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Culture as a Front-Line Service

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Harrison, for his kind words and I, too, regret his parting but recognise the important debate that he led in 2007 as Liverpool was about to embark upon its year, and that debate certainly set the tone for its success. I am greatly encouraged by those who have put their names down to speak in this debate. I believe the timing is providential. When I entered the ballot, I did not know that last Friday would see the publication of research, commissioned by Liverpool City Council. This research was undertaken jointly by the universities of Liverpool and John Moores and is entitled Creating an Impact: Liverpool’s experience as European Capital of Culture. It lists the impacts under five headings: cultural access and participation; economy and tourism; cultural vibrancy and sustainability; image and perceptions; and governance and diversity process. I commend this research to your Lordships, especially to those who are committed to the importance of sustaining the cultural dimension of our society. One of the anxieties we face in this phase of economic downturn is that cultural services could be seen by some as an easy hit and their budgets reduced or cut altogether. As I hope this debate will show, such cultural vandalism would prove a false economy. As Liverpool’s experience as European Capital of Culture demonstrates, cultural activities have economic, social and health impacts that are way in excess of the investment into them. It was the poet TS Eliot, in a book called Notes towards the Definition of Culture, who offered a succinct definition. Culture, he said, ""may even be described simply as that which makes life worth living"." He added, ""it is what justifies other peoples and other generations in saying, when they contemplate the remains and the influence of an extinct civilisation, that it was worth while for that civilisation to have existed"." During Liverpool’s celebrated year, we had everything on show. We had art that was highbrow, middlebrow and lowbrow. Indeed, part of its huge success was that some of the activities drew literally tens of thousands on people on to the streets of the city to see, for example, the extraordinary mechanical spider—La Machine—that crawled majestically through the streets of Liverpool only to end up disappearing down the Mersey tunnel. I met one father who took his little boy on his shoulders to see this mechanical beast, and when the young lad saw that the spider had gone down the Mersey tunnel, he told his dad he would never go down that tunnel again. There were events to please the masses such as the Night of Liverpool Music, hosted by Paul McCartney in the football stadium at Anfield where, as dusk fell, 30,000 raised their baton torches to sing "Hey Jude". As you would expect, there was a lot of music to touch the soul, including the combined orchestras of Cologne and Liverpool gathering in my own cathedral to sing Benjamin Britten’s "War Requiem". To think that less than 70 years ago these two European cities were scarred by mutual bombing, and here they were, joined in music and harmony, lamenting in unison the slaughter of Europe’s young men and women. In 2008, there were some 7,000 events in Liverpool, involving 10,000 artistes and 67,000 children. Some 160,000 community members participated in creative activities. There were 13 royal visits. One million hotel beds were sold, with hotel occupancy levels at 77 per cent. There were 3.5 million new visitors to the city and 15 million visits to a cultural event or attraction. It is estimated that the economic benefit to the Liverpool city region was in the region of £800 million, with 70 per cent of people from Liverpool visiting a museum or gallery. These are just some of the statistics that give insight into the successful reach of the cultural programme. Such was its success in reaching inwards to its own people and outwards to a national and international audience that José Manuel Barroso, President of the European Commission, said at the time: ""It’s turning out to be one of the most successful Capital of Culture programmes that we have ever had. We are now trying to create a network of European Capitals of Culture to build on Liverpool’s experience"." This success could not have happened without the initiative of Liverpool City Council, the vision and expertise of the Culture Company and the investment and support of the Northwest Regional Development Agency. I declare an interest in that I have recently become a trustee of National Museums Liverpool. In 2008, our museums and galleries attracted 2,736,701 visitors, which is the highest number on record, and more than three times as many as in 2001. What is most encouraging, however, are the statistics on the social inclusion programme of NML. Visitors from low socio-economic backgrounds have been increasing continually over the past five years so that numbers have increased from 442,401 to 780,068. This is what differentiates museums and galleries in provincial parts of the country from their sisters in London, which attract largely international audiences. We in the regions have a track record of penetrating our own communities, especially areas of deprivation, with our cultural heritage. This is one of the reasons why we must not treat such cultural services cavalierly and why they cannot be swept aside in times of economic stringency. One of the areas I want to highlight, which is one of the reasons I sought to secure this debate, is not just to report on the economic impact of culture but to show how there is an inextricable link between good cultural services and the health and well-being of a community. Let me quote from a letter that I received from the chief executive of the NHS mental health service provider in north Merseyside, Mersey Care NHS Trust. He writes: ""It is my opinion that culture in all its forms is a more significant contributor to health and well-being than direct formal services alone"." He has given me the example of 25 reading groups that have been set up through Mersey Care linked with the year of culture. He can identify people within these groups who otherwise would have needed in-patient care had it not been for the support and benefit of the groups. Groups cost about £6 per person per session; by comparison, an in-patient stay costs £9,000 on average. Mersey Care NHS Trust has commissioned its own report on the benefit of cultural activities that were linked with Liverpool’s year as capital of culture. This shows emphatically how, by entering into partnerships with a number of cultural organisations, the trust has been able to deliver a strategy of mental health and well-being that is having a significant and positive impact on mental health service users. The trust was encouraged in its work by the then Secretary of State for Health who, in September 2008, said: ""Music, poetry, dance, drama and the visual arts have always been important to our mental and physical wellbeing, and collective participation and engagement in the arts is a fundamental element of any civilised society"." He added that the creative arts are not some kind of eccentric add-on, ""but should be part of the mainstream in both health and social care"." The Mersey Care report cites a number of examples of creative partnerships such as those between the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts and the Broadoak acute psychiatric in-patient unit, and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra and acute psychiatric in-patient units. The value of these creative partnerships is that participants reported improved mood and sense of well-being. Such is the success of these partnerships that Mersey Care has recognised that this is an opportunity to stimulate further its own engagement with the cultural sector. As well as having a beneficial impact on health, cultural services also contribute to creating a more caring and compassionate society. If I might be allowed what at first appears to be a digression, I spend some of my time as bishop for prisons meeting and listening to offenders. The point that comes across time and again is that prisoners, without seeking to exonerate themselves, tell me that they had little or no understanding of the impact of their crime either on the victim or the victim’s family, or even their own family. Criminal acts are often committed because of a failure of the imagination. As prisoners go through rehabilitation, education and cultural programmes, they have their imaginations stimulated and enlarged and begin to realise what they have done to others. Enabling them to begin to put themselves in the shoes of the victim is a vital step in correcting their behaviour. I have seen prisoners get involved in drama exercises and speak about how their minds and hearts have been changed and opened to the full dimensions of their criminal behaviour, and this in itself has led them to change. It is the development of the imagination that is crucial to creating a caring and compassionate society. If people are not able to put themselves in the shoes of a victim, we end up creating a care-less and compassion-less world. The arts within our cultural services help to develop the imagination. That is why it is so important, especially in those areas of our society where people are deprived of the means of developing their imagination, to invest in our cultural services. I look forward to hearing the speeches of noble Lords, underlining the importance of culture as a front-line service. In conclusion, at the beginning of Liverpool’s year as European Capital of Culture in 2008, I invited the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury to give a lecture in the Anglican cathedral on the role of faith in European culture. Some 2,000 people attended. By the way, the Catholic and Anglican cathedrals are two of the city’s greatest cultural icons. Not only did they house some of the major musical, theatrical and artistic events and exhibitions, but our visitor numbers rose from 430,000 in 2007 to 530,000 in 2008, making the Anglican cathedral more visited than even Salisbury Cathedral, not that there is any competition. As you can imagine, his Grace the most reverend Primate explored the role of faith in cultivating a civilised society. He showed how instrumental it was in developing the arts, from music to novels and paintings to theatre. The arts both define and express our values as a civilisation. Although a stable and just economy is vital to our well-being, in the end there is more to life than money. Those other values are enshrined in our culture. We must be careful not to sacrifice our culture on the altar of the economy. If we do, we might find that we have lost more than we realise.