Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic The roof of the Southbank Centre’s Royal Festival Hall has been leaking for some time, temporarily patched until funds are available to properly fix the UK’s largest publicly funded arts venue. As a metaphor for how many in the British arts, culture and creative industries are feeling after 14 years under the Conservative government, it takes some beating. “We need more money but so do many others,” says Elaine Bedell, chief executive of the Southbank Centre, which has suffered a drop of more than 40 per cent in funding in real terms over the past decade. The problem, as she sees it, is that there has not been “enough acknowledgment of the importance of arts and culture. We’re fantastically successful in this country.”It was back in the 1950s, as Britain began to put the war behind it, that Clement Attlee’s Labour government drew up the plans for the London-based venue, and Bedell hopes the new administration will take a similarly proactive approach to the culture sector.The 2,700-seat Royal Festival Hall is where a young Keir Starmer once performed on his flute, a formative experience that underpins the prime minister’s view that the sector should be crucial to Labour’s national strategy for growth, he told creative industry professionals in March.But money — as the new Labour administration has repeatedly made clear — is tight. “Everywhere has a leak,” sighs Lisa Nandy, the UK’s culture secretary, from the top of Blackpool’s tower in August just after news broke that Oasis — the rock band from her home town of Manchester — had reformed and was going on tour. Oasis was at the height of their fame when the last Labour administration came to power in 1997. Twenty years of Conservative government ended as Cool Britannia, a golden era of music, fashion and film-making, began. Labour Prime Minister Tony Blair responded by setting up the first Creative Industries Task Force that defined the loose grouping of arts, culture, media and associated technology for the first time. Industry executives are hoping for a similar renaissance under Starmer’s new Labour government, but are keen to stress that this is not simply a matter of supporting the arts for art’s sake, but about throwing its weight behind a vastly important and growing part of the economy. The creative industries sector is hugely diverse and includes advertising, architecture, antiques, design, fashion, film, software, music, the performing arts, publishing, television and radio. It is worth about £125bn — larger than life sciences, automotive manufacturing, aerospace and the oil and gas sectors combined — and employs around 2.3mn people. Nandy has promised to help. “The country has been doing it itself,” she says of the creative industries’ achievements. “Imagine what they could do with a government who walks alongside them.”On her first day in her new role, she declared that “the era of culture wars was over” a dig at the previous Conservative government which, according to one senior executive, who asked not to be named, was always “going on about ‘woke’, finding ‘lefties’ everywhere and trying to defund the BBC”. In the weeks that followed, Nandy invited more than 150 organisations including Warner Bros, Amazon, BBC, Paramount, Sky and Channel 4 to Manchester to talk about the social and economic potential of the sector. At the Blackpool Tower, Nandy stresses that the Labour government will walk in lockstep with the arts and creative sector in towns and cities across the UK. Downstairs, the ballroom hosts Northern Soul nights that attract people from around the world, she says, and broadcasts a special edition of Strictly Come Dancing for the BBC. This is the sort of regional strength — and boost to local employment — that Nandy believes can help “build resilience into the economy”.But the culture sector needs more than warm words and good intentions. Industry insiders say Labour’s support has to be matched with investment or access to the sorts of funds that can build on an already prominent position in movies, TV, music, gaming, fashion, arts and advertising. From music to TV, you can see signs of diminishing power and strength internationallyA report from the University of Warwick, with the Campaign for the Arts, found that the UK’s arts and culture sector was in crisis, with the government cutting culture budgets by 6 per cent since 2010. This compares to an increase in spending of up to 70 per cent in countries such as Germany and France. “The UK’s arts sector is running on empty,” says Jack Gamble, director of the Campaign for the Arts. “There has been complacency rather than doubling down on our strengths,” agrees Tom Adeyoola, a media and technology executive and board member at Channel 4, the public sector broadcaster that the previous government had threatened to privatise. “From music to TV, you can see signs of diminishing power and strength internationally.”It now falls to Nandy to reverse the situation. “It is absolutely critically important that we get it right,” she says, “not just because of the fragility of the sector, but also because the opportunities there are so enormous.”Creative industries executives are keen for the government to recognise the economic benefits of supporting the sector: job creation, export growth, driving tourism and attracting investment from overseas. We can “provide solutions to some of our biggest shared challenges in the UK”, says Caroline Norbury, chief executive of Creative UK, a non-profit that supports the UK’s creative sector. “It’s key to how we stimulate economic growth and strengthen global exports.”The UK is also one of only three net exporters of music, the largest exporter of books and second only to the US in the advertising industry.Its performing arts sector is worth £9.5bn and supports more than 240,000 jobs across the country. Live, the trade body representing Britain’s live music industry, reported this month that the economic impact of the sector rose 17 per cent to £6.1bn last year.In film, the UK punches well above its weight. More than half of the top 20 film releases last year were made at least partly in Britain, including Barbie, with billions of pounds invested every year by Hollywood giants such as Disney, Warner Brothers and Comcast into studios at Elstree, Shepperton and Leavesden. Attractive tax breaks have been a draw, but the cutting edge production stages and world-beating talent have kept them churning out new films and TV shows. Media executives, however, say that the UK’s position cannot be taken for granted given similar incentives and higher investment now being made in rival nations in the EU and Asia. Many point to the success of South Korea, where K-pop music and TV shows like Netflix’s Squid Game have taken the world by storm.“We are a creative nation,” says Sir Peter Bazalgette, veteran media executive and co-chair of the government-backed Creative Industries Council. “But this does not happen in a vacuum. Other countries are catching up with us fast.”Brexit has had implications not just for musicians and touring, but also for the fashion industry and designBazalgette says that it will be important for the creative industries to be factored into Labour’s forthcoming industrial strategy. This would allow the sector to tap into investment from the government’s new national wealth fund, which was set up to fund large infrastructure projects.He also points to the need to develop and commercialise innovations in areas such as virtual production in filmmaking; the use of artificial intelligence in music and computer games, as well as 3D printing and sustainable materials in fashion. The education and advertising sectors have also rapidly adopted and developed new technology such as AI, creating lucrative intellectual property.But to do so requires an improvement of the broader funding mechanisms for the sector, he says, calling existing institutions such as the British Business Bank and UK Research and Innovation “not fit for purpose for the creative industries”. Bazalgette says that the bank’s criteria does not fit the needs or models of creative companies, while the definition of R&D for funding from tax credits is too narrow.“The sector is worth the higher investment,” he says. “We are a growth sector but British institutions have not caught up with us.”In its manifesto, Labour committed to reviewing Arts Council England, the main means for the government to fund the arts sector specifically. But Nandy has paused the review and has instead commissioned a broader study into funding across the wider arts and culture sector.“I have asked for a map of the funding landscape of arts in the UK,” she says, adding that government money too often did not go to the parts of the country where it was most needed. “We know that there are funding deserts where people just aren’t able to access arts and culture at all,” Nandy says. “The first step is to scope out the actual problem, and then the Arts Council review will start in the context of that.”One of Nandy’s ideas is to improve the “community right to buy” arts and music venues, and work with local philanthropists and business owners to boost their towns and cities.She would not be drawn on whether there would be good news for the creative services sector in next month’s budget, expected to be more about cuts than handouts, or if it would feature in any wealth fund. But, she says, chancellor Rachel Reeves “absolutely gets the value of the creative industries to the economy”. Nandy sits on the board of Labour’s “growth mission” — one of its five key focus areas — a recognition of the importance of her department “to our economic effort”. She is also working with business secretary Jonathan Reynolds on an industrial strategy. “It’s very much on our collective radar. We know how central it is to the future of our country.”There is also potential for Nandy to team up with foreign secretary David Lammy to create a “soft power council” to help the UK on the global stage, and export creative industries overseas.This includes repairing relations with the EU. “We’re really keen that our government tells the story of a country that is open and celebrates the contribution of people who come here, and that wants to collaborate with other countries to create better things.”Working alongside Nick Thomas-Symonds, minister for EU relations, she is aiming to secure touring visas for musicians and artists to be able to play in the EU — despite initial signs that Brussels will resist.“It’s something we’re really keen to crack,” she says. “Brexit has had implications not just for musicians and touring, but also for the fashion industry and design. I think we can solve some of these things.” One of the biggest cultural decisions facing Starmer’s government will be how to fund the BBC over the next decade, particularly as the number of people paying the licence fee declines. Nandy says she is a “big supporter” of the BBC, the licence fee and the concept of public service broadcasting — marking a change from the previous administration that often used the BBC as a political punch bag. “I’m much more interested in what the BBC has to contribute to this country,” she adds.After two years of a frozen licence fee, Nandy will oversee negotiations running up to the renewal of the BBC’s licence in 2027. It is a key milestone for the national broadcaster that needs to invest heavily to successfully transform linear TV channels to modern digital platforms where the majority of audiences find their entertainment and news. There will be “some difficult conversations”, she admits. But there is a bigger question about the BBC’s future “not just for the next 10 years, but for the next 50 years”, she adds. If the TV licence is retained, Nandy wants to explore ways for the public to have a greater involvement in how its broadcaster is run. At a Labour leadership hustings in 2020, Nandy argued that the BBC should be mutualised to give direct ownership and control to the British people. This radical shift in oversight of the national broadcaster, she says, is still an option. Building a longer-term cultural legacy is important to Nandy, who offers assurances that — unlike her predecessors — she has no intention of moving from the job quickly.There needs to be a plan after the doom and gloom, not just a change in mood musicShe certainly has her work cut out. Balancing the need to spread limited government funding and support to regions of the UK, while also playing to its strength in film, music and tech that tend to be based in big cities and clustered around universities, could prove a challenge, according to executives.“There needs to be a plan after the doom and gloom, not just a change in mood music,” says Adeyoola, the Channel 4 board member. He points to the fact that — for all the excitement around the reunion of Oasis — only about a third of the grassroots venues they played on their initial tour are still open today. “Where do the up and coming bands go now?” he asks. The inequality starts in schools. Entries in arts subjects have plummeted by almost half at GCSE stage and about a third at A-level since 2010. This is making it even more difficult for those from working-class backgrounds to make a living from the arts. Nine in 10 working class parents would tell their children not to work in the industry, a study by Netflix and the National Youth Theatre found. Adeyoola sees the need for Labour to help create the sort of optimism and “cockiness” that he can last remember when Oasis emerged during the Britpop years. Arts and culture — partly through institutions such as the BBC — play an important role in the “soft power” wielded by the UK internationally.“Post-Brexit, a bit of that has been lost,” he says. “This is an important moment to define a new story for Britain.”
