| Previous Section | Back to Table of Contents | Lords Hansard Home Page |
Lord Lloyd-Webber: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Bragg, for introducing this important topic and for speaking so wonderfully about music in schools, which I entirely endorse. I hope the House will forgive me if I confine myself to an area where I obviously have a particular interest, which is theatre, particularly in the West End.
I was interested in the noble Lord's comments about the huge renaissance of the arts in the cities and the pride that cities have now in their theatres, new opera houses and centres. When one thinks of theatre, and West End theatre in particular, one thinks of
11 May 2006 : Column 1051
Broadway and the extraordinary way in which the mayor's office in Broadway, which has far wider powers than our mayor's office, got behind Broadway and made it the centre, the reason for coming to New York. London, of course, has not been able to do that. Although there have been many initiatives by West End theatre owners and producers, it is much more difficult to get to grips with the situation in London because there is no office which has that overall power. But, interestingly, whereas in 2005 there were 11.5 million visitors to Broadway theatres, there were more than 12 million visitors to West End theatres. That is an extraordinary statistic.
Another statistic which makes me feel very proud of what the West End has done is that commercial theatre is a net exporter to the world whereas film and television are not; they are net importers. That brings me to something in which, obviously, I am very personally interested. I have had the fortune to have had an exceptionally lucky career in musical theatre, but we are not seeing the young writers or the risks being taken in that area in the way that I would like to see. I was talking to a friend of mine, Sir Cameron Mackintosh, the other day. We felt that it would be very unlikely that we would have been able to bring forward the musical, "Cats", which, others will agree, has probably changed our lives. The investment and the risk involved in something as completely different as "Cats" was in its day would probably mean that it would not be achieved today. That leads me to suggest something about which I feel very strongly. Would it be possible, without asking for subsidy, for the same tax advantages that are given to film and television to be extended to commercial theatre? If they could be, it would be of extraordinary value, not just to musical theatre but to the many who are trying to produce plays commercially. I think of the ATG Group and Bill Kenwright. An extraordinary amount of activity is going on in the West End. Such a measure would completely transform what everyone is trying to do.
11.57 am
The Lord Bishop of Chester: My Lords, I add my congratulations to the noble Lord, Lord Bragg, on securing this debate and on the role that he has personally played in supporting the arts in our country.
I wish to speak particularly about the role of the Churches in the artistic life of our land. My first and rather general point is to acknowledge that sometimes that has been a bit ambiguous. One thinks of the destruction of statues and stained glass as well as of abbeys and monasteries after the Reformation—an attitude which later was portrayed in more peaceful terms by Trollope in the person of Mr Slope. We need to acknowledge that side of it as well. Sometimes there have also been attempts to curtail artistic freedom in the name of religion. That is based on an instinct that sacred art, or that which purports to depict the sacred, is just that, sacred, and therefore has to operate within appropriate constraints. That is true but it is not a truth which needs to be pursued by violence or the threat of violence.
11 May 2006 : Column 1052
The prohibition of images of God in the Jewish, Christian and Islamic traditions did not, however, preclude a rich artistic tradition which each of those faiths has, indeed, sponsored, but the aim has always been primarily the glory of God rather than the glory of the artist him or herself. Those who paint icons in the eastern orthodox Churches to this day have to have their hands blessed first. Perhaps in the western artistic tradition we could have paid more attention to that attitude of humility. Had we done so, we might have avoided the separation of art into a rather esoteric specialist area in the life of society—the high arts, to which the noble Lord, Lord Bragg, referred—which has tended to be a feature of our own culture.
A second and related general point is that the very separation of the arts from the sciences is problematic. Fifty years ago C P Snow warned of the emergence of two cultures in our society—the arts and the sciences. We now know that such a separation is unhelpful and, indeed, untruthful in a variety of ways, but we are still struggling to achieve a greater sense of the unity of human knowledge and endeavour. We are also left with the modern paradox of our lives being ever more dominated by science, with the scientific community itself perceived to be too much in a cultural cul-de-sac rather than being part of that venture of human imagination of which Einstein spoke, as the noble Lord, Lord Bragg, commented.
What of the particular role of the Churches? Let me refer briefly to three areas. First, there is the stewardship of our church buildings, which is an obvious area. They, too, are works of the imagination. Around half of the grade 1 listed buildings in this country are churches. The Church of England alone has the staggering number of 4,200 grade 1 listed buildings, out of a total of just over 16,000 parish churches, and their maintenance is a huge challenge and responsibility. Many congregations and parishes manage it cheerfully, but for an increasing number the burden is becoming too great.
For all its "high establishment" in constitutional terms, state aid in Britain for the maintenance of historic churches has lagged far behind that in most continental countries. In Scandinavia and Germany, the church tax system has fully provided for the maintenance and repair of churches. In that very secular country, France, the state bears the full cost of repair for all church buildings built before the 20th century. The emphasis on local responsibility for church maintenance has had a good side in stimulating a sense of local pride and ownership of the buildings that constitute such a major part of our built artistic heritage. They are places which the non-churchgoing poet Philip Larkin once described as,
In the future, greater government involvement in their maintenance will surely be required. This very day, English Heritage is launching a campaign of awareness called Inspired!—I believe the noble Lord, Lord Lloyd-Webber, is part of that initiative—to secure the future of historic places of worship. The valiant efforts of many parish communities need greater supplementation, as English Heritage so
11 May 2006 : Column 1053
clearly argues in its new initiative. Significantly, the Poet Laureate, Andrew Motion, has contributed a powerful new poem to the launch of the campaign. It extends to all historic places of worship; there are 30 listed synagogues in this country. In addition to the work of repair and maintenance, new works of art are still regularly commissioned for our churches, and that, too, is vital to their future and to their contribution to society at large and economic life.
Secondly, I pay tribute to the contribution that church music makes to our artistic life. Again, amid a decline in some respects, there is good news. There are still many fine church choirs, supported by the Royal School of Church Music. Other styles of music have also secured a place in church life, mirroring the music of popular culture and even that of some musicals in the West End, with all the strengths and weaknesses that result from that. Cathedrals deserve a special mention, as they are centres of excellence today to a greater degree than ever before. In my cathedral, we have three choirs of the highest standard based on boys, girls and adults respectively, with a specialist, semi-professional group of songmen supporting the boys and girls as required. We employ three excellent organists to train and lead those choirs, which take part in a wide range of services and other events. For the boys and girls concerned, their experience gives them a musical and artistic foundation for life.
Finally, there is also the public drama that the Churches contribute to national life, which should not be underestimated. I am talking about great occasions of state and so forth. At the end of the day, art must be for the people and at the heart of national life if it is to fulfil its true purpose in society.
12.03 pm
Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall: My Lords, I, too, congratulate my noble friend on securing this debate and on launching it with his usual irresistible optimism and eloquence. I particularly responded to his passionate words on the power of the imagination, which I hope to be able to touch on. I remind the House of my interests as a member of the board of several arts organisations. In addition, I recently chaired a peer review of the Arts Council England and I was privileged to have the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Hornsey, who is to speak later, on the team.
I want to talk about two things; something I read and something I saw. The thing that I read was a pamphlet, Cultural Value and the Crisis of Legitimacy, published earlier this year by Demos, which reflects usefully on issues that came up through the peer review that I chaired. The author, John Holden, addresses a problem which has been with us for a generation. He puts it as follows in his introduction:
"Politics has struggled to understand culture and failed to engage with it effectively. Cultural professionals have focused on satisfying the policy demands of their funders in an attempt to gain the same unquestioning support for culture that exists for health or education; but the truth is that politicians will never be able to give that support until there exists a more broadly based and better articulated democratic consensus".
This is somewhere close to the heart of the problem articulated by my noble friend Lord Bragg. He rightly points out that we have invested hugely in the arts over the past decade, with wonderful effect. It is, of course, right that governments should want assurance that such investment represents value for money and that arts organisations should strive to prove themselves both useful and accountable. But, we have no consistent and politically sophisticated way of talking about the impact of this investment other than through the language of instrumental value—the attempt to connect art directly and measurably to social outcomes.
My right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport made a spirited attempt to move the debate forward in her 2004 essay, Government and the Value of Culture, but I do not sense that politics has yet begun to change its ways. Meanwhile, the public has moved on. As a 2004 RAND Corporation report, quoted by John Holden, puts it:
"What draws people to the arts is not the hope that the experience will make them smarter or more self-disciplined. Instead it is the expectation that encountering a work of art can be a rewarding experience, one that offers them pleasure and emotional stimulation and meaning".
In other words, people do not care much about instrumental value. But politicians do; hence the tendency of arts professionals and their supporters to concentrate effort on demonstrating the ability of the arts to contribute to a huge variety of other agenda in order to get and to keep the attention of their political paymasters, rather than progressing a new, more comprehensive dialogue with the public. The consequence has been frustration and confusion on all sides. John Holden puts it like this:
"Politics finds culture difficult to define, but we also have to recognize that the language used where culture and social policy meet is maddeningly obscure, riddled with jargon, not understood by some of the people who use it, and not understood by the public at all. Terms such as social inclusion, diversity, quality of life, health, well-being and community safety sometimes have technical meanings, sometimes not, but in any event the meanings are not widely shared. There is a huge disconnect between the public's idea of culture and what it is for, and the way politics and policy talks about it".
Overcoming that disconnect is a real challenge, but one that we must surely face. I quote John Holden again. He states:
"Just as in other areas of public life, such as health and education, what matters most is the public's own assessment of the value that it is getting from what politicians do. Messages about spending more, increased delivery, outputs and outcomes—that is, about instrumental value—tells us nothing about what the public itself values".
This brings me to the thing I saw, which was an elephant. Last weekend, the Sultan's Elephant came to town. Parts of central London came to a halt as the 40-foot high mechanical beast, accompanied by an almost equally gigantic puppet girl on a scooter, and a vast army of beautifully costumed retainers, made their way slowly through the streets, stopping from time to time to visit a friend or have a party. The whole enterprise was the work of the French street theatre troupe, Royal de Luxe, and it was made possible
11 May 2006 : Column 1055
through an inspired partnership between Arts Council England, the Mayor of London, the London International Festival of Theatre and a number of other agencies and individuals, public and private, who together found the enormous financial and operational resources needed to bring this extraordinary event to London. The brilliant way that it was achieved augurs well for our ability to put on a good show come 2012.
I spent a large part of last Friday in the elephant's company along with an amazingly disparate crowd of others, and I can honestly say that it was one of the most uplifting, joyous, life-enhancing days I have ever spent. Why? I can put it no better than Lyn Gardner, writing in The Guardian, who said:
"This is a show that disrupts the spectacle of everyday life and transforms the city from an impersonal place of work and business to a place of play and community. It does something very simple and important; it makes you feel incredibly happy and gives you permission to let your imagination take flight. It turns us all into beautiful dreamers with silly grins on our faces".
Upwards of a million people turned out to see the elephant and its entourage over a four-day period and many of them have testified to the power of the event. But, although it is wonderful to know that statistic, no amount of statistical analysis will capture the value of the elephant's visit or why it will be remembered, and there will be no way of demonstrating any direct causal relationship between it and economic, social or educational outputs. So what were all these people responding to? I think they were recognising that art, like cuckoos and spring, makes you feel better just by being itself. This is what the public value. This is what political discourse about the arts must once again learn to embrace.
12.10 pm
| Next Section | Back to Table of Contents | Lords Hansard Home Page |