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Arts

My Lords, I join all noble Lords who have congratulated the noble Lord, Lord Bragg, on obtaining this debate, and in particular I congratulate him on calling attention to the contribution that the arts can make to the well-being of society. I should like to fill in one of the gaps that he mentioned might be included. I refer to a group that my noble friend Lord Young referred to as the people on the margins of society; namely, the contribution that the arts can make to the rehabilitation of offenders. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Smith, that it behoves a civilised government to invest in the arts, echoing the views reflected by the then Home Secretary, Winston Churchill, in 1910 that the truest test of the civilisation of any country is in the way that it treats its criminals. For three years, I sat as a member on the advisory board of Rethinking Crime and Punishment, under the distinguished chairmanship of the noble Baroness, Lady Linklater. On the use of the arts, we concluded:"““Offenders should have opportunities to engage in artistic activities as part of the regime in prisons.""““Participation in an arts activity can have direct and indirect benefits. An increase in writing or drawing skills would be a direct benefit. Learning how to work as a team, or increasing self-confidence, as the result of taking part in an arts production would be an indirect benefit.""““Public awareness of the purpose and range of arts activity in prisons is very low and both arts providers and prisons are [very] wary of seeking to raise it, for fear of a negative response.""““Evidence of the positive impact of arts activity on offenders is not systematically collected and more studies are needed.""““The different parties involved in the arts in the criminal justice system . . . need to work more closely together to increase the range, quantity and quality of activity””." That report was accepted by the Government. I seriously hoped that there would be a considerable result when, as with developments such as the National Offender Management Service, advances in the management of offenders took place. Here I must declare another interest: I am chairman of the Koestler Arts Trust, which every year mounts a competition for members of prisons, special hospitals and young offender institutions in 55 categories of art, ranging from the visual arts to music, needlework, matchstick model-making and writing. I hoped that there would be increased support for the role of the voluntary sector in contributing to that. So when last December the Government published a paper entitled Reducing Reoffending Through Skills and Employment, I looked for what mention there was of the role of the arts which we had pointed out to them in 2004. All it states is:"““Other activities, for example music, drama and the arts, can also be a powerful means of engaging disaffected individuals with learning, bolstering self-esteem and broadening horizons””." If that is so, I hope that there will be a consequential encouragement of the arts and the need for increased funding of these activities, as has already been mentioned by my noble friend Lady Young of Hornsey. But it has not proved as easy as that. As chairman of the Koestler Trust I then received an indication that because the outcomes of the arts competition did not equal the outcomes of tackling reoffending numbers, we might not qualify for government funding. The arts are not an end in themselves; they are a means to an end. Engagement with the arts and the encouragement of self-esteem motivates and puts people on the road to activities such as education, training and employment, which it is hoped will lead to the prevention of reoffending. When the Government consider all the evidence they have been given, and all the roles that the voluntary sector can adopt—which includes its track record of delivering public services and undertaking invaluable work with offenders—and when they note the rich contribution made by the arts to the rehabilitation process, I hope they will think seriously about co-ordinating the activities of the various agencies that all seem to report to different government ministries. Is this for the Home Office, the Department for Education and Skills or the Department for Culture, Media and Sport? No; judging from a letter I had yesterday from what is no longer called the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, it seems to be that department. Therefore in considering the role of the arts in contributing, in the words of the noble Lord, Lord Bragg, to the ““well-being of society””, I ask the Minister to make every effort to encourage all ministries to enable the contribution to take its place in the rehabilitation of offenders currently in our prisons.