Arts and Urban Regeneration

– in the House of Lords at 11:30 am on 16 June 2005.

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Photo of Lord Puttnam Lord Puttnam Labour 11:30, 16 June 2005

rose to call attention to the contribution made by the arts to urban regeneration; and to move for Papers.

My Lords, in introducing this welcome opportunity to debate the contribution made by the arts to urban regeneration, I can do no better than start with an observation by an eminent former Member of your Lordships' House, John Maynard Keynes, who, in 1945, conjured up the possibility that cities that were half in ruin might one day be remade as great, artistic metropolises.

Well, my Lords, I am delighted to report that in just about every respect that is at last happening. I am not so much introducing a debate as relating a success story, and a slightly unexpected one at that. Lord Keynes was, of course, speaking as chairman of what was to become the Arts Council, and that "Arts Council" was itself part of a wider movement of reform that, to all intents and purposes, transformed this country.

The optimistic vision of the role of the arts in post-war regeneration that Keynes articulated was all of a piece with the creation of the NHS, the widening of public education and the establishment of the welfare state. In fact, it was an integral part of the many changes that society wholeheartedly embraced in response to the horrors and the hardships that typified the first half of the 20th century. Free access to health, education and the arts were seen as a kind of trinity of opportunity that was fundamental to the development of a genuinely civilised society.

It is also probably true to say that the best part of 50 years elapsed before that particular trinity was rearticulated with anything like similar conviction. It took the creation of the National Lottery to deliver the resources required to inject life into what had been the hand-to-mouth, make-do-and-mend, day-to-day cultural experience of this country.

I have recently been accused of being one of those people who seeks to take the politics out of politics. While I honestly do not believe that to be true, I will do my reputation no favours by making it clear that this cultural success story does enormous credit to the vision and perseverance of politicians of all parties and, at least until now, the comparative restraint successive governments have shown in ring-fencing lottery resources in such a way as to make what for so long appeared to be impossible not only possible, but deliverable.

Please step forward the noble Lord, Lord Baker, the noble Lord, Lord Brooke, who I am delighted to see is participating in today's debate, and our soon-to-be colleague the right honourable Virginia Bottomley. The then Prime Minister also deserves major plaudits. The Liberal Democrat Benches should be allowed to glow a little because they have always tended towards a constructive and engaged policy in respect of the lottery. My own party's contribution was essentially to recognise a good idea when it saw one and, when the time came, to allow it to flourish.

When, in the summer of 1994, the noble Lord, Lord Chadlington, invited me to serve under his admirable chairmanship on the first Arts Council lottery panel, we had some vague but fairly unformed ideas of how investment in the infrastructure of the arts could result in wider improvements to the nation's social fabric. But once plunged into the complexity of the commitment to the Royal Opera House, our thoughts ran little further than the notion that if you redeveloped a disused railway arch as a community theatre or an art gallery, someone may be encouraged to reconsider the potential of the arches adjoining it. In many respects our earliest ambitions were, quite literally, that modest, but not for long.

By 1996, we discovered that our funding of arts infrastructure was paying dividends well beyond our wildest dreams, and we began to plan and invest accordingly. In part, the drive in favour of regeneration was fuelled by the Government's commitment to what was, in effect, a self-denying ordinance; the concept of "additionality", which was interpreted as laying an emphasis on capital expenditure. I was delighted and somewhat relieved to see that commitment reappear on page 50 of the Department for Culture, Media and Sport's five-year plan, rather unimaginatively entitled Living Life to the Full.

In setting out the basic principles that are key to the lottery's success, and which must be safeguarded, the plan says:

"Lottery funding must continue to be additional to government funding; it must not replace public sector spending".

Given the rather over-excited press speculation that at present surrounds this subject, I am sure that the Minister in his response will wish, once and for all, to lay all of these anxieties to rest.

So what, in those early years, did my then chairman and I learn about the impact of the arts on urban regeneration? We learnt that a well thought through investment in arts infrastructure invariably led to greatly enhanced pride, and a breaking down of cultural and social barriers within communities. We learnt how to redefine access and we tested the ability of interest groups to share their thinking, along with their facilities. We learnt that the concept of "partnership funding" produced imaginative sources of private and community investment that we at the centre had never even thought of. We learnt that if you permit people to take a fresh look at their environment, to get a sense of what is possible, they begin themselves to set about improving it. We learnt that what could be made to work in the arts could also be replicated in other areas—in sport, in education, in provision for the elderly, and so on.

I hope that noble Lords will forgive me for devoting so much time to what might be described as the context that informs our present, relatively happy position, but I think it is important. I am quite certain that many of the noble Lords who have generously agreed to contribute to this debate will have their own examples of that dreadful but much used phrase, "best practice". So, in the time remaining to me, I will concentrate on just two or three examples of what has been achieved and why I believe we have every right to celebrate.

I returned yesterday evening from Newcastle where I was able gaze across the Millennium Bridge at the Baltic Art Centre and the Sage Gateshead—three iconic structures that any city in the world would all but die for. It is sort of a miracle really, but it is a miracle resulting directly from the vision and the commitment to their community of a handful of really good souls. It is the kind of miracle that can only result from a combination of political stability, tenacity and good timing.

You have to go back almost 20 years to find the genesis of the Gateshead miracle, to a time when Councillor Sid Henderson and his head of cultural services, Bill McNaught—backed to the hilt by their then leader, George Gill—appointed a full-time arts officer, Ros Rigby, and initiated an extraordinary community arts and public sculpture programme. That really took off in 1990 with the National Gardens Festival, at which no fewer than 70 works of art were displayed.

The installation of Anthony Gormley's monumental Angel of the North eight years later was very much the natural consequence of that early faith in the power of public sculpture. Other local heroes, such as Les Elton, Tony Pender, Peter Hewitt and Andrew Dixon pressed forward with their Case for Capital, a document launched in this building by a young Opposition Front-Bench spokesman named Tony Blair. It precisely set out the vision that almost a decade later—greatly supported by the Arts Council—became the splendid reality that I encountered yesterday.

Before moving south, I cannot resist indulging in a bit of local pride by mentioning the phenomenal success of the Sunderland Museum and Winter Gardens. Rebuilt with the support of the Heritage Lottery Fund and launched in 2001, it has since received more than 1.5 million visitors and was last year runner-up in the English tourism "oscars". We are now hoping that Sunderland will perform equally well in the Premiership next season: I think I hear a muttered reference to yet another miracle!

I would like to finish by taking a look at a case history that pulls all of those threads together. It is just across the river, a short boat ride away to Southwark—the Tate Modern. Let us start with the fact that, from scratch—or with a little help from Sir Gilbert Scott—we have created the most successful museum of modern art in the world. Attendance has been double the then seemingly optimistic original expectations. The total number of visitors from its opening on 12 May 2000 to date is well over 21.5 million. By way of comparison, visitor numbers are running at roughly double those of the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Pompidou Centre in Paris.

But for the purposes of today's debate, there is an even better story to tell. I will take it as read that the dramatic improvement to the skyline across from St Paul's is a source of delight to all but the staunchest members of the Victorian Society. The Tate Modern is already estimated to contribute annually between £95 million and £140 million in economic benefits to London. It has generated something close to 2,000 new jobs in the area of Southwark, and that is set to double in the coming decade.

Your Lordships have patiently listened to me "banging on" for over seven years now about the growth and importance of the cultural industries. So much so that it would be perfectly reasonable to expect me, or them, to begin to run out of steam. Well, I may be, but the cultural industries continue to go from strength to strength. They now represent over 8 per cent of this nation's GDP; that is up from 5 per cent when I started banging on a few years ago. They continue to grow at double the pace of the rest of the economy. It is the linkage between the creative or cultural industries and regeneration through investment in arts infrastructure that really lies at the heart of this debate.

I beg noble Lords not just to take my word for it. Take that short ride down the river and experience what "regeneration"—an inadequate word for what I am trying to describe—really feels like. We should then cast our minds back to the Southwark wharves of Dickens's time, or the 1930s, 1950s or even the 1970s, all in their ways decades through which the community struggled in what became a byword for exploitation, unemployment and hopelessness. But if, my Lords, the sum total of human activity is to pull people out of misery and into living fulfilling lives, a trip around Southwark today may be enough to convince you that we have not all been wasting our time. I am no Pollyanna because of course much remains to be done, but the direction of travel feels right.

The Tate estimates that the cultural sector within just its own study area will grow by some 55 per cent over the next 10 years. That translates into well over £0.5 billion a year in value and some 20,000 additional jobs, all within a vastly improved environment. I see that as the real value that the arts bring to urban regeneration, and it is happening all over this country. I beg to move for Papers.

Photo of Baroness Buscombe Baroness Buscombe Spokespersons In the Lords, Education, Shadow Minister (Education), Shadow Minister (Digital, Culture, Media and Sport) 11:42, 16 June 2005

My Lords, I am most grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, for raising such an important matter at such a critical time. There is an undoubted growing interest in the relationship between culture and its capacity to stimulate social and economic growth. Urban regeneration can and is taking place in many areas of Britain, underpinned and sustained through harnessing creative talent.

This debate is a welcome opportunity to celebrate the success and notoriety that we currently enjoy as a direct result of the endeavours of our nation's inspirational creators and artists, and their contribution to urban regeneration. It also gives me the chance to emphasise the amazing contribution made by the arts to educational opportunities. We must thank the voluntary sector for the enormous contribution it makes. Indeed, the many voluntary groups going into schools, providing more music and drama, must be encouraged and not stifled by needless regulation and political correctness.

I want to highlight some areas where more can be done to foster even greater and more diverse creativity, as well as where recent legislation has put obstacles in the path of regeneration. Throughout my last three years on the DCMS brief, I have taken the opportunity to voice my thoughts and concerns relating to how we encourage, develop and, most important, protect creators and their rights. I think that this is a key point that must not be missed in the course of the debate. Not only must we seek to encourage greater contributions from the arts, we must also strive to ensure that creators can trust and rely on solid protection for the fruits of their labour. It is the solid protection of creators' rights that makes today's debate so timely and relevant to me personally, as next week in an Unstarred Question in the House I will be addressing the very issue of how we may better protect the intellectual property rights of our talented individuals.

That said, in today's debate I want to focus on just a few recent developments which may serve to challenge the cultural industries but, if handled properly, could in my view lead to greater opportunities to access and exploit the benefits of the wider UK audience—by that I mean contributing to building human and social capital, and thereby our nation's quality of life. I speak mainly in relation to the recent additions of the Gambling and Licensing Acts to the statute book, and the changes being made in broadcasting to focus on a more regional agenda.

My first point relates to the practical implications of the new licensing regulations for many of our pubs and other entertainment venues. The Licensing Act is in the process of making significant changes to licensing schemes for entertainment venues, and I believe strongly that this will impact on the ability of many of our nation's musicians to contribute to urban regeneration. If—I stress this—these changes are handled in the right way, they can enhance regeneration. Let me explain. The new licensing regulations will have an obvious knock-on effect for musicians who perform in our pubs and our clubs right across the country.

Much has been made of the well publicised 24-hour drinking aspects that the new licences may eventually bring into existence. But what is most at stake and of key importance here to our artists is a general awareness of the fundamental requirements of the new licences. In particular, the Musicians' Union has expressed concern that venue owners are simply unaware of the obligations placed on them under changes to the licensing law which requires them to have filed their new licence applications by 6 August this year. Failure to do so means increased expense, complexity and delay. As John Smith, the general secretary of the Musicians' Union has said:

"There is a real danger that the former '2-in-a-bar' venues will not opt for entertainment to be included in their new licences because of fears of onerous administrative burdens. If we lose these venues it will be a disaster for grassroots live music making".

Are the Government doing enough to publicise these new requirements and the deadlines that accompany them? Many have argued that with the advent of 24/7 drinking, our communities will suffer through increased risk of crime and the overall diminution in quality of life. Home Office statistics which show a correlation between binge drinking and crime speak volumes. I believe passionately that much of that risk can be diverted by the promotion of more local live music. Indeed, I have said before in your Lordships' House that "more music . . . equals less trouble".

Let me give a classic example. Over a four-day period, contrasting between alcohol consumption and trouble at Bath and the Glastonbury festival site, both sharing a similar population figure over the period, the crimes committed at Glastonbury totalled 478 while those committed in a comparable area of Bath amounted to 566. In short, sleepy, sedate and dignified Bath still managed to record just under 20 per cent more crime over the period than the Glastonbury festival, with 120,000 people in a field consuming most of the cider that Somerset could produce.

Let us have more live music to counteract any negative impact the new licensing laws may bring. Music can act as an effective catalyst for improving the quality of life at a very local level. In short, the Government must do more to advertise and promote these licence changes and the impact they have in order to ensure that a golden opportunity to encourage and develop new, vibrant, creative live music is not lost.

The record industry also plays a key role in contributing through the arts to urban regeneration. Let us take EMI's involvement in the regeneration of the Roundhouse, that legendary building in Camden, north London. The Roundhouse is being redeveloped into both an international performance centre venue and a state-of-the-art creative centre where up to 10,000 young people a year will be able to explore their creativity, learn skills and gain experience to achieve their full potential. EMI's support will go towards the creation of professional recording facilities and performing space in the creative centre. Opportunities of this kind for young people can do more than directly affect those passing through. If successful, they can also help to break the cycle of disadvantage in the surrounding community.

I turn now briefly to the fundamentally important subject of broadcasting and the changes currently being made to the way in which our national broadcasters select their talent and run their businesses. Both the BBC and Channel 4 are currently involved in well publicised actions to cast their nets further in order to draw talent from and move closer to the wider regions of the UK, away from the capital. Small, independent producers feature highly on this agenda. Channel 4's Creative Cities initiative is a programme of activities taking place throughout the UK. It includes film and television production and off-screen innovations and partnerships. As it currently stands, Channel 4 commissions work mainly from small to medium-scale producers in key regional cities all around the UK. In a typical year, around £115 million is committed to original creative content in urban areas outside London. For one example, the show "Hollyoaks" employs hundreds of people in Liverpool. There are, however, wider incentives for the broader community in conducting more business through regional external producers—the companies and employees involved often have strong personal commitments to the regions in which they live and work, and under the new terms of trade between producers and broadcasters, the IP rights reside with these producers. That means far greater potential for enhanced social and economic development and regeneration for micro-economies outside London.

There are all kinds of projects leading to urban regeneration through collaboration between broadcasters and key regeneration agencies and the community working together. One amazing example is the Castleford project in West Yorkshire, whereby Channel 4 is working in close consultation with the local community and agencies on 11 regeneration schemes in and around Castleford, a former mining town. Some of the schemes focus on improving the environment and some on supporting neglected neighbourhoods. The best thing about it is that the community has said what it would like rather than somebody—ergo the Government—telling people what is needed.

The BBC also has strong commitments to various schemes of regionalisation and agrees that healthy competition in the supply of programmes tends to deliver the best results for audiences. It is so important that the BBC honours its obligations to devolve a good proportion of its programming operations to cities outside London. BBC Bristol, which houses the BBC's successful Natural History Unit, is a good example of this.

Although it is clear that there is a real drive in the broadcasting industry to push into the regions and devolve production and facilities, there is a need to focus on the number of small independent producers and encourage them to build and grow in these communities. The pool of talent from which independent production sources are drawn should be as deep and as wide as possible to catch a varied array of talent and diversity in terms of both skills and geographical location.

On a last note, I should mention the initiative recently taken to create a first super-casino in a region as yet undecided. This offers a golden opportunity to pilot a scheme, not just for a gambling centre, but for a centre which incorporates novel media and cultural benefits. Not only would such a drive be likely to unearth new and more diverse talent, but would also benefit the public as a whole and generate increased levels of public interest on a range of levels.

I have spoken about music and licensing, broadcasting and gambling and the ongoing innovations in each that present us with tremendous opportunities to develop and regenerate our urban communities. Indeed, I have referred to just a few of the many amazing initiatives currently in place which are genuinely contributing to educational and employment opportunities. At the end of the day, regeneration is about a nation's people. The economic benefits are worth while, the social benefits are incalculable.

In conclusion, therefore, I want to encourage the Minister to call on his Government to initiate research into the wider impact on society of our creative industries. All my instincts tell me that the results will prove the worth of the arts as a major contributor to the well-being of our society and, in particular, our urban communities.

Photo of Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer Spokesperson in the Lords, Environment, Food & Rural Affairs 11:53, 16 June 2005

My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, for giving us this opportunity to debate the contribution the arts make to urban regeneration. However, I am moved to speak today because I believe that the arts have a role in regeneration in general. I want to speak about the role of the arts in rural communities because I wondered why the noble Lord had restricted his Motion to urban communities. To redress the balance slightly, I want in my brief contribution to give some examples of why the arts are equally important to rural areas.

The noble Lord spoke of the trinity of opportunity, which is a good way of describing the opportunities that the arts can bring. I want to illustrate why that is equally important—sometimes more so—to rural communities. Before I do so I would like to refer to what the noble Baroness, Lady Buscombe, said and declare an interest. I think that all of the cider consumed at the Glastonbury festival is produced by my brother-in-law and I am grateful to her for mentioning his role in making Glastonbury a better society.

Why are the arts important in rural areas? When we speak of the arts we often think—we have heard some interesting examples this morning—of the big public art pieces such as the "Angel of the North" and our very own willow man on the M5 near Bridgwater. They are important for giving people a sense of place. But the role of the arts in rural areas that has become more important recently is that of knitting back together the unravelling social fabric of rural communities. It is a long and complicated task.

One of the people whose views I sought in preparing for this speech is the director of the Beaford Arts Centre in Devon. It serves a huge rural area by putting on all sorts of events, from the more obvious ones such as musical theatre to some innovative ones such as having artists living with and sharing the lives of some Devon farming families. The artists then put on exhibitions all round the south-west showing the results of their observations in an attempt to reinterpret the life of the farmer to the wider community. That sort of work came out of the foot and mouth crisis.

Such work is particularly necessary in rural communities that no longer have shops or pubs. Events that organisations such as the Beaford Arts Centre put on are often the only opportunities for rural communities to get together and have discussions, especially for non-churchgoers in the community. Although churches still have Sunday services, many people do not attend, so I submit that the arts events are one of the few times that the whole village gets together.

The arts are important in maintaining and improving the social fabric of our rural communities. There is also a big role for the arts in giving people the opportunity to see beyond their normal horizons and in interpreting the world around them. Last weekend, I went to the Appledore visual arts festival where, the week before, Richard Long had completed a wonderful, enormous work of art on a blank white wall using the tidal mud from the Torridge estuary. Just listening to the comments of the people about the effect of the tide, the estuary and the mud and how that artwork made them feel gave me an enormous sense of what the arts can bring. People are given a sense of place and it is wonderful to have an artist with an international reputation, such as Richard Long, come and work there.

However, in terms of seeing beyond the usual horizons I would draw another example—from the Plough Arts Centre, which is a particularly surprising place in that it is situated in a very small town with a population of only 5,000 but serves an enormous rural hinterland. It had 64,000 visitors through its doors last year. One of its most vibrant activities is the Plough Youth Theatre, which attracts 90 young people every week to a range of theatre skills workshops and performance projects. A recent youth theatre production featured a World War Two Polish humanitarian, Janus Korczak. The production was so well received that the cast of 45 young people has been invited to perform in Poland at an international festival in Warsaw in September. That astonished the young people, their parents and the local community. They are really excited about the prospects for young people, who do not usually have the opportunity to travel and see other countries in Europe and develop their talents at the same time. Such opportunities are more likely to be taken for granted in cities such as London, but are rare in rural areas and should be nurtured.

Finally, the role of the arts in economic regeneration of rural areas must not be underestimated. Somerset Art Week, which started in 1994 and is held for two weeks in September every other year, contributes not only to the artists themselves from the sales made but also, almost incalculably, to the thousands of visitors who come to Somerset specifically for that event, and who also eat in the pubs, buy local products, and so on. That is a very real example of the arts drawing tourists in year after year, besides the more obvious examples that I quoted earlier of the public works of art.

I have one question for the Minister. There is a national strategy on the arts, regional cultural strategies and national funding, but one of the gaps and difficulties is that not all local councils see the arts as a priority and choose to spend their hard-pressed budgets on them—though I am all for local government having a choice in where it spends its money. What assessment is made by the Audit Commission on whether a council has a balanced agenda? And does the importance of spending on the arts feature when the comprehensive performance assessment is made by the Audit Commission? If a council can be rated as excellent while ignoring something that I think every speaker here will accept is such an important feature of life for every community, then there is something wrong with that Audit Commission assessment.

Photo of The Earl of Sandwich The Earl of Sandwich Crossbench 12:01, 16 June 2005

My Lords, with his refreshing opening remarks, the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, has reintroduced an absorbing topic. I admire his commitment, as I am sure we all do, to a more open society in many aspects of life.

I bring no personal involvement to this debate but I have an artistic family and I recognise it to be a subject of continuing concern and importance. We should all, as citizens, have done more to make our urban environments more attractive and accessible than they are. This cannot be left to planners and officials. The well identified need for access and inclusion brings me straight to the obvious point that the communities most affected must take part in the decision making. I know that from my experience overseas, but I also know that it is easier said than done. Some areas of government are audibly groaning with formal consultations, and they must often wonder how decisions can be made at all.

It is best done through partnership. Good practice in urban regeneration often comes through the efforts of smaller, voluntary and faith-based organisations, which ensure that there is genuine community involvement. I know that my noble friend Lord Best has particular experience here. I have seen examples myself in Camberwell, Coventry and elsewhere.

All the authorities concerned with urban regeneration are now at least using the language of inclusion. The Arts Council and the Housing Corporation with the help of Aston Housing Consultancy launched an excellent document last week called Creative Neighbourhoods, which clearly demonstrates the results that can come from good two-way communications. English Heritage, in various recent documents, also seeks to inspire people and encourage them to get directly involved. The historic environment is not always ideal for touchy-feely policies, but English Heritage and the Heritage Lottery Fund are succeeding in opening more historic landscapes and townscapes which give people pride and pleasure as well as physical access.

Anyone who has walked through the Rope Walks area of Liverpool or parts of Brick Lane must feel that public money has been well spent. The noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, mentioned the knock-on effects of flagship projects such as Tate Modern, which has transformed the community of Southwark as well as the physical landscape. I am glad that the noble Lord also added the contribution of Sir Giles Gilbert Scott.

As a nation, we are lucky to have benefited from immigration over the centuries which has endowed our cities with particular characteristics. This is now called diversity, but the word should not diminish the intrinsic economic, social and cultural value of those populations. We do not do enough to proclaim them. In the arts alone you often find that the incoming communities—say Afro-Caribbean or Latin American—have their own strong cultural traditions. They should participate more directly, not just in festivals and events, but in the planning and execution of housing development and regeneration. This is especially important where unemployment and work–poverty rates are higher in areas of inner cities where there is a greater concentration of these communities.

Last year's DCMS report, Culture at the Heart of Regeneration, endorsed the value brought by the arts and culture to communities in regeneration areas across the country. The report, which has some excellent case studies, gave public recognition to the considerable role played by the arts in creating well designed, distinctive and enjoyable places for people to live and work. Again, the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, referred to these.

Earlier last year the Government launched their Sustainable Communities Plan—a £38 billion programme to tackle housing shortages and to support the economic renaissance of the north. This investment will transform our landscape and create entirely new communities. In this the Government, I am glad to say, have emphasised the importance of good design and the impact that this can have on new housing and town-planning schemes.

However, as I discovered while discussing an urban development corporation order in Northamptonshire last year in this House, the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister is not the most obvious place or the best vehicle for local consultation on essential services, let alone on the arts. I do not believe, from what I hear, that the ODPM has adequately addressed or endorsed the role of arts and culture, and I would be interested to know what others feel about that. Nor, in the words of the DCMS report, has it "embedded" cultural facilities and activities in the heart of the new "sustainable communities".

At an arts and housing seminar last week, on the other hand, the noble Baroness, Lady Andrews, spoke passionately about the heroic history of house-building in this country, from Victorian housing philanthropy to post-war reconstruction. She spoke of the need to consult local people about their needs and to encourage local participation in areas undergoing massive change. She spoke highly of the role that the arts can play in this process. So, perhaps the Minister will tell us which of these is the correct scenario today.

Many people would like to see more evidence of joined-up thinking between at least seven government departments, so that the DCMS principles are acted upon. This means, in the jargon, mainstreaming the arts and culture into regeneration planning at the outset to ensure that there is sustainability for arts projects once the initial funding has disappeared, and that they are appropriately linked to other regeneration and economic activity.

We also need more effective working between national and local government. The current review of planning legislation could do much to support the arts and culture as part of new capital development schemes. Guidance on planning obligations and the use of Section 106 planning gain—that is from the 1990 Act—could recommend the "creative" use of contributions towards the revenue costs of cultural activities, such as festivals or events, or the long-term support of arts organisations. This would promote sustainability and long-term benefit rather than one-off capital contributions.

There need to be better links across the public sector to promote the central position of the arts and culture, in, for example, the local development frameworks and regional spatial strategies—the new favourites of the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister. Those must be delivered through effective local and regional partnerships.

Finally, we need to address the skills shortage in this area, in managing and delivering high quality arts projects in regeneration programmes. The Arts Council regionally is developing relationships with the new centres of excellence in regeneration, which are run by the RDAs, to train regeneration experts to appreciate culture, and cultural experts to understand regeneration. Artists also need specialist training, so that they can work more effectively in regeneration settings such as housing, hospitals and schools. Further work in that area needs to be developed with the Learning and Skills Council and the appropriate sector skills councils. Equally, local authorities must have properly resourced arts and culture departments so that there is appropriate support and expertise within local government to advise and deliver arts projects for their local communities.

So there is a lot to be done—and each step of the way we need to keep in sight the quality of the project and maintain the highest standard of art and design in all areas of the country, old and new, urban and rural, so that we can rightly be proud of a heroic tradition of community building.

Photo of Lord Jones Lord Jones Labour 12:11, 16 June 2005

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, for initiating this debate. I note that the noble Lord, Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville, is in his place. I recollect that when he was Secretary of State, he received my deputation about the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra. He was most courteous—and I recollect, despite the many years that have past, that in his ministerial room he displayed a very large and colourful John Piper landscape. I always thought that he was a genuine Minister for the arts—if I may say so.

There is always a danger in attempting to advocate the arts via wider economic or social impacts. Also, regeneration cannot solely be about the physical and flagship buildings. The brutal fact remains that if a city has a deplorable housing problem and its citizens are crying out for help, the inclination and duty of the elected council is surely to face up to the priorities of local families before the opera house is built. However, the great city of Liverpool might be unique. Today its arts and regeneration are marching successfully in step; yet a generation ago, the city and its surrounds faced bewildering social and economic problems as its industries and docklands faltered. Nevertheless, in 2008, that reborn city will be European City of Culture, which in itself is a magnificent achievement; after all, the competition was of the highest quality, and the accompanying conditions were some of the most stringent imaginable. In truth, in Liverpool and Merseyside generally, councillors, chief officers, the agencies and Members of Parliament have been a superb team, and the city's growing success is well earned.

In 2000, the area of Kensington in Liverpool was listed among the top 1 per cent of the most deprived wards in England and Wales. The Kensington regeneration partnership is now the largest of the 39 "new deal for communities" initiatives in this country. It is providing the resources for the renewal of the area within Merseyside's wider regeneration, supported by its objective 1 status and the development of the north-west region.

In September 2003, the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra launched the Music for Life project in partnership with the Kensington regeneration partnership. Music for Life is a unique five-year education residency by the philharmonic, representing a long-term commitment to the community of Kensington and to its progress in regeneration. The project has provided access to music and sought to develop musical excellence when financial limitations might otherwise prohibit such activity, by building an adoptive relationship between each school and one musician, by purchasing instruments and providing tuition, by exposing children and their families to a breadth of musical experiences, and by encouraging the community to recognise and exercise its entitlement to culture. At the completion of its second year, Music for Life is broadening the cultural awareness of the pupils and their families and tapping into the resources of creative organisations at local, regional and national level, and ensuring a deepening level of trust in the community throughout the regular presence of our LPO musicians.

The impact of such sustained interventionist activity is significant and beyond the delivery of the music curriculum. Pupils' education attainment, behaviour and well-being is improving as a result. The Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra is a society born of civic pride and the belief that music is a civilising influence, and that good can only spread from commitments such as the orchestra has shown.

At this juncture, I should declare an interest as an honorary life member of the philharmonic—indeed, as a subscriber since the late 1970s—and as a friend of Merseyside Museums and Galleries. It is the case that Liverpool is frequently cited as the capital of north Wales. We believe that the orchestra is world-class; Maestro Schwarz's baton does impress. The board chairman, the distinguished Mr Roger Lewis, calls upon the able talents of the chief executive Michael Elliott and secretary Mr Peter Bounds. We have forged special links with Classic FM, to mutual advantage. Many people now believe that the orchestra is a standard-bearer for the arts.

The challenge remains for regeneration, however. The Indices of Deprivation 2004 show the scale of the challenge. Liverpool was ranked number one out of 354 local authorities on overall deprivation, and it is ranked the second most deprived local authority on income and employment—as by government statistics. Some impacts related to the infrastructure can be measured relatively easily. For example, the National Museums Liverpool project was calculated to create 50 permanent new jobs and 500 jobs during construction. The economic impact of those new jobs and the associated multiplied effect within the local economy could be estimated quite easily. What is harder to estimate is the impact of increased visitor numbers to the World Museum Liverpool or Liverpool's Walker Art Gallery. At the World Museum Liverpool, the transfer to user friendliness is complete. There is now fun and laughter inside that distinguished museum—and, as a distinguished Merseysider told me, at last it is starting to look like a city of culture.

Perhaps we can say at this junction that the arts and the cultural offer of a city is becoming a key element of city competitiveness in this new century. As such, it is a feature in securing footloose industries in a very competitive atmosphere. Maybe in that respect, the arts play a part in retaining employment and attracting new employment. The National Museums Liverpool is the biggest cultural employer in the north-west; it has almost 600 staff employed this year. It might be true to say that National Museums Liverpool has acted as a catalyst for city regeneration since the 1980s.

Photo of Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville Conservative 12:19, 16 June 2005

My Lords, before this debate started I recalled to myself with pleasure the delegation of the noble Lord, Lord Jones, a dozen years ago on behalf of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, but he has been characteristically kind in alluding to it himself. It is an event that I recall well. What he equally characteristically did not say today was how eloquent he was on that occasion in its cause, as, indeed, he has been on this occasion also.

Without the smallest smidgen of hypocrisy I am happy to do obeisance at the feet of the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, for having secured this debate and for being so exactly the right person to open it, though I should have been just as happy if the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Hudnall, had done it before she was robbed of her slot by the arrival of the general election. The noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, is one of nature's cultural ambassadors. It is a splendid chance that in the midst of all his other educational shuttle diplomacy he should have landed on his feet today and hit the ground running. He is worthy of that national anthem ascribed by T H White in The Once and Future King to King Uther Pendragon,

"Long Live King Pendragon Long may his reign drag on".

I thank him for his kind reference to myself.

Although my remarks will not be entirely friendly to the Government, I would also like to congratulate the DCMS on having commissioned research from academics at the London Metropolitan University, appositely based in areas where urban improvement is a priority, on the contribution of cultural regeneration in the UK, and on having followed it up with a consultation of its own on this subject, to which it published the responses in February this year. The first document seemed to me not only helpful in identifying a whole quarry of evidence on this subject but also relevant in its concluding recommendations, even if academia caused the language to be somewhat jargon-laden.

The second DCMS document dated June 2004 prefaced its questions by saying that there had been,

"an explosion of cultural activity" in the previous 10 years. As I had only been in office at the DCMS—as it then was not—for the first month of that decade, the only credit I can claim directly, more for the previous government than for myself, was the creation of the department itself. My two years in office were spent in taking one small grandfather department and the hitherto disconnected sections of five other Whitehall departments, all of whom came with their divergent Whitehall cultures and had never worked closely together previously, and forging them over the two years into a single common instrument in a new building.

As events unfolded I had a mild regret that I was not afforded a third and final year to determine what we were going to do with the instrument once we had it, but it is one of the tenets of my party that we live in an imperfect world, and I make no complaint about that. It does, however, draw from me admiration for what the Government have set in motion in the area of this debate. If I have a single niggle, it is that they have publicised their initiatives too modestly. I have a continuing interest in this subject. My temperamental attitude to incoming information is more that of the scavenger jackdaw than the industrial shredder yet I knew nothing about the DCMS-inspired developments I am talking about until I started researching this debate.

To balance that niggle, let me say that I think the process is as good as the process in Brussels retrospectively to monitor the utility of the cultural initiatives the Community's culture Ministers commission and endorse is poor.

So far, so good. That epic County Sligo law firm of Argue and Phibbs is, alas, no more, but even their ghosts are not present in this debate on this very worthwhile subject, and it is useful to be challenged by questions such as, "What difference does public art make?" Ten minutes is too short a time to answer that, but to add to specific examples which have already been quoted, I have always thought that, regardless of one's aesthetic attitude, the floozy in the jacuzzi in Birmingham had a profound and symbolic significance in indicating the changes the city council was seeking to make in the city centre.

On the questions in the second chapter of the DCMS consultation document, I have some prior constituency evidence in Covent Garden and Soho of local community reactions, which is what the chapter addresses. They are not an ideal test bed because the resistance of the community in Covent Garden and Soho to wholesale demolition and redevelopment in the 1960s was powerfully influenced by their centuries-old sense that their very architecture was part of their community ethos. Geoffrey Rippon's simultaneous listing of most of Covent Garden had a quality of reactionary conservatism that turned out to be inspired; but I always felt that the street theatre which blossomed in the Piazza, on the very threshold of the actors' church, St Paul's Covent Garden, was a marvellous lubricant to constructive change after the Duke of Bedford's fruit and vegetable market moved out.

Nicholas Ridley's changes to the use classes order 15 years later in Soho had the less satisfactory effect of banishing centuries-old light industry in craft-based activities, but at least the creative industries moved in in their place to sustain the great enriching benefit of inner-city vibrancy.

I have always liked the remark of Paul Claudel, the French ambassador in Washington at the time of the Wall Street crash, who said at a coincidental soirée on the very first night of the Niagaran descent of the stock market that,

"between the crisis and the catastrophe there is always time for a glass of champagne".

This debate is such a glass. But I share the views of the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, that the Government are endangering the golden eggs of the lottery by so diluting and manipulating the original good causes that they risk stopping this regeneration in its tracks. The latter is of exceptional importance in itself in the war against anti-social behaviour. People behave in the way they are treated. Give them good conditions and they will respond to them, indeed live up to them. Self-respect applies to communities as well as to individuals.

We all know how we have got here. The Labour opposition in the Commons did not vote for the National Lottery etc Bill at Second Reading—they did not vote against it either—in part because of their misgivings about additionality, but did vote for it at Third Reading, which was a proxy index that some of their misgivings had been allayed. That Bill gave 20 per cent of the proceeds to the five good causes. As master masons of the Bill, we afforded the opportunity for Parliament to realign those 20 per cent allocations—quite apart from the Millennium Commission's eventual demise—not only in the Bill but subsequently on the Act. However, we suspected that they would remain intact once their champions realised that what went up could also go down, and that interference with the status quo could be destructive.

After 1997, the Government rather than Parliament did interfere. Of the 600 responses to their consultation document, 90 per cent were from producer interests who understandably welcomed changes of which they would be beneficiaries. Thereafter, I embarrassed a DCMS Minister of State at Oral Questions in the other place by asking him to remind the House of the definition of "additionality". No names, no pack-drill, but his fig leaf of a reply—more wet lettuce than fig leaf—was that I knew perfectly well what the definition was. A worse index, after the New Opportunities Fund was set up, was that I heard not even from a DCMS Minister but from the Secretary of State for Health—again, no names, no pack-drill—about cancer developments in my constituency before I even heard from the New Opportunities Fund itself. Additionality was dying before our eyes.

I share the views of the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, about these hazards. If I may act in conclusion antiphonally to him, my presence in this debate makes me an involuntary refugee from the Building of the Year Awards at the Savoy under the inimitable chairmanship of my noble friend Lord St John of Fawsley. A year ago when I served under him on the judging panel, we gave a significant business class award to the self-designed new offices of an architectural practice within a stone's throw of Tate Modern, and its attraction to that area was not unconnected with the fact that Tate Modern was there.

My personal hope for the 21st century is that we get more distinguished new buildings in this regeneration process rather than just makeovers, but that possibility has been happily enhanced by the choice of debate of the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, today.

Photo of The Earl of Listowel The Earl of Listowel Crossbench 12:30, 16 June 2005

My Lords, I, too, warmly thank the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, for securing this debate on the role that the arts can play in urban regeneration, particularly as it gives me the opportunity to ask the Minister what contribution his department has made to the forthcoming Green Paper. Perhaps he would write to me at a later time.

Perhaps I might be permitted to quote from some remarks that I made in your Lordships' House:

"Respect for adults; due deference to adults; and due respect for the experience of adults, must flow from and be associated with due respect and consideration by adults to the needs of children . . . Most importantly, all children growing up with no parents involved in their lives need one person, over the years, to whom they can turn for advice who is always there for them".—[Hansard, 25/5/05; col. 496.]

The arts can play a crucial role in re-engaging young people who have had poor family experiences and who have every reason to distrust adults. The arts can be a means of encouraging them to begin to work with and regain confidence in adults. On the Continent, a widely used model of work with vulnerable young people and children is the pedagogic model: the pedagogue in Germany and the eastern and northern European countries; the social educateur in France and the south. That involves a good grounding and training for practitioners in the arts or in a craft and a thorough understanding of child development and the emotional needs of children. It includes strong development of their power to be advocates for children.

I draw noble Lords' attention to a project that seems to capture many of those qualities, which runs in the south-east of London. The project is Kids Company, and it was established in 1996 by Camila Batmanghelidjh. I quote a letter written by Professor Aynsley-Green, a paediatrician at the Great Ormond Street children's hospital, and now the Commissioner for Children:

"I have had a long-standing interest in the work of Kids Company . . . From these insights, I have the highest regard for Camila herself (especially for her visionary leadership and enthusiasm) and for the work that she is engaged in through trying to help the most severely affected end of social disadvantage".

I visited Kids Company last year, and I was particularly interested in a disused mobile vehicle—perhaps a mobile library—in which they had established a number of installations by individual children. Each child had their own installation, which might include an item of poetry from them, or some creative writing about their experience. It might include found objects that they had placed in the cubicle. It was an overwhelming transmission of their experience of their own lives and life with their families. It was later exhibited at the Tate Modern gallery on the South Bank, which the noble Lords, Lord Puttnam and Lord Brooke, and many other noble Lords, referred to and commended. That was one further spin-off of that important new institution. At the climax of the exhibition there was a day of drumming and music-making by adults, which again was a way of showing the esteem in which this was held.

I met one of the young people, a 23 year-old, who had been engaged with the project for several years. He had spent time in Feltham Young Offender Institution. He had come to the project, and he had been helped to find accommodation by the manager, Camila Batmanghelidjh. When he had been in crisis, he had called her in the middle of the night and she had sat and talked with him. When it was right, she arranged for him to meet his mother and to be reunited with her. At that time, he still had a brother in prison. In that case, no arts were used to engage him, but the project heavily uses arts and every other means to engage disaffected young people.

In particular, they try to use the local populace, particularly young Afro-Caribbean men, because many of their young people are Afro-Caribbean. I met one young Afro-Caribbean man who was a musician, and he engaged with young people. He would stand with them while they were having a cigarette outside and he would say, "Why don't we make some music together?". He would bring them in and form a relationship with them.

The funding for this project has been hard to secure over the years because the children refer themselves; they are not referred by local authorities. Thanks partly to the work done by His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales through Business in the Community, the Treasury and Mr Brown have recently been prevailed on to find £1.1 million in matched funding to support this project. That is warmly to be welcomed. Several noble Lords significantly support the charity, and I commend it to your Lordships.

To conclude, the arts can play a vital role in regenerating neglected communities and in reaching out to young people—a vital role indeed. I emphasise that one needs to consider how one can sustain the relationships that are gained by using the arts for not just two or three months; but perhaps one, two or three years. The young person can be engaged through this programme. We therefore need to give the best professional support to people working in this area so that they can sustain relationships with difficult-to-manage young people. Will the Minister write to me on what contribution the DCMS has made to the youth Green Paper?

Photo of Baroness Massey of Darwen Baroness Massey of Darwen Labour 12:37, 16 June 2005

My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Puttnam for introducing this debate. Of course, his involvement in the arts is well known and well respected. His interest in social affairs and education may be less well known, but he is passionate about them. This debate brings both strands together.

A recent edition of the House magazine focused on regeneration. In it, David Miliband said:

"At the heart of renewal is the commitment to civic action that creates value for society".

We have seen social and industrial decay in some of our cities, which has been combated by initiatives in sport, investment in heritage projects, housing and other community activities. In all of those it has been important that local government and local organisations take the lead supported, where appropriate, by national funding.

The arts also have an important role to play in regeneration, as well as for their own sake. I shall discuss today two initiatives that symbolise the power of the arts to do that. One is the work of Opera North, based in Leeds; the other is an arts programme in Brixton prison. Regeneration, for me, means that things have become decayed, depressed and non-functional. The arts can help to breathe life into communities and people. They can generate as well as regenerate. The arts can help young people to connect with activities that give them a purpose and somewhere to exercise the energy and talent so often translated into anti-social behaviour in our city centres. Young people have a right to education in the arts, just as they have a right to literacy and numeracy. I am pleased that so many noble Lords today have mentioned young people as being important.

First, I shall discuss Opera North, on the other side of the Pennines from Liverpool, which was so well described by my noble friend Lord Jones. Many members of my family come from Liverpool. Opera North is based in splendid old but decaying Victorian buildings. It is committed to reaching out to communities, and is currently restructuring its buildings for the benefit of performers, audiences and the community.

For example, the old Assembly Rooms, which have been closed to the public since 1978, are being restored to a social point for social and corporate activity. In particular, the Opera North education programme will have facilities to expand its on-site work involving schools from across the region. That programme has a combination of support from Opera North, Leeds City Council and the Arts Council England: an example of the collaboration between bodies for the good of communities that so many noble Lords have mentioned.

Some examples of the work of Opera North include summer workshops for young people across Leeds who have little or no experience of arts activity; a project involving young people with Asperger's syndrome in a new partnership with NHS East Leeds; promoting healthcare—another example of partnership; a Little Magic Flute involving outreach work in primary schools, workshops for secondary schools and a school residency in the arts.

In addition, the company is addressing the multicultural nature of its community by involving culturally diverse groups in special productions; for example, one tells the story of seven families in Bradford and another includes 50 children from a Dewsbury school and brings together classical Asian music and dancers.

Those examples—there are many others from Opera North and other theatres and opera companies—can help to create not only appreciation of the arts but a sense of community. It is important to start early, as with sport, which at least two of us will be discussing this afternoon. Children and young people must be given opportunities to participate in both the arts and sport. I shall be asking in both debates how schools and communities encourage such participation by young people.

There is still much to do. My noble friend Lady Howells has just reminded me that there is still not one black-run and led theatre company in the UK and that efforts to establish one are going through many obstacles.

I turn to a prison programme. I was recently privileged to see a rehearsal and performance of a version of Othello in Brixton prison, performed by inmates supported by a few professional actors. That activity is organised by the London Shakespeare Workshop, under the direction of Bruce Wall. A company has been formed from those workshops and performers can now qualify for an Equity card at the end of the drama course. The company will go on tour next year, supported by UK arts, and paying the actors.

Why is that work in prison regeneration? Because it regenerates people who in turn regenerate communities. The prisoner actors talk about the experience changing their lives, enabling them to communicate in positive and productive ways—what could be better for the health of a community?

I have also seen in prisons music programmes, arts and crafts activities and literacy programmes, all of which have helped prisoners to find a way of expression that is positive and which help deal with the anger that so many feel. They may perhaps feel angry about being illiterate—an indictment of our education system—or neglected, because a large proportion of prisoners have gone through our care system, or disempowered.

Prisons are costly in relation to human and economic factors. Reoffending rates are high: 60 per cent for adults and 80 per cent for young people. The financial costs of prisons are horrendous: around £11 billion. In the United States, more is spent on prisons than on education. Let us not go down that route. We cannot simply rely on punishment to stop this cycle. New and imaginative ways must be found to rehabilitate. Would it be more productive to spend money on positive initiatives than to fail time and again with prisoners, and consequently with their families and communities?

Would it be better to prevent people going to prison in the first place? Opportunities for young people can help them to avoid the criminal justice system altogether. Opportunities in the arts and sport can contribute to that. I want to quote the Brixton prison governor, John Podmore, who said:

"Prisons can and do strive to provide a job, a home, a doctor for people on release. Work is done to retain family ties and to rebuild relationships. But none of that has any value if the people we release have no belief in themselves, no self-esteem and no investment in the people and communities to which they return. If all they know and continue to experience is failure and exclusion, they will simply return leaving yet more victims in their wake".

Constructive interaction is what regeneration is about in order to construct and reconstruct not only buildings but also lives. The arts, be it in schools, in workplaces, in prisons or in community settings can both reform but also prevent decay starting in the first place. Can I have the Minister's assurance that we do not forget this and that support for the arts, particularly for young people, will be promoted?

Photo of Lord Best Lord Best Crossbench 12:46, 16 June 2005

My Lords, I too am extremely grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, for this debate, which I found fascinating. My organisation, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, is a relative latecomer to the idea that the arts can play a central role in the renewal of cities and neighbourhoods in need of regeneration. We used to see the arts as peripheral, even a distraction, to our interests in poverty, homelessness and other social problems, but we do not think like that any more; and like all converts we now feel passionate about the lessons we have learnt.

It seems that there are three main ways in which the arts can make a mark in changing places and changing lives. First, there are the exciting opportunities to revive local economies and boost the morale of cities through prestigious arts and heritage projects, as described by the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam. That approach has put places like Gateshead on the map with long-term job creation and a new civic pride. Liverpool will use its European Capital of Culture status to boost tourism and help retain and attract talent for the city.

But that kind of benefit from arts projects is not where my foundation has concentrated. At the other end of the spectrum it is clear that local arts projects, often through schools, theatres and museums, can transform the lives of individuals, like the Music for Life project in Liverpool, to which the noble Lord, Lord Jones, referred. There is Bradford The Musical, of which I am a patron, in that city, which has a huge live performance tomorrow evening.

Participation in all kinds of arts-based projects can boost self-confidence, unlock hidden talent, make people job-ready, provide inspiration and personal satisfaction—even in prisons, as the noble Baroness, Lady Massey of Darwen, has explained. But those benefits from local arts projects in the redemption and transformation of the individual is not where my foundation has made its discovery.

For us, the special way in which the arts can have a magical effect lies in the impact on community life in depressed and disadvantaged neighbourhoods. We have funded community-based projects of different kinds and it has become apparent that, particularly in terms of value for money, the arts route to social change can have truly amazing results.

Perhaps I could describe one recent experiment that we organised. In each of three places—York, the London Borough of Lewisham, and Wakefield—we provided £100,000 over three years through the local authority to support a community initiative of its choice on a troubled council estate. In York, the funding paid for a very good community development worker. In Lewisham, two part-time youth workers were engaged in a helpful way. But it was in Wakefield that our modest investment achieved by far the biggest impact. There, a community arts project was chosen and a whole variety of estate-based arts activities was pursued.

In Wakefield, a video film was made by the young people on the estate, a mosaic path was designed and laid out, dance sessions were organised with an inspiring drummer, there was an exhibition of paintings, and so on, including the creation of a herb garden—which, I admit, is pushing the definition of arts pretty far. What impressed us so much was that all those projects brought together older and younger people of different cultural backgrounds, and parents who had not talked to each other before.

Good neighbourliness has to be based on people knowing one another, seeing what talents each other can bring, and doing something positive together. Although community-based work often involves bringing residents together for meetings on an estate, the participants tend to be of a particular age and outlook, and the subjects for discussion are often somewhat negative, such as complaining about some aspect of a service that the council is not delivering. Community arts, as in the Wakefield project, which became "The Art of Inclusion" programme, mean that people are learning about each other in a positive and fun context.

We have been hugely encouraged by the reaction to our Wakefield work from Barnardo's, the children's charity, which operated on the same estate. So impressed was Barnardo's that it has now made community arts with young people a priority for its work across the country in different estates on which it operates.

The community arts worker in Wakefield, Judi Alston, who achieved a huge improvement in relationships across that difficult council estate, illustrates the programme's outcomes with a story. She was walking with an elderly resident past the estate's corner shop. As they passed, she called across, "Hello there, Johnny", to which the reply came, "Oh, hello there, Mrs Whatever". As they moved on, the elderly woman said to Judi Alston, "Before you started working on this estate, I used to be afraid to go past the shop; I was frightened of all the boys hanging around outside and it was safer to stay at home. But I've got to know Johnny and some of the others, seeing them in that play and at the flags event. Oh, we are all friends now". Community arts can be the catalyst for creating community links and reducing anti-social behaviour, crime and the fear of crime.

The Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport has shown an interest in putting community arts projects in deprived areas on a more consistent and stable footing. I suggest that the ODPM's substantial regeneration programmes should really incorporate the promotion of arts projects at the community level, as one component in getting communities back on their feet. The many millions of pounds available to regeneration partnerships, such as the New Deal for Communities, afford the opportunity for an arts ingredient to be a matter of course within the big budgets for neighbourhood renewal.

The Home Office has an interest too, with its emphasis on citizenship, social cohesion and curbing anti-social behaviour. Liaison is needed with the regional arts councils, the Big Lottery Fund—it is interested in low art as well as high art—and the Department for Education and Skills. That brings me to my two key suggestions, which cover co-ordination and cash for community arts. Across government, there are clearly several interested parties. It would be good to hear from the Minister whether a cross-departmental committee—perhaps involving the Minister in the other place, David Lammy—might be established to co-ordinate the links between the arts and community regeneration.

I am very grateful to Tessa Jowell for arranging a meeting last month with representatives covering many of government's range of interests, and it would be more than helpful if the Minister could indicate whether increased inter-governmental collaboration could not be engineered for that work.

I also make the usual plea for some continuity of funding streams, so that community arts workers are not always on a hand-to-mouth existence, never more than a year away from having to move on. A stable financial regime, in place of contracts that last only one year or even less, would enable work in places like Wakefield to get really embedded in the community, and thereby play a disproportionately useful part in generating a strong sense of community, breaking down hostilities and barriers between generations and between ethnic groups.

Unfortunately, community arts tend to be the little add-on—some icing on the cake—for places where, on a somewhat random basis, there are local advocates for this approach. Its potential will be unlocked only if central government are able to take a co-ordinating approach which can top-slice a small fraction of the resources that go to urban regeneration programmes. I hope very much that the Minister will be able to respond positively to my hopes for better co-ordination and more stable funding. Then this particular aspect of arts and regeneration—for which we now feel such enthusiasm at the Joseph Rowntree Foundation—can work its magic for hundreds more fragmented local communities.

Photo of Lord Ramsbotham Lord Ramsbotham Crossbench 12:56, 16 June 2005

My Lords, as a newcomer to your Lordships' House, I realise that I should not be surprised that, by this stage in a debate, everything that I had hoped to say has already been said. However, I shall not be deterred, because some of my experiences give collateral to what has been said. Indeed, I have one or two things to add towards the end in what I hope will be a contribution based on the motivation—expressed already by the noble Baroness, Lady Massey of Darwen—that, in considering regeneration of urban areas, we ought to consider the regeneration of the people who live in them. I shall confine my remarks and concentrate on two groups of people. The first are young people aged 16 to 25—older than the group so eloquently covered by my noble friend Lord Listowel—and the second are prisoners, to whom the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, has already referred.

I should perhaps declare an interest that I am chairman of an inquiry funded by the Whitbread Foundation, which has the terms of reference of encouraging decision-makers to maximise the contribution that the arts and sport can make to engaging young people in education, training and employment. We are doing that in Manchester, which is an enormously interesting place. As much as anything else, Manchester has benefited from regeneration—not least that resulting from the Commonwealth Games—but there is a whole wealth of artistic and other activity there that I find encouraging because of its width.

Two weeks ago, I was in Moss Side, having walked across a grassy area to a club building and being told by my companion that 28 people had been shot in the area in recent years. I found in the building 70 young people aged between 16 and 25, from all different ethnic groups in the area, with different backgrounds. Some were recovering from drug problems, some had been in prison for various offences, and some were mentally disordered. They were united in a project called Unity Radio, which was putting across a programme of music that that group liked. Interestingly, it was coupled with information about activities appropriate to that group, and all those people said to me how much music was part of their life, and that, of all the activities that people presented to them, music meant most to them.

The next day I had a meeting with another group, called Community Arts North West. It is a remarkable organisation that provides opportunities for young people to express themselves through music. The recent project on which they had embarked followed the idea of proclaiming cultural relations, mentioned by my noble friend Lord Sandwich. At present there are 66 immigrant groups in Manchester, from 66 different parts of the world. Community Arts North West finds people who have recently arrived and encourages them to express themselves by performing their own cultural music and so on among other young people, and through that medium begin to establish relationships with others. It is interesting how that develops into cross-ethnic relationships, which helps those new residents of our country to be assimilated into the area.

I should like to draw attention to another organisation, Dance United, which I saw working in Styal prison. The organisation started working in Ethiopia, helping children traumatised from the civil war to express themselves through dance and gain self-esteem. It worked so well that it brought the project back to England, where I have seen performances by young male prisoners in Holloway and Wetherby prisons. You simply would not believe the self-confidence that comes through self-expression in dance. Dance United has been working in many parts of the world and now works in Bradford, taking dance into the very complex ethnic situation but again responding to a need expressed by many young people: dance and music as a way of expressing themselves in this very complex world.

As part of our inquiry we conducted a headcount of what people most want. It is interesting that top of the needs expressed by young people is safety, which has been represented often today. Top of what adults want for young people are facilities, which many noble Lords mentioned. Looking at safety and facilities as the way of encouraging young people to grow up to make a useful and law-abiding contribution to the world, it seems that the words of the Motion for this debate, which I salute the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, for securing, include the need for regenerators to provide facilities and safety in which those activities can flourish.

That brings me on to prisoners. Here I must declare another interest: in addition to being a member of the supervisory board of the London Shakespeare Workout, which the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, has described, I am also chairman of the Koestler Arts Trust, which promotes an annual competition for prisoners and members of hospitals throughout the country. We have a programme called Learning to Learn through the Arts, which uses the arts as a trigger or gateway to learning, job skills and so on. That has previously been denied to many people and prisons provide an opportunity for doing something about it.

This is where I re-echo noble Lords' remarks about the importance of sustaining the work begun with prisoners, whether through drama, art, reading or writing, if prisoners are to be able to lead a useful and law-abiding life when they come out. One statistic that I would add to those mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, is that all except 30 of the 76,000 prisoners today will be released; therefore, we must be ready to receive them. If we are to help them sustain what may have begun in prison, we must provide facilities for doing that, and what better than the arts?

That leads me to my appeal to the Minister. Until 2002, there existed a Standing Committee on the Arts, which was responsible for co-ordinating the activities of all those helping prisoners with the arts. It included membership of what is now the DCMS, the Arts Council, the Department for Education and Skills and the Home Office, and it was sponsored by the Prison Service. When the correctional service started in 1992, the Standing Committee disappeared but it ought to come back. Whereas we have a certain amount of co-operation between ministries on community activities, we do not have the same in delivery to prisons. I have talked to all the agencies that I mentioned and the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, all of which seem to be dodging the column of who will chair the committee. I do not mind who chairs it, provided that it happens and it provides a forum in which everyone involved in supporting prisoners can come together.

I hope that urban generation will be seen as a satisfaction of the needs of those who require help to enable them to be useful members of regenerated communities. Those responsible for regenerating should include that mission in whatever they are doing.

Photo of Baroness Falkner of Margravine Baroness Falkner of Margravine Spokesperson in the Lords (Communities & Local Government), Office of the Deputy Prime Minister 1:05, 16 June 2005

My Lords, I too thank the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, for the opportunity to look at this subject and to hear from such a diverse and distinguished list of speakers. As the spokesman on communities and local government, I do not bring any arts background to this debate and cannot hope to match the expertise of the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, but I am part of the other category: I am a member of the public. I hesitate to use the term "member of the public" as I am sure the Department for Culture, Media and Sport would prefer to call us consumers, in the newspeak that is now so much part of its lexicon. My emphasis today will be on the relationship between the arts and regeneration, and their impact on communities. I also hope to touch on funding, as many other noble Lords have done.

As someone who comes from the developing world, I can bear testimony to the fact that, despite UNESCO's best efforts, the arts are still seen in many parts of that world as an add-on, a luxury that will be contemplated only when schools, hospitals, roads and shiny government buildings have been built. So often it results in sterile cities built on a grid, with straight pavements but no life outside office hours. To find the real city one must go into the old town or centre to find real people going about their business. But that part of town is where the heart of the town is, where the community is located, where life is really lived.

In the UK, thanks to Victorian housing that has lasted, in some parts too long, we have another kind of problem. In a post-industrial economy, our once great towns and cities have seen stages of economic decline, with the running down of physical infrastructure that increasingly blights the lives of the local community. While those who can "get on their bike" do, the rest of the people stay behind. The challenge for society is not only how we rebuild the physical infrastructure of those places but also how we sew in the social fabric to give people pride in their environment and a sense of belonging to that community.

Several speakers emphasised the shining examples of how art and culture in general can be a driver of urban, rural—in the case of my noble friend Lady Miller—and economic growth. And they often are. Those examples show that, within two decades, culture-driven regeneration has come to take pride of place in our toolkit for dealing with decay. So does it work across the board?

Having come here as a migrant, I tend to spend much of my time in the less salubrious parts of cities, where new arrivals and immigrants live cheek by jowl with the indigenous population. But there the difference ends. Those communities share the common problems of low-paid jobs, poor housing, poor health and high crime. For me the role of culture in urban regeneration is best seen when culture creates a narrative for a shared identity and increases people's sense of being anchored in the community. For that to succeed in the small to medium-scale ventures about which I am talking there must be considerable buy-in by local people.

That buy-in comes best where there is serious consultation and sustained relationship-building across the board, from the town hall, to local groups, planners and the arts bodies. A good example of this is Liberal Democrat-run Liverpool, to which many noble Lords have referred, where the bid for the City of Culture focused on building a consensus on local issues so that priorities could evolve through a conversation in which everyone was involved. And the evidence is already starting to emerge as Liverpool city centre is reanimating the city. Its population has grown from 2,000, 10 years ago, and is now predicted to reach 20,000 by 2010.

The key stakeholder in this relationship building across the local community is undoubtedly local government. Unfortunately, this Government's joined-up thinking does not go so far as to see that the "buy-in" from the community to its local council must be based on the local council being able to deliver for the community. Yet, year on year, local government's freedom to deliver on cultural services and the arts is squeezed by tight spending rounds. When local government budgets are ring-fenced by central government directions for spending on statutory services, localism goes straight out of the window. As the noble Lord, Lord Best, so clearly pointed out, "local" is essential for community regeneration.

That brings me to the timely opportunity provided by this debate to raise the question of National Lottery funding. When the lottery was established, many people expressed concern that the principle of additionality should be enshrined in such a manner that successive governments could not overturn it. We heard eloquently on this matter from the noble Lord, Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville. Now lottery funding is being used to fund MRI scanners in hospitals and fruit in primary schools. Those are sufficiently worthy in their own right and should not be funded by the vagaries of betting revenue.

Recent press reports indicated that raiding the Big Lottery Fund is to become part and parcel of government expenditure as a replacement for public finances. If that is to pass, it will be all the more troubling, as it will twice penalise disadvantaged communities. It will do so, first, in reducing the pot from which community and charity groups fund local projects; and it will do so doubly, as the greatest purchase of lottery tickets is undertaken by those very communities at the lower end of the socio-economic ladder. So he who pays the piper will no longer even call part of the tune.

If additional funding for education, health and the environment is needed, it should be borne by the Exchequer and raised through a progressive taxation system. That would be the just and honest way to pay for it. I hope that the Minister will confirm that this will continue to be the case and that lottery funds will remain wedded to the principle of additionality.

In concluding, as so many noble friends have highlighted, the arts and regeneration are of a piece. They are two components of the same glue that builds social cohesion—the base for a good society. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, for giving us this opportunity to reflect on these matters.

Photo of Lord Luke Lord Luke Spokespersons In the Lords, Defence, Spokespersons In the Lords, The Family & Culture, Media & Sport, Deputy Chief Whip, Whips, Spokespersons In the Lords, Wales 1:13, 16 June 2005

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, on securing this debate. It seems particularly pertinent that we are discussing this topic, not only in the wake of last weekend's successful Isle of Wight music festival, but in the run-up to the Live8 concert, which is using the talents of creative musicians to raise money and awareness of the dire situation in Africa.

Your Lordships have, as always, all presented important issues based on personal experience and expertise. In particular, I thank my noble friend Lady Buscombe for highlighting how culture needs a joined-up approach, its importance within education and, particularly, the enormous influence of broadcasting on the young. She also made some particularly telling points concerning the implementation of the new licensing and gambling Acts. My noble friend Lord Brooke, in a delightful speech, as always, told us how the DCMS was formed and he made interesting points about the regeneration of Covent Garden.

The arts, or what seems now to be called the creative industries, cover a wealth of individual skills and talents. It is a long time since the arts were just considered to be those enacted on the formal stage or something you could admire on a wall. As Her Majesty's Government's website highlights, today it includes,

"advertising, architecture, antiques markets, crafts, design, designer fashion, film and video, interactive leisure software, music, the performing arts, publishing, software and computer games, television and radio".

I am sure that there are others, too. Indeed, as I understand it, there is even a feeling in some parts that this definition in itself is too narrow. If a creative industry is one that has, according to the department,

"a potential for wealth and job creation through the generation and exploitation of intellectual property", do not ideas of philosophy, science and the use of mechanics in engineering also fit into that theme? Air liners, some of which are artistically beautiful—like the Comet, as I am sure all noble Lords will agree—or, at least, aesthetically pleasing, may have a practical slant, but effectively their production is a "creative engineering idea" which will, I hope, also maintain economic generation.

I do not want to digress on a point of definition. It is clear, not only from the department's documents, but by the changes that can be seen on the ground, that arts, in all their rich variety, can bind people together, even though it may be in awe or loathing. The arts can be used positively to express differences and to contribute to wider social issues. We need to look no further than the other side of the river from your Lordships' House to see how the South Bank—let alone Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle and Leeds—has been regenerated by the arts and architecture.

Successful regeneration not only puts social, economic and environmental life back into an area but re-creates viable, attractive places which encourage sustained inward investment, particularly through business and tourism. Indeed, your Lordships will be glad to hear that the Lonely Planet backpackers' guide states that Britain is "buzzing", is a "cradle of multiculturalism" and that cities in the provinces have a "palpable sense of excitement". The Lonely Planet goes on to argue that Manchester is one of the country's

"most exciting and interesting cities", and that Newcastle-upon-Tyne has displayed,

"miraculous powers of urban regeneration", as the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, mentioned.

I much enjoyed a visit to Liverpool last year, which needed, and still needs, more regeneration, but has made an impressive beginning over the past 20 years. It was interesting to hear about the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra in an interchange of views between the noble Lord, Lord Jones, and my noble friend Lord Brooke. Liverpool certainly has a palpable sense of excitement, particularly over its forthcoming role as the cultural capital city of Europe in 2008, as mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Best.

While this is indisputable praise for what has been achieved to date in these areas, I cannot help but notice the bias towards the north side of the old north/south divide, particularly when one looks at the division of spoils in terms of lottery funding. The Local Government Association reports that twice as many lottery funds go to the north than those that are given to the south. The north is not the only region with problem areas that need regeneration—for example, Margate in Kent, which saw the last of its coalfields close in the 1980's and is still suffering high unemployment.

The local Conservative council plans to build the "Turner Centre" over the sea in Margate Bay. It is billed to be one of the most revolutionary designs for a gallery to date. Yet, despite the area having the same average household income as west Wales and the north-east of England, the Arts Council has offered only one-sixth of the total cost of the project, leaving the local council to raise £20 million itself.

In light of the new National Lottery Bill discussed on Tuesday in the other place, the Government are legislating to bring 50 per cent of National Lottery funds under their control and to use them to plug gaps in departmental budgets that presumably the infamous 66 tax rises to date since 1997 have failed to fill. As my honourable friend in the other place highlighted, what the Government have actually done with lottery funding is as follows: £231 million has been spent on ICT training for teachers and school libraries; £93 million on hospital equipment; £50 million on renewable energy; £42 million on the school fruit project; and, of course, there was the £45 million that the Government snaffled to pay for the Jamie Oliver school dinners project, trumpeted by the Secretary of State for Education and Skills as the Government's solution to the school dinners crisis. I wonder how many people buy their weekly lottery ticket thinking that the money will be spent on school dinners.

Such snaffling of funds significantly reduces the amount that is available to the sport, art and cultural works that the lottery was set up to benefit. This appears to be acquisition by stealth of the control of funds, and it is also an erosion of the lottery council's independence. I would like to reiterate the comment made by my noble friend Lord Astor in the debate last week initiated by my noble friend Lord Eccles on museums. He said that there is a distinct and significant difference between public support and political control. If I may be so bold as to suggest, this proposed legislation appears to show a shift away from support of the creative industries and the vital role that they play in local and regional regeneration.

I must mention at this stage a couple of examples that seem to me to be apt. First, the Guggenheim museum of modern art in Bilbao is a prime example of art bringing increased wealth through tourism to what was previously an area almost completely bereft of art. Secondly, I must also draw your Lordships' attention to the Unicorn project, where a new theatre to bring the stage to young children is even now being built close to Tower Bridge. That will be a very important element in the regeneration of that area of London.

I would also like to highlight the fact that rural regeneration is just as important an imperative. There are often greater inequalities within regions than between them. I am glad to say that sensitive re-use or promotion of the historic environment through projects by organisations such as English Heritage recognises the importance of history and tradition as catalysts in both rural and urban areas, making the best of what already exists, while installing a strong sense of pride and place which, in its turn, will communicate a desire to visit to potential tourists.

I was amused by the comment in the department's document, The contribution of culture to regeneration in the UK: a review of evidence, 2004, that,

"There is less documentation of the failures of cultural regeneration projects, because these are, by definition, continuous and adaptable and therefore less likely to fail in regeneration terms".

I have to conclude rather rapidly. I have but brushed broadly across an area that we could happily debate all day. It is clear from what your Lordships have said that culture, art and the creative industries have helped to revitalise our country socially and economically at local and national levels.

Six years ago I initiated a debate on the regeneration of coastal resorts. During that debate many sensible things were said by noble colleagues as to what could and should be done, not least by incorporating artistic influences into the architecture, the style and the construction of new buildings—no more Brighton conference centres please. That is all still true now. Independence, imagination and openness are the key drivers in generating effective activity. Let us hope that they are allowed full rein. I very much look forward to the Minister's reply.

Photo of Lord Evans of Temple Guiting Lord Evans of Temple Guiting Government Whip, Government Whip 1:24, 16 June 2005

My Lords, I join all noble Lords in thanking my noble friend Lord Puttnam for initiating this debate. Sitting listening to the debate, I found it remarkable that there has not been a single voice saying that there is no connection between the arts and urban or rural regeneration. It is wonderful to hear so many examples from so many areas and so many slants on how importantly we view this. I thank my noble friend for initiating for me, and I suspect everyone else, an absolutely fascinating debate.

If I were to try to answer all the questions raised I would take up my allotted time, so I shall briefly deal with them before I give my own views on the subject. If I miss out anything I shall write to noble Lords.

My noble friend Lord Puttnam raised, as many others did, the principle of additionality. I and the Government support the additionality principle, but we have to acknowledge that there is strong public support for spending on health, education and the environment as well as on arts, heritage and sport, which will remain good causes through the next licence period. I believe the concern is that less money will be available for the arts. I can say on behalf of the Government that that simply will not happen.

My noble friend Lord Puttnam also said that at the heart of this debate are the creative industries. I entirely agree with him. I shall deal in some detail with those.

Photo of Baroness Falkner of Margravine Baroness Falkner of Margravine Spokesperson in the Lords (Communities & Local Government), Office of the Deputy Prime Minister

My Lords, I thank the Minister for giving way. Before he moves on from additionality, I intervene briefly to ask for clarification. The Minister tells us that, as a result of including three new areas to the good causes areas of funding, there will be no change to the funding available to projects that have been funded in the past. How can that be? How can one have 100 of something, add in three new recipients of the 100 and still expect the same funding to go to the previous five?

Photo of Lord Evans of Temple Guiting Lord Evans of Temple Guiting Government Whip, Government Whip

My Lords, all these decisions will be independent of government. They will be made by the Big Lottery Fund. As noble Lords know from the newspapers, there are very considerable surpluses in the lottery funds. One has to look not only at the revenue raised each year, but also at those surpluses to understand that what I have said will be possible. I know it is an issue. I wish to reassure noble Lords that the Government believe in the principle of additionality, which has been questioned in the debate.

In her interesting speech, the noble Baroness, Lady Buscombe, dealt with something that I believe goes to the heart of the matter; that is, intellectual property rights. As matters develop, it is becoming increasingly obvious that there is almost a need for new law to protect those important and developing rights. I and, I suspect, many other noble Lords look forward to next week's debate when we shall have a chance to discuss that.

The noble Baroness, Lady Miller, put a very important slant on the matter, asking us to look at rural areas. Being brought up in Suffolk, I saw and experienced the Aldeburgh festival which has a 12-month outreach programme into rural communities to bring in the arts. I absolutely agree with her. She asks about the Audit Commission. Currently the commission is finalising the inclusion of a culture block, as it calls it, as part of the comprehensive performance assessment of local authorities. My view, from a quango that I chaired, is that often local authorities are well ahead of central government in this area. I hope that I have given her a reassurance.

The noble Earl, Lord Sandwich, stresses the importance of partnerships with absolutely genuine community involvement. I agree with that. The noble Earl is right to draw our attention to the real meaning of "diversity".

Like a number of noble Lords, the noble Earl raised the question of the relationship between DCMS and other government departments. My noble friend Lady Andrews has just gone to ODPM as a Minister. She is very keen on getting the importance of arts in regeneration programmes on to ODPM's agenda and so we will begin to see strong connections between those two departments.

The noble Lord, Lord Jones, gave a fascinating account of cultural life in Liverpool, which is soon to be the city of culture. When I chaired a body that advised the government on museums, I spent many happy days in Liverpool. The noble Lord is quite right to draw attention to what a vibrant and wonderful place it is in cultural matters.

The noble Lord, Lord Brooke, gave us the benefit of his considerable experience. He was indirectly responsible for my first job in public life as he was the Secretary of State who dreamt up the Library and Information Commission and I was the first chairman of that commission. I would like to thank him publicly for a wonderfully interesting experience. He said that the DCMS does not shout loud enough about what it does. My experience of a lifetime in the arts is that arts organisations, including DCMS, do shout, but nobody listens. I would be fascinated to hear from the noble Lord—in private and outside the Chamber—whether when he was in the Cabinet his colleagues shared his enthusiasm for the arts. My view is that arts do not appear on the radar screen of too many politicians. That is one of the problems. That is why there is such a wonderful consensus here between the parties, all of which support the arts.

The noble Earl, Lord Listowel, gave an extraordinarily interesting description of the Kids Company. On behalf of the Government, I can say that we support the importance of arts in reaching children. I shall speak later about creative partnerships and I shall write to the noble Earl about the DCMS contribution to the youth Green Paper.

My noble friend Lady Massey spoke about Opera North and the arts programme in Brixton prison, which I shall say a little about later. She asked for an absolute assurance that the Government will continue to support the arts, particularly for young people. I can give her that assurance and I shall write to her giving details of all the activities that the Government have initiated or are initiating.

From his experience with the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, the noble Lord, Lord Best, gave us fascinating, practical examples of how community arts can change community life. He spoke about the need for a cross-departmental committee. I agree with him. I could speak for an hour on the silo mentality in Whitehall, but I had better not. I think that the committee is a good idea and I shall pass it on to Ministers.

The noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, may be a newcomer, but his great experience in the areas in which he has worked will be of enormous value. Among other important points, he mentioned the Standing Committee that has disappeared. I get the impression that all government departments would like to bring it back, but they are arguing about who should chair it. I suggest from the Dispatch Box that the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, puts himself forward as the chairman. With his experience, he would be the perfect person to do that job.

The noble Baroness, Lady Falkner, gave us the perspective of an immigrant. It was very interesting. I agree that culture creates an identity and gives an anchor. It was encouraging to hear what she said.

I shall deal with many of the points raised by the noble Lord, Lord Luke, in a moment, but I draw attention to the Turner centre in Margate. It illustrates the very important point that whether a local authority is Conservative-controlled, Liberal-controlled or Labour-controlled, all three political parties believe in the importance of using culture to regenerate. That is good. The noble Lord spoke about the north-south divide. It is a paradox that in the early years the complaint was that too much lottery money went to London and the south coast and the Government acted to make the spread clearer. On that point, we will make sure that the matter raised by the noble Lord, Lord Luke, is not reversed.

Exactly four years ago, I argued in the New Statesman Arts Lecture that to call for a debate on shipbuilding—then, as now, a tiny industry—would be seen as real politics, but to debate the future of music and design, which between them employ more people than steel, cars, shipbuilding and textiles, would be seen as frivolous. Maybe things have changed. Maybe there is now a realisation that our future prosperity may hinge on the very products of this frivolity, on what I called the "economy of the imagination". Indeed, maybe the link is finally being made between a thriving arts scene, vibrant cultural institutions and a robust economy. Maybe we are moving towards an acceptance that culture is not something that stands apart from the real business of the country, but that our cultural and educational institutions are a vital part of modern industrial and economic policy because they produce transferable specific and often highly technical skills that are used in the high-growth private sector industries.

We are familiar with the statistics for the creative industries. They have been repeated this morning. They are that they produce 8 per cent of GDP, employ 2 million people and have a rate of growth that is double that of the economy. But what is the underlying value of this sector? What are the broader benefits that it brings? What is the relationship between the arts and creativity and the regeneration of our cities?

If anything is clear from this debate today, it is that the term "arts" is certainly no longer restricted to the noble but rather rigid pursuits of the artistic elite. With that in mind, I recommend that noble Lords read What Good are the Arts? by John Carey, Merton Professor of English at Oxford. The fact that it is published by the firm that I used to work for is of no significance at all. What would John Maynard Keynes have made of all this when he asserted that the arts should provide "few, but roses" when public funding of the arts was first legislated for in 1946? Now we are much closer to the ideal envisaged by Juvenal when he declared that what people really wanted was "bread and circuses", but I think we would expand that to include literary festivals, virtual galleries, creative workspaces, Hollywood, street art and the rest.

What of regeneration as we know it? There is no doubt that in the not-too-distant past there was a tendency towards the "Field of Dreams" approach, the formulaic working out of what a community needs. Give them a library and a swimming pool and that will keep people off the streets and build the odd museum if there are some local artefacts to gather dust.

"If you build it, they will come"; I do not think so. Not even "If you build it and keep pouring loads of money into it, they may come" or "If you offer free entrance, they will come". Not any more; not these days, notwithstanding, of course, the success of free access to national museums and galleries.

There is no doubt that museums, galleries and libraries play an absolutely crucial role in regeneration. Forget the Bilbao effect, we have the Tate Modern effect, the Greater Manchester effect, the Newcastle Gateshead effect and many others mentioned today where great iconic buildings, renovated or freshly minted, are housing cultural institutions that are having an inspirational effect on local neighbourhoods and populations and are bringing in jobs, tourism and investment.

But it is not only about the buildings and the extraordinary activities that they house; it is also about the creative energy that is being unlocked in communities throughout the land—and that creative energy is being translated into creative industries, productivity and prosperity. Towns as far apart geographically and physically as Folkestone and Derby are putting the creative industries right at the heart of their economic plans for the future. These developments are restoring pride and giving new hope to cities which have seen their proud industrial heritage disappear and their futures undermined.

For example, Nottingham has taken its lace market and developed it into a vibrant creative quarter, with an emphasis on fashion and design, while Birmingham has taken its historic jewellery centre and expanded it into a centre for 1,500 small buildings, many of which are still jewellery-based and most of which are housed in unique historic businesses. Both cities have looked to their histories to create living areas that are now both relevant and commercial, that make sense to the local population and that provide working space and livelihoods to the emerging creative population—a mainly young population seeking outlets for their energies. Give them studios, not ASBOs, I say. I am delighted that the noble Lord, Lord Brooke, agrees with that point.

But to expand the demand-side argument even further, the most successful cities are not just concerned with retaining skills and providing a reason for inward migration; they are also actively influencing their local education providers to ensure that the workforce will match the opportunities that are being developed. It makes sense that Creative Partnerships—the educational initiative that seeks to make meaningful links between schools and professional cultural organisations—are being designed and delivered locally and, in some cases, making a truly meaningful local impact.

In one of these partnerships—the Deansfield High School in Wolverhampton—students have been working with artists, architects and council builders to come up with a regeneration plan for a local site, designing elements of it themselves in consultation with these experts. Most importantly, such an experience may give these students a glimpse into the opportunities that a creative future may hold within their own communities and will go some way towards breaking the cycle—the noble Lord, Lord Best, referred to this—of low aspiration that prevails in many post-industrial areas. Not so much "If you build it, they will come" but "If you let them build it for themselves, they will stay".

If we are to be realistic, we must acknowledge that our future role in the global economy is not likely to be in conventional mass production. But we definitely have an edge when it comes to creating prototypes and producing the kind of goods that can be effortlessly reproduced and instantly exported. I refer, of course, to the products of intellect and technology that can be zapped around the world with the minimum of cost. Are noble Lords aware that the video game "Tomb Raider"—vehicle for the legendary Lara Croft—originated in Derby?

There is no doubt that this country leads the way internationally in many of the arts and creative industries. Our theatres are going through a golden age; our orchestras are at the top of their game; our popular music continues to lead the world; and our architects and fashion designers are dominating trends everywhere.

But we cannot afford to take it for granted that this will continue, not without a real understanding of creativity and the creative industries and how we can harness their power and drive them forward. We cannot rest on our laurels on this. Over the past decade we have won, on average, 21 per cent of the major creative and technical Oscars in Hollywood, but we have consistently lacked a film industry capable of building on this talent. We may have the leading edge in some fields, but others will be quick to exploit them if we do not.

I welcome the DTI-sponsored investigation that Sir George Cox is leading into how creativity can improve the productivity of small and medium-sized businesses. Again with DTI involvement, we see the small seed of inter-departmental co-operation. I am sure that there will be many useful lessons to be imported from the creative industries that depend on innovation and risk-taking for their survival. But I wonder whether we yet know enough about these creative industries and the issues that may be hampering their own productivity.

My right honourable friend—soon to be my noble friend—Chris Smith, when Secretary of State at the DCMS, identified the creative industries as a key area for study and development. Along with many people, I feel that this vitally important initiative has dropped out of sight. However, we can take great encouragement from the appointment of James Purnell to the DCMS as Minister for Creative Industries and from the knowledge that he is today setting out his vision for a framework to ensure that our innate creativity can be turned into our long-term competitive advantage.

I now think the time has come to call on the Chancellor of the Exchequer to initiate a Treasury-sponsored study into the state of our creative industries and what their true value is—not only economically but educationally, socially and on a human level.

In closing, I thank all those who have contributed to the debate. I am sorry if I have dwelt too much on the issue of the creative industries but I firmly believe, along with my noble friend Lord Puttnam, that it is the heart, the driver, of what is happening. It is the most powerful tool we have for urban regeneration. Of course, the arts themselves are a formidable creative industry. Let us not forget that without the arts—the training, the inspiration and the heritage—there would be no creative industries.

Photo of The Earl of Listowel The Earl of Listowel Crossbench

My Lords, before the noble Lord sits down, perhaps I may ask him to clarify one point which will be important for the charity Kids Company. In welcoming the important new funding for that charity, can the Minister clarify that the charity will not receive funding unless it can itself match the funding? So the charity will have to go out and find equal funding. I am sorry if I did not make that clear earlier.

Photo of Lord Evans of Temple Guiting Lord Evans of Temple Guiting Government Whip, Government Whip

My Lords, there is a danger in me clarifying something I am not totally sure about. But, yes, I am fairly sure that there will be matching funding. If I am wrong, I shall write to the noble Earl.

Photo of Lord Puttnam Lord Puttnam Labour 1:48, 16 June 2005

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have taken part in the debate. As much as anything else, it has been valuable for establishing the quite extraordinary level of consensus that exists in the belief in a linkage between the economy, people's lives, urban regeneration and the quality of the environment, all of which is having such a tremendous impact throughout the length and breadth of this country.

I should, in a sense, apologise to the noble Baroness, Lady Miller of Chilthorne Domer. I inherited the title of the debate. But as someone who lives in a rural community, I should be very happy to join with the noble Baroness at any time in a debate to discuss the challenges and opportunities that exist in rural regeneration.

Perhaps I may make a couple of points. I was riveted by the description of my noble friend Lord Jones of Kensington in Liverpool, which I know very well. Only three weeks ago I had the privilege of going to Liverpool to speak at the memorial service of our late and much missed colleague the former Bishop of Liverpool, David Sheppard. On the way from the station in a cab, as we passed one miraculous new building after another, I said to the taxi driver, "What do you put the extraordinary sense of confidence that is taking place in this city down to?". He said—and I will have a crack at the accent—"Oh, it's simple. We just stopped feeling sorry for ourselves". That is not a bad way of summing up the impact of regeneration on a city's sense of itself. I was especially encouraged by the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Best. The fact that such an important organisation as his is taking a serious position in this area can only augur well for the future.

If this were a movie, the credits would roll for a considerable time, but it would be quite wrong for me not to acknowledge a little of the help that I received in preparing for today's debate. My principal thanks go of course to my noble friend Lady McIntosh of Hudnall for securing the debate in the first place. It is a sadness to all of us that she was not able to be here to speak. I must again doff my cap to the noble Lord, Lord Chadlington, from whom I learnt so much during our enormously productive time working together on the Arts Council lottery panel; to the noble Lord, Lord Skidelsky, for his brilliant volumes on the life of Lord Keynes, which gave me a beginning to my speech; to Sir Christopher Frayling, the present chairman of the Arts Council, whose enthusiasm for and knowledge of the subject far exceed mine, and the Arts Council staff, especially Kelly Wiffen; to Sir Nicholas Serota and his staff and at the Tate and, last but not least, to my noble friend Lady Andrews, for the help that her officials at the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister gave me.

Speaking of officials, two things occurred to me while listening to the debate. The first—I have been wanting to say this for a long while—is that, according to the DCMS report, £16.5 billion has been spent since the lottery began, on 190,000 projects. One of the great benefits of speaking in your Lordships' House is that you know that you will never be reported and the media will take no notice whatever. But it strikes me as interesting that none of our media has sought to comment on the fact that £16.5 billion spent on 190,000 projects has resulted in no scandals. No one has run off with the money. There have been no disasters or catastrophes. What other country in the world could have managed its processes, its unpaid committees, and its officials so admirably as to deliver that? It would be nice to think that one or two members of the press might pick that up, but we can be fairly certain that they will not.

One final thought. At the height of Athens's fame, on attaining the age of 17, all Athenian young men were required to pledge an oath to their city, which finished roughly like this: "Thus, in all these ways, I will leave the city not less but greater and more beautiful than it was left to us". We pass a great deal of legislation through this House—sometimes, I think, too much—but how happy I would be if we were able to find some means to suggest to our young men and women that they might take on some similar form of obligation, because then we could look forward to an extraordinary continuation in urban regeneration that would stretch way past my lifetime. With that, my Lords, I beg leave to withdraw the Motion.

Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.