Queen’s Speech

My Lords, I start by welcoming the fact that culture has finally been allowed into what the noble Lord, Lord Baker, referred to as the mingle-mangle of this debate. Despite the greatness of this country’s cultural heritage—to which the noble Lord, Lord Thomas, referred—and the rich variety of its ongoing creative endeavour, the subject is too often treated as a poor relation in the arena of political debate. Culture is not a sideshow and the creative industries that it fosters are not trivial just because a lot of them have to do with entertainment. In fact, they are a key economic driver, the fastest-growing sector of the economy today, notwithstanding the credit crunch. Two years ago, leading organisations from across the cultural sector published a manifesto, Values and Visions. This pointed out that in the future: "““Britain’s economic prosperity … will not depend on industrial prowess, natural resources or cheap labour but on developing, attracting, retaining and mobilising creativity. In this 21st century, goods, services and industries driven by knowledge and creativity will define Britain’s competitive edge””." Those words sound even wiser today and we ignore them at our peril. The UK has the third largest computer and video games market in the world and is the third largest market for music sales. The economic benefits of the visual arts sector are estimated to be in the region of £1.5 billion per annum. So it is to be welcomed that we now have a Minister for Communications, Technology and Broadcasting, with the added bonus that he sits in this House—I refer to the noble Lord, Lord Carter—and that he is undertaking a timely review into how to secure the UK’s place at the forefront of innovation, investment and quality in the digital and communications industries. It appears that the Government have finally grasped how important the creative industries are to the nation’s well-being. The importance of culture is not simply about generating income and employment. It is, to use those often repeated words of John F Kennedy, "““very close to the center of a nation’s … civilization””." In the UK, culture is part of the smallest government department, but it reaches into almost all other departments, certainly into all the areas that we are debating today. As regards education, creativity needs to be nurtured from the beginning. Yet it seems to me that creative skills are stifled by a school system that is dominated by exams and league tables. Priority is given to what is measurable, not to open-ended exploration. Many noble Lords have mentioned the children, skills and learning Bill. One of its aims is to equip people with the skills that they need to realise their full potential. It is vital that creativity is central to this. Will the Minister ensure that culture is at the heart of the Bill from the start and not, as has happened in the past, belatedly tagged on or, worse, overlooked? The Government’s Creative Partnerships scheme, which I have often mentioned, sends artists into schools to work with teachers and pupils. It helps teachers to teach more imaginatively, crucially across the whole curriculum, and to focus on developing creative skills that are fundamental to success in the 21st century. It has been hugely successful. Ofcom has given it glowing reports and 90 per cent of the teachers involved find that it improves their ability to help young people to reach their full potential, one of the Bill’s stated aims. I cannot think of a greater endorsement than that of young people reaching their full potential. The Government are to be congratulated on initiating the scheme and on having guaranteed funding until 2011. But why is it that, despite the fact that a report by the House of Commons Education and Skills Committee into Creative Partnerships identified the scheme as ““core education””, not a penny comes from the DCSF? The DCMS shoulders full financial responsibility. The annual budget of the DCMS is 4 per cent of that of the DCSF, £2 billion versus £50.4 billion. Can the Minister explain this unjust allocation of resources? Another area in which the DCMS has been expected to shoulder a disproportionate financial burden is the Olympics. One of the reasons why London won the 2012 Olympic Games was the promise of a Cultural Olympiad of events to be held across the country from 2008 to 2012. However, when it became clear that the financing of the 2012 Olympics was running into difficulty, which led to the arts and heritage sector being targeted through raids on the lottery that ate into its funding, the then Secretary of State argued that the arts should contribute to the Olympics bill because the promise of a Cultural Olympiad would leave a lasting cultural legacy. However, as Nicholas Hytner, the director of the Royal National Theatre, pointed out at the time, the money raided from the lottery largely affects small, innovative, experimental organisations and individuals, the very organisations that are expected to be the backbone of this UK-wide cultural festival, for which, by the way, the Olympics organisers have admitted that they are providing very little funding. A recent survey by Arts Quarter, Impacts of the 2012 Olympics on the UK Cultural Sector, makes for sobering reading. Only a fifth of respondents see a positive legacy for the arts as a result of 2012. A substantial majority think that they will lose out as a direct consequence of the Olympics. The vision, as outlined on the London 2012 website, of a festival celebrating the diversity and richness of culture in London and the UK looks to me as if it is in peril. We on these Benches, along with Camelot, the National Lottery operators, proposed changing the taxation regime for the National Lottery to a gross profits tax. If that had been introduced this year, it would have put £270 million back into the lottery good causes and raised an extra £120 million for the Exchequer between 2009 and 2019. It is a simple way of replacing money taken from the cultural sector to deliver the hardware of the Olympics and of ameliorating the fall-off in other sources of investment due to the credit crunch. It is very disappointing that the Government have chosen not to do this. I cannot take part in a debate about culture without mentioning television and here I declare an interest as the associate of an independent production company. The inspired creation of the BBC, leading to ITV and then Channel 4, has played a crucial role in sustaining and fuelling British creativity. As well as nurturing the cultural sector, these radio and television channels have provided virtually free access for all across the creative spectrum. Yet one of the most pressing problems that we are facing in the cultural arena is that of ensuring the future of public service broadcasting. I believe that the digital review of the noble Lord, Lord Carter, will address that. Some argue that he should abolish the licence fee. We on these Benches disagree and so, according to recent Ofcom research, do the large majority of licence fee payers. I am a member of the Communications Committee. On a trip to America we were told by many across the broadcasting, newspaper and political spectrums how lucky we were to have the BBC as a cornerstone of public service commitment. Today, we have many channels, some dedicated to the arts. This has its benefits but also its risks in that it potentially ghettoises such types of television. In the present economic climate, the fact that they are relatively unprofitable means that they get smaller budgets and broadcast slots outside prime time on the terrestrial channels and increasingly outside terrestrial channels altogether. This means smaller audiences with a more focused interest and the erosion of that great PSB tradition of inheritance, whereby the ““EastEnders”” fan or news junkie is drawn into a programme about the Emperor Hadrian, or vice versa, because that is what is showing next on the TV channel that they are watching. In the multichannel landscape of the digital future, universality of public service broadcasting must be maintained and so must plurality. There, the future poses particular funding challenges to the commercial public service broadcasters. We on these Benches do not believe in top-slicing the licence fee. This would undermine the ability of the corporation to do what it does best and, if Channel 4 were to take public money, its unique independence would be undermined. However, we agree with Ofcom’s suggestion of BBC help through ““practical partnerships””. Today’s response from the BBC, in the document Public Service Partnerships: Helping Sustain UK PSB, has many things that we welcome, among them that the BBC share infrastructure with ITV to offset the cost of regional news, that it share new technology, such as the iPlayer, and that it open up BBC Worldwide so that it can be used by all PSBs to exploit their content. Finally, I share the sentiment expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Brooke, that it is extremely disappointing that the heritage protection Bill has not been included in the Queen’s Speech and that there will now be no primary legislation implemented to make the very necessary changes to the system of how we safeguard and preserve our cultural legacy. In these turbulent times, the cultural sector can provide great social, personal and economic benefits. I trust that the Chancellor will not turn to the already underfunded DCMS when looking for targets for efficiency savings. Soon after becoming Prime Minister, Gordon Brown made a speech in which he said: "““The legacy of any Government has got to be to take culture seriously, as it is at the heart of everything that being British is about … We have an enormous amount of creative work that makes us the great creative centre in the world and we have got to back that””." Will the Minister assure the House that the Government intend to act on these sentiments? I cannot make a speech on culture without demonstrating just how cultured I am, so here is a bit of Matthew Arnold. He said that culture is, "““the acquainting of ourselves with the best that has been known and said in the world, and thus with the history of the human spirit””." Surely that is the entitlement of every British citizen.