House of Commons
Friday 26 November 1999
The House met at half-past Nine o'clock
PRAYERS
[Madam Speaker in the Chair]
Government Support for the Arts
Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.--[Mr. McAvoy.]
9.33 am
The Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport (Mr. Chris Smith): I warmly welcome the opportunity for a debate on Government support for the arts. In the bad old days, one or two Conservative Members questioned the principle of Government support for the arts. They were wrong. I trust that nowadays, no hon. Member would not accept readily that, in a civilised society, the Government have a responsibility to support artistic and creative work. There are several reasons for that.
The arts are central to our understanding of ourselves, our society, our relationships and our future. They provide enjoyment, solace and a lift to our imagination--that should be sufficient reason for the Government to take an interest and support them. However, there are other reasons for supporting the arts: we cannot achieve excellence in many art forms without the support of public funds; innovation is often not economically viable without subsidy; artistic excellence should be available to the greatest number of people; and there should be a good geographical spread to ensure that all parts of the country have access to that excellence and that it is not concentrated in one or two centres.
We also need to recognise and celebrate the cultural diversity of our country. Government support for the arts enables the widest pool of talent to be trained. That, in turn, helps the commercial sector--for example, many actors who begin their work in the subsidised theatre become stars of stage and screen in the commercial sector. The arts also assist with education: they help to broaden horizons and build self-confidence. In addition, they contribute to the country's economic health by accounting for a large part of the creative sector of our economy. Therefore, for a host of reasons--excellence, access, diversity, training, education and the economy--Government support for the arts is important and I am proud that we have been able to improve on previous performance.
The starting point has to be the fostering of excellence. That has nothing to do with exclusivity; we simply want audiences in this country to have the best--they deserve nothing less. I was pleased that the Arts Council of England has put in place a funding package for regional and London orchestras, helping to wipe out historic deficits, to put orchestras on a sound financial footing and to ensure that the great orchestras of this country can survive and thrive in future.
The Arts Council is conducting a similar review of regional producing theatres, many of which are in considerable financial difficulty. Many of them have also been the seed bed for talent that has formed part of the fabric of London theatre, television and film. Regional theatres are important for what they can do for the whole landscape of the arts around the country, as well as for their towns, cities and regions. Therefore, I am pleased that the Arts Council is now seriously considering regional theatre because its excellence should be fostered.
I am also pleased that the Arts Council is placing new emphasis on support for innovative work. One of the fundamental roles of the arts is to challenge our preconceptions. Some innovations will inevitably take us to places where we do not necessarily wish to go. However, that is part and parcel of art: it challenges us and, rightly, it will sometimes try to provoke us to react.
Access constitutes the other major theme of our policy for the arts in the past two and a half years. We want to ensure that, while we foster and support excellent work, the greatest possible number of people have access to it. There are many ways in which that can happen. Some initiatives that have been in place for some time--long before we came to office--have shown the way. For example, the Tricycle theatre in Kilburn has a long tradition of accessibility to people who might not otherwise have the chance to see live theatre. It has ensured that work by artists from minority communities can be performed. It has developed an innovative "pay what you can" night once a week, when people can come to the theatre and pay what they can afford rather than the normal price of a ticket.
During Hamlyn weeks, most recently at the national theatre and now about to take place once again at the Royal Opera house, tickets are made available at £5 per person to a wide variety of organisations that would not normally think about arranging visits to the theatre or the opera. By successfully drawing into the theatre or concert hall people who have never been before, giving them an experience that inspires them to come back again in future years, the Hamlyn weeks have been an important and effective way of developing new audiences.
A good deal of work has been pioneered around the country on broadening access to the arts, and we have attempted to develop it further. The two main Sheffield theatres have been running a major project since last autumn, funded by the Arts Council's new audiences fund, examining how ticket prices act as a barrier to attending the theatre. They have experimented with ticket pricing and discounting schemes across a broad range of theatre performances. A key aim of the project is to broaden the audience and attract a significant number of new people to the Sheffield theatres. The experiment will tell us a lot about the interaction between ticket prices and attendances at the theatre and how we can best draw into the theatre people who have never been before. Let us not forget that about 50 per cent. of the population of this country never go to a theatre, a concert hall or a museum from one year to the next. Reaching out to that 50 per cent., drawing more of them in and giving them the opportunity to experience what the arts have to offer, has to be central to any sensible Government policy.
We are trying to develop that principle in many other ways. There is a particularly innovative scheme in Cumbria, when the English National Ballet performs in Barrow-in-Furness, to provide transport for people from
outlying rural communities to enable them to get to the theatre, experience the arts and get home afterwards. Accessibility is not about pricing alone, but about the physical ability to attend the theatre.
As well as wishing to broaden access as far as we can, we have also identified the way in which arts projects can often help to tackle problems of social exclusion, particularly in rundown neighbourhoods in poorer areas. The work of the Hartcliffe boys dance company in Bristol is an obvious case in point. The Hartcliffe estate in south Bristol houses about 17,000 people. For years it was written off by the outside world as a place where nothing happened. Suddenly, through the inspired leadership of Vic Ecclestone, teenage boys on the estate have been introduced to the world of modern dance, helping to transform their lives and the life of the entire estate.
The Hartcliffe dance company has about 40 boys from the estate who show up week after week to dance, to work with professional choreographers and to perform. Their self-confidence has grown as a result and their educational attainments have also improved. One of the strong lessons that we regularly learn from such cases is that as pupils begin to get involved in art, drama and music, their academic performance in other subjects improves as well. Following his work with the Hartcliffe dance company, Vic Ecclestone has gone on to set up Multi A--an organisation that aims to serve the needs of young people across the whole of the Bristol area.
Another extremely good example of the way in which arts can help to combat the problems of social exclusion is the Beacon Look Ahead hostel for homeless men and women in Aldgate in the east end of London. Three years ago the hostel was in appalling condition. The furniture had to be literally nailed to the floor to prevent it from being removed or damaged. The neighbouring primary school had a constant stream of broken bottles thrown into the playground from the windows of the hostel. Since an arts project was introduced to the hostel and the residents have become involved in creating art, painting murals and designing furniture, the nature of the establishment has changed. It is now in pristine condition and the residents work with the pupils at the neighbouring school on developing new arts projects. When I visited the hostel a few months ago, some of the homeless men and women resident there put on a dramatic performance of a play about homelessness that they had written. It was up to the standard of many professional performances that I have seen.
All those examples show the work that can be done on tackling the problems of people who have been excluded from the mainstream of society, by using artistic and creative activity. That work can improve lives and whole estates or establishments.
Mr. Denis MacShane (Rotherham):
I hope that my right hon. Friend joins me in deploring the absence from the Opposition Benches of representatives of the most philistine party in Europe. He has not yet referred to poetry. The great contribution of our country to European culture has been poetry, plays and parliamentary democracy. My right hon. Friend's doctoral thesis was on Wordsworth: bliss was it in that age to be alive and to be young was very heaven. Will he acknowledge the immense contribution of poetry in helping many of the
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