made Stoke-on-Trent a priority place and become a key member of the Stoke-on-Trent creative city partnership, which shows how the relationship continues to evolve. Indeed, it seems to have got the message that levelling up means making sure that places such as Stoke-on-Trent can celebrate their culture, history and heritage. We note that the levelling-up White Paper contained a Government promise that Stoke-on-Trent and Manchester would receive a special focus, to make the most of our cities’ industrial heritage.

The city has responded to that with a clear vision and strategy to establish an international ceramics centre, which will tie together world-class collections, celebrate the growth of contemporary craft ceramics and expand on our fantastic advanced ceramics sector. At the heart of that vision is a plan for our main museum, the Potteries Museum and Art Gallery, based in Hanley, working with Staffordshire and Keele Universities, as well as Stoke Creates, to secure a £5 million investment from the Arts Council’s cultural development fund to create new spaces through a new research centre and to redesign the layout of the fantastic ceramics that we have to display. That work will build on the city council’s £4.7 million Spitfire Gallery development, which houses the city’s Mk XVI Spitfire. Obviously, the Spitfire was designed in Butt Lane—where I am proud to live as a resident—by Reginald J. Mitchell, a great local hero, without whose efforts we would not have won the battle of Britain. The plan also builds on the £1.5 million relocation of the archive service from Hanley library.

We know that the decision is due in March. I am sure that Arts Council England is listening, and I am sure that the Minister will want to see Stoke-on-Trent get some more, because he has learned that once we get a taste of funding, we always want more. I look forward to more coming our way in Stoke-on-Trent. The clear notice from me is that a promise has been made and must now be delivered. We need major investment to continue to deliver new jobs and more high-skilled opportunities for people who want to study, understand and come to visit our great city, and to enable Stokies to be at the cultural heart of our great country.

January 23, 2023
Kevin Brennan – 2023 Speech on Arts Council Funding for England

The speech made by Kevin Brennan, the Labour MP for Cardiff West, in Westminster Hall, the House of Commons on 18 January 2023.

I echo many of the comments that have been made. I thank the right hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill)—

Sir Robert Neill

Just honourable.

Kevin Brennan

I thank the noble Gentleman, or whatever he is, for securing the debate. I also thank the former arts Minister, the hon. Member for Gosport (Dame Caroline Dinenage). She appeared many times before the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee, and she was a very refreshing Minister to have in front of us. I thank her for the candid and supportive way in which she carried out her duties as a Minister and for the work she did during covid to keep many cultural institutions going. I also thank my hon. Friends, including my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman), who has campaigned assiduously on this issue.

I mentioned the Welsh National Opera earlier, because when this debate about Arts Council England started, it focused—understandably, perhaps—on the decisions around the English National Opera, but in some ways, what was done around the Welsh National Opera was even more invidious, or at least as invidious, because it signalled that this was not a rational, strategic decision-making process by Arts Council England. Like the hon. Member for Gosport, I would normally express support and admiration for the way that Arts Council England goes about things. However, rather than being a strategic, well-thought-through plan for the arts, it resembled more an emotional spasm of some sort, as a result of wanting to do something very quickly to meet the perceived needs of the Secretary of State at the time, the right hon. Member for Mid Bedfordshire (Ms Dorries). We are now told by the former Secretary of State, Ministers and Government Members that that was not what the Secretary of State wanted all along, which makes the whole affair all the more strange.

One thing that is perhaps good about this whole incident is that it gives us an opportunity to highlight the fact that the Welsh National Opera is an opera company for Wales and England, despite its name. It is value for money because we have a proper national opera company with an international reputation that can serve both England and Wales, including, when it goes on tour, the parts of England that are not often well served by other cultural institutions. That is an integrated system for opera across England and Wales.

Arts Council England decided to cut a third of the funding that it provides to the Welsh National Opera for its touring work in England. That includes many different parts of England, such as Liverpool; the west midlands, which is the part of Arts Council England that looks after the Welsh National Opera in terms of its administration; the west of England, in places such as Bristol; and Southampton, Oxford and elsewhere. It is right that these touring opera companies form an essential part of our regional theatres right across the country.

When Arts Council England appeared before the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee, I was interested to know what its decision-making process was, so I asked Darren Henley whether he had consulted the Arts Council of Wales prior to the decision being taken to cut the funding to the Welsh National Opera. He waffled for a bit, and I had to interrupt him to get him to answer the question, at which point he said:

“They were aware just before the announcement was made, but we didn’t consult them in the announcement”.

I put it to him and to Members here today that it is a dereliction of duty for a decision that has profound implications—as we know, it has resulted in Liverpool being denied any opera whatsoever—to be taken in that haphazard way.

There are no SNP Members here, so I think we are all Unionists in this room. The hon. Member for Blackpool South (Scott Benton) was born in Newport, and he understands the importance of the Union. Arts Council England did not consult the Arts Council of Wales on a decision that has a profound implication for the future of that opera company and the whole system of opera around the country, and that undermines the whole so-called levelling-up agenda that we were told this decision making was about.

I profoundly believe that creativity is a good thing in and of itself. I profoundly believe that this country’s greatest strength, or certainly one of its greatest, is its creative industries, and that we are one of the few countries in the world that is a net exporter. Our creative industries are a huge earner for our country and culturally enrich us all. Quite frankly, as a white, heterosexual male from a working-class background, I am sick of people speaking on my behalf, and talking about wokeism and all the rest of it. The arts and culture are profoundly important to enriching our lives, and we should all stand up for them, whatever our backgrounds.

Let us hope that this was just an emotional spasm. I say to Arts Council England: please, get your act together and start thinking about these things. The arm’s length principle is important, but it does not mean being so arm’s length as to not even consult the Arts Council of Wales. That is not what the arm’s length principle is about, so Arts Council England should get its act back together, and let us return to some sense around this issue.

January 23, 2023
Damian Collins – 2023 Speech on Arts Council Funding for England

The speech made by Damian Collins, the Conservative MP for Folkestone and Hythe, in Westminster Hall, the House of Commons on 18 January 2023.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill) on securing this important debate. He was right to remind us that when the Arts Council was established, its principal role was to promote art for art’s sake and to promote excellence, and through doing so to give people the opportunity to experience excellence in the whole range of arts, from figurative and decorative to performing arts, and provide people with the opportunity to develop their talents. That should be something that is accessible to the whole country, and that is why the Arts Council was created. It is also perfectly legitimate that the Arts Council, which is in receipt of a large amount of public money, should be challenged and scrutinised over how it allocates those funds and the strategies that it deploys.

Scott Benton (Blackpool South) (Con)

My hon. Friend may be aware that two leading arts commentators have published a pamphlet calling for the Arts Council to be abolished. Their reason was that it has been taken over by “highly-politicised staff” whose left-wing “woke agenda” is generally failing to support the arts. That came on the back of a case last year in which £3 million of taxpayers’ money was provided to a company that published posters stating that “straight white men” should “pass the power”. Does my hon. Friend agree that decisions such as this will raise legitimate questions among the general public about the level of oversight of some of these Arts Council decisions?

Damian Collins

My hon. Friend makes an important point. There should be a clear strategy for allocated funds. It is right that the Arts Council is an arm’s length body and free to make decisions based on artistic merit that some people will agree with and others will not.

However, there is a clear strategy for how that benefits the whole nation, not parts of it. London receives a large amount of money because we have larger national institutions here. They demonstrate the benefit that they bring to the whole country, be that through touring exhibitions and performances or through the other cultural institutions around the country operated by the Tate, the V&A and so on.

It is important that there is a clear strategy and the Arts Council is held to account for it, because anyone who is in receipt of public money should be held to account. It is right that the funding strategy works for the national portfolio organisations on a three-year settlement, because organisations need to be able to plan for the future. While we welcome the additional year’s money that has been granted to the ENO for the coming year—it means, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst has said, that the 2023-24 season can go ahead—it gives no certainty beyond that and does not enable the ENO to make any further investment decisions. Even if the Arts Council had said, “We want the ENO to try to increase revenue from other sources,” that is not a compelling bid to take forward when the public money that the ENO relies on is no longer guaranteed. Who would match fund against public money that might not be there in just over a year’s time?

There needs to be a degree of certainty. There will always be more demands on the Arts Council than it can fulfil, and there will always be people it has to let down, but that is why having a clear strategy, plan and understanding with the organisations that it funds is so important. It cannot be right to take a major national institution such as the ENO that has been funded in a certain way for many years and pull the rug out from under it with very little notice; I understand that the ENO had 24 hours’ notice of the decision.

It would be perfectly legitimate for the Arts Council to say, “We must review the way opera is funded, and we want a strategy for that. We might want to look at how other revenue can support the opera, but we are going to do that during a transition period. What we are not going to do is create a cliff edge whereby the required funding is not there.” As hon. Members have said, not only has the decision had a direct impact on the ENO as an organisation, but the cuts have had a knock-on impact on arts and opera in the regions, which the Arts Council is there to support. That is the best evidence of the lack of a clear strategy. The Father of the House, my hon. Friend the Member for Worthing West (Sir Peter Bottomley), raised that in his intervention.

The Coliseum is subsidised by the ENO to the tune of about £2 million a year. If the ENO cannot support the Coliseum as a building, who else will go into it? Who will pay those costs? Will we be left in the invidious position of using public money that should go into supporting performance arts to subsidise a building that nobody can use? That, again, demonstrates the lack of clear strategy. My constituency has organisations that benefit from national portfolio funding, not least Creative Folkestone. Less than 20% of its funding comes from the Arts Council; it has a diverse form of income, and that is right, but the extra money that it gets from the Arts Council enables it to do more, to do better things and plan for the future.

At the end of this sorry saga, we need to get to a position where the ENO can plan for the future and invest in the future. If that is against a strategy to do more in the regions and more to reach diverse audiences, it needs a fair funding settlement to enable it to develop that strategy. We must recognise, too, that with major cultural institutions such as the ENO, what we see on the stage is, in some ways, the icing on the cake. There is a long tail of people who rely on that institution being there—the people who will develop their talents and may go on to work in other companies, the regional companies and tours that will be supported by that, and the people who are involved in costume design and set design—and a great variety of projects that are there to support people. My hon. Friend the Member for Gosport (Dame Caroline Dinenage) mentioned the fantastic Breathe project that the ENO ran. All those things are lost if the ENO has no secure future. While yesterday’s announcement is welcome, there has to be a longer-term plan, otherwise we will simply be back in this position in a few months’ time.

January 23, 2023
Rachel Hopkins – 2023 Speech on Arts Council Funding for England

The speech made by Rachel Hopkins, the Labour MP for Luton South, in Westminster Hall, the House of Commons on 18 January 2023.

It is a pleasure to speak under your chairship, Mr Bone. I congratulate the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill) on securing this important debate. I absolutely echo his comments about access for all to the best of the arts. I am a passionate champion of arts in Luton and across the country. Participation in cultural activity develops social capital, and enables local people to lead happy, healthy and prosperous lives.

Financial security has rarely been more important for our arts and cultural organisations, having weathered the challenges of the covid pandemic and a decade of funding cuts to the arts. Cultural industries in the UK are a success story: in 2021, the gross value added by the creative industries was £104 billion.

The role of the Arts Council is very important and its funding decisions are critical to encouraging creativity across the country and in all our communities. In Luton, we have a rich and thriving arts and culture sector. It enriches our town’s cultural diversity, encourages investment and supports social mobility and inclusion. Arts culture and creativity are central to the Luton 2020-2040 vision for a place where everyone can thrive across all our communities, and the Arts Council plays a critical role in that.

Last year, brilliant Luton organisations, Wardown House Museum and Gallery, Luton Carnival Arts Development Trust, Tangled Feet theatre and Music24 community music group, each received funding as national portfolio organisations. Revoluton Arts is an excellent example of the impact of the Arts Council creative people and places funding in Luton. It is a people-powered project that cultivates grassroots creativity in Luton and puts on high-quality creative events, particularly focused on increasing the participation of diverse communities.

We do not have a large professional theatre or venue in Luton to attract symphony orchestras, large scale theatrical work or indeed opera, but we have an excellent music service team and a music hub, and brilliant schools that want their children to experience the best cultural, artistic and musical activities available. That is the reason I was disturbed by the original Arts Council decision.

Arts Council funding of English National Opera helped to bring opportunities to our young people and led to a strong partnership between ENO and Luton music hub. The partnership created excellent opportunities for Luton’s young people. English National Opera brought its opera squad to Lea Manor High School, albeit in in Luton North, and there have been trips from Luton to the London Coliseum, both back-stage and to the opera. The partnership had expanded post-pandemic with the Finish This… programme in which more than 500 Luton children from key stage 2 became English National Opera composers for a term, and created their own musical colour worlds in response to ENO’s specially commissioned piece, “Blue, Red, Yellow…”, by Omar Shahryar.

The list of excellent work goes on and on, but the fact is that the music hub’s partnership with English National Opera brought opportunities to young people in Luton that simply would not have been achieved otherwise. It is proof that the impact of English National Opera is beyond the borders of London. It is showing diverse, working class, young people in Luton that opera singers look like them and the sky is the limit on their aspiration, but the Arts Council’s decision cuts off that aspiration.

I welcome the announcement yesterday that Arts Council England agreed that it will invest £11 million in ENO in 2023-24, but because opera plans significantly further ahead, a 12-month commitment is very short term. Last November, the Arts Council said it would ringfence £17 million for three years of transitional funding. If we take the funding for year one, can we assume that leaves about £2.7 million a year for the following two years, compared to the Arts Council’s previous annual funding of £12.8 million?

A funding cut of that size is shocking because English National Opera has exceeded many of the success criteria set by the Arts Council in terms of young audience growth, increased diversity and representation, the ability to reshape opera and maintenance of financial stability. The cut is accompanied by the recommendation that the organisation relocates from London to Manchester by 2026. I agree with others that does not make strategic sense, given that Opera North already has a presence in Manchester. The Arts Council needs to provide an opera strategy so we can see its intent. Further discussions with the Arts Council and English National Opera must lead to a fair funding settlement and ensure that ENO can continue to deliver the very best that it has to offer.

January 23, 2023