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Creative Industries

Excellent. I am delighted that the hon. Lady is satisfied, but perhaps she could persuade the Government that, if they rewrite the document, the footnote to page 6 could say a little more about ceramics. None the less, she is right. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Wantage (Mr. Vaizey) from a sedentary position disagrees, but he will make his contribution in a few minutes, and all will be well. It is important for anyone who speaks on behalf of a political party to reflect clearly their party's views. Therefore, I want to say that there are many areas in which we believe that this country is doing incredibly well. Music has already been mentioned. There is no doubt that this country is a global force in music. It is, arguably, the third in the world in terms of the music market, but it is probably No. 1 in the world for innovation and creativity, and that is crucial. We discussed copyright, to which I shall briefly come in a few seconds. We have already heard about the importance of addressing illegal downloading and, of course, illegal uploading. I shall not repeat the comments that I made when I intervened in that discussion, but one of the difficulties is that while we can find the internet protocol address of those who are guilty, it is very hard to obtain their physical location. Mr. Whittingdale Junior must be worried: he is one of the few people for whom we do not know the IP address but do know his physical address, and that, of course, is what is needed for prosecutions to take place. The design industry is worth some £10 billion a year. The fashion industry, which raises £100 million in fashion week alone for the London economy, is critical. Advertising, which has not yet been mentioned, is a critical part of the creative economy, funding 95 per cent. of our national press and 95 per cent. of commercial radio. Film has rightly been mentioned. There have been fantastic successes in films, including those supported by FilmFour, such as that wonderful animation, ““Peter and the Wolf””, which is well worth seeing and won an Oscar. I strongly recommend it. There is a long list of Oscar winners, including Daniel Day-Lewis and Tilda Swinton. Tremendous work is being done to try, voluntarily—I accept the points made earlier—to tackle the uploading and downloading of film on the internet. That is as important an issue in respect of film as it is in the music industry. Wonderful work is being done by all sorts of organisations. BBC Blast deserves a mention, because it is targeting disaffected teenagers and getting them involved in the creative industry. Tremendous work is being done by the British Council, which is rarely mentioned in debates about creativity. However, the British Council is increasingly focusing its work in this field, which is welcome. It has created a series of awards celebrating Britain's experience and expertise in the creative industry. The video game industry has only been mentioned briefly once in this debate, by the hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mr. Field), but we should not forget it, because it is the fourth largest in the world and, sadly, so often the all-purpose punchbag for politicians. Yet the vast majority of what it does should be applauded and celebrated by all of us in this Chamber. We have touched only briefly, and rather oddly, on the tremendous success due to creative partnerships, a Government initiative that I was critical of in its early days that has now transformed itself so much that it deserves to get a plug for its work. Some fantastic things have come out of that. I am saddened that there is not more in the Government's document about how to build on that existing structure and develop it, rather than suggesting adding new structures. The document mentions some fantastic things, which I welcome, including the development of 5,000 apprentices a year, the five new centres of excellence in creative skills and the world creative business conference. It will be worth considering how the latter can develop. Although I note the Minister's enthusiasm, I am not entirely convinced that that is the way forward. However, it is worth considering. I also welcome the creative choices careers scheme. There are many good things, but is important to consider some of the concerns. The Chair of the Select Committee, the hon. Member for Maldon and East Chelmsford (Mr. Whittingdale), was right to say that intellectual property is central to this debate. We are talking about creative industries and wealth generation as well as everything else and, unless we address effectively intellectual property rights, the rest of it is pretty meaningless. It is critical that we get right some of the things that we currently do not get right. The most obvious example of that—I accept that it is by no means the only one—was raised with passion by the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart) and by the hon. Member for Maldon and East Chelmsford. I shall place my cards clearly on the table. It is wonderful that the commissioner is now talking about an extension of copyright to 95 years, because that is exactly what is required. However, were the Minister persuaded by the arguments to go ahead, eventually, there are two possible caveats that she might wish to consider. First, although nearly every item will be placed on the web, because there is a possibility of its generating at least some income, it may still be possible that some items, which are held with an extended copyright, will never see the light of day. There ought to be some sort of ““use it or lose it”” clause, saying that if an owner of a copyright is not going to use the item, somebody else could use it in some way. There ought to be a mechanism to ensure that that is possible. Secondly, although modern technology is such that this caveat is not particularly necessary, it is important to recognise that the holders of copyright have an archival responsibility. In the past, master discs have been broken up, used as rubble to provide foundations for new buildings and lost forever. There should surely be a requirement for copyright holders to hold on to the material, bring it up to date in terms of new platforms and technologies and ensure that it is secure. There should be a historical, archival responsibility alongside copyright. I hope that, with those two small caveats in mind, the Minister will be willing to look at the 95-year extension. The hon. Member for Maldon and East Chelmsford made a valuable contribution in talking about the fragmented responsibilities in respect of the creative industries. The document mentions DCMS, BERR and DIUS—I begin to lose track of all these acronyms—and refers specifically to other Departments with responsibility, including HMT, DCSF and DCLG. Frankly, most people working in the creative industries do not have the foggiest notion what all that lot means. They do not know who to see, what the point of contact is, where to look for support, how to find out what the legislation is, or anything else. A much tighter focus is vital. Of course, cross-departmental working is important—I welcome its being discussed—but it is unclear where the funding responsibility lies. The document mentions precise figures: I love the way it is £70.5 million, not £70 million—although the £500,000 might be important to some projects. When I mentioned the 29p per week figure, the Minister said that a lot of other things were going on. However, the figure does not just come to £70.5 million. Why that figure is included is beyond me. Millions of pounds are being spent in this area. Why have we not brought all that together and attempted to show what the Government are spending, how it is spent and where they will be bringing in extra money? I am delighted that the Minister agrees about the fragmented responsibilities. Lottery distributors also need to be examined. Excellent work is being done by the Arts Council, the UK Film Council and the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts, which is critical and I am delighted the Minister mentioned it. We need to look at their areas of responsibility. There are some simple issues in respect of which the Government have not addressed properly some of their own failings. For instance, participation in the arts and attendance at arts events is essential—the Minister acknowledges that and it is mentioned in the document—yet, at the moment, the Government are failing. Their own figures show that before they cleverly abolished the targets, they were not actually meeting them. The former Secretary of State for Department for Culture, Media and Sport, now the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, said that the Government could get rid of those targets because they were no longer needed as they were achieving everything they wanted to achieve. The truth is that the Government's own report shows that we are not meeting those targets. If anybody doubts what I am saying, the figures are in the DCMS report, which shows, for example, that in respect of attendance at arts events by priority groups the baseline figure expectation of 33.7 per cent. only got to 33 per cent. There was also a failure to achieve the targets for participation in arts activities. Although the Government have rightly been applauded for the effect of free entry to museums, they have failed to meet their own targets, even in respect of attendance at museums by the various interest areas, including black and minority and lower socioeconomic groups. There is work to be done on including people. I know that there are big ideas and big issues in the paper, but some of the basics are really important. There is no point in talking about a few extra million, welcome though it is, at a time when, for instance, the number of people going to museums and the funding available to them are decreasing. Many museums are funded by local government, whose funding is being heavily squeezed under the recent settlement. If the Government want to talk about cross-departmental working, the Minister should be talking to those responsible for the local government settlement, which affects matters of her responsibility. Interestingly, the document mentions such things as studio provision. I am sure that the Minister will know that particularly in the east end of London, perhaps because of the build-up to the Olympics, there is no point in talking about additional studio provision, because existing studio provision is being reduced dramatically. There is a lot of work to be done, and in places the document fails to recognise the basic realities that are affecting the creative industries. Earlier, the Minister cleverly elicited from Members in all parts of the Chamber an indication that we somehow totally supported her ““Find Your Talent”” scheme. She listened to the interventions very well, but then suggested that we all supported the scheme entirely. The principle is wonderful in many ways, with the additional focus on and attention to creativity and culture in education, which I welcome. The Minister has done herself a huge disservice, however, by aligning herself with the initial announcement of five hours of culture a week. That implies that culture is somehow separated from everything else.