Harriet Harman – 2023 Speech on Arts Council Funding for England

The speech made by Harriet Harman, the Labour MP for Camberwell and Peckham, in Westminster Hall, the House of Commons on 18 January 2023.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill) on securing this debate. I back absolutely every word he said, and I join him in urging Arts Council England to rethink this funding round, which has no strategy, has had no consultation, is thoroughly destructive, and importantly makes the crucial art form of opera more elitist, rather than less.

As a result of losing a third of its funding, Welsh National Opera has cancelled its 2023 tour to Liverpool. That is more elitist, not less. ENO’s core mission is to make opera accessible, bringing the art form to younger and more diverse audiences. The threat to ENO makes it harder to do that work. Because the Britten Sinfonia has lost its annual grant of £500,000, it will not be able to do its education and outreach work in the east of England. Because Glyndebourne has had its grant cut by 50%, it has announced that it will not be able to tour in 2023. When funding is reduced for opera, it is made more exclusive, not less. Public funding is the key way to open up opera to all. The funding cuts make opera more for the elites, not less.

One further consequence of Arts Council England’s decision, which I am sure is unintentional, is the effect on regional theatres, which I know my hon. Friends will mention. Peter Wilson, who ran the Norwich Theatre Royal, wrote a letter to Nicholas Serota and Darren Henley at Arts Council England, which said that there are

“people who stay loyal to their local theatres, providing the bedrock of serious support because of the regular appearance of challenging first class productions provided by Glyndebourne and WNO…Without them, NTR could not have flourished…And without their support theatres’ Friends lists, their ability to raise refurbishment and restoration funds, and their reputations will diminish. Theatres need high quality mixed programming; first class opera is a crucial part of the mix…Once started, a downward spiral in audiences is inevitable. You cannot possibly want that.”

What he is saying is that the decisions about these opera companies will make unviable and change vital regional theatres.

Peter Wilson continues:

“Glyndebourne, WNO and ENO have high cultural ambitions that deserve to be shared as widely as possible. To emasculate them—to destroy existing ‘skills, knowledge and networks’ so wantonly…will not just make those ambitions unavailable in the near future; it will probably ensure that they will never again be part of the national cultural fabric of which I have been so proud for 50 years.”

Does the Minister know whether Arts Council England considered the effect on regional theatres of what they are doing to these opera companies? Did it even consult regional theatres, which are dealing with the consequences of all this?

This is a very well attended debate, with people from different regions and parties. None of us is whipped to be here. None of us has not got other things to do. All the Members sitting here are those who are committed to the arts. If I was Arts Council England looking at this, I would recognise that I had gone seriously wrong. If the Members who are the backbone of championing public policy on the arts are in Westminster Hall complaining about the Arts Council, it should recognise that it has got things wrong and think again. To say from behind its hands, “Well, we’ve been told by wicked Secretaries of State and DCMS that we have to do this”, is something that I do not accept for one moment. The Arts Council is an independent body, for goodness’ sake—the key is in the name, “independent”—and if people take on responsibility for an independent body, they have a duty to that body to act independently. If they are told what to do by somebody whose business it is not, they should tell them to shove off, or threaten to resign. That is the way it is supposed to be.

The Arts Council has to recognise the scale of the problem. However, we are a forgiving group of people, because we love the arts, and therefore if the Arts Council sees sense, we will not complain about it; we will congratulate it. Really, it should read the writing on the wall. As Peter Wilson writes to Nick Serota and Darren Henley,

“I’ve bumped into you both over 25 years…It’s plain that your lives and careers have been dedicated to making the best art available as widely as possible throughout the UK.”

I say to both of them, “Keep faith with that. Change your mind. We all believe in redemption; it is not too late.”