Labour shadow culture secretary vows to make creative sector 'engine' of growth

Shadow culture secretary Thangam Debbonaire has made it her "personal mission" to ensure the creative sector is a key part of industrial strategy under a Labour government.

Debbonaire said she would work to guarantee that shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves sees the creative industries as "the engine of our economic growth" if the opposition win a general election predicted to take place this year.

Speaking at the Big Creative UK Summit, Debbonaire also pledged to widen access to artistic pathways in education, asserting: "Every child [should] have the full spectrum of creative experiences."

She said she had been working with shadow education secretary Bridget Phillipson to ensure creativity could be returned to "the heart of the curriculum", and committed to "sort out" training and apprenticeships for people keen to enter the creative industries.

The shadow minister also expressed a desire to hold arts organisations to account on questions of diversity and inclusion, and added: "Where are women? Where are people of colour? Where are people from working class communities? I’ll keep asking those questions when we are in government of our creative industries."

Debbonaire accused successive Conservative administrations of overseeing "the degradation of cultural life".

She said: "It is Labour, I believe, that bring in the game-changing ideas of how we can enable this. In 1946, we set up the Arts Council. In 1969, the Open University. In 2001, my good friend Chris Smith did free museums and art galleries, throwing open the doors of our cultural institutions to all. I think that was such a Labour idea...

"Since 2010, the Tories have overseen the degradation of cultural life in the UK. Arts, culture and creative industries have been undervalued, sometimes dismissed or savagely attacked."

She argued that the 12 different culture secretaries appointed by the government in the last 14 years – ranging from Nicky Morgan to Oliver Dowden, to incumbent Lucy Frazer – spoke to a broader "disdain" for the arts.

She also mocked a government-backed advertisement, released in October 2020, which had told "ballerinas to retrain in cyber during the Covid crisis."

Her address was delivered on March 6, the opening of the two-day summit, at which Frazer also spoke.

Current culture secretary Frazer had used her speech to discuss the "fruits of the joint collaboration" between government and the creative industries, as she celebrated the success of productions including "first-class" show The Motive and the Cue; Liverpool’s presentation of Eurovision; and the launch of Aviva Studios in Manchester.

Frazer insisted the government "backs the creative industries", saying: "In 2024 our companies, our innovators, our creators, our artists are putting a British stamp on every creative industry on the world stage.

"You are our shop window for the globe and we in government recognise that."

It comes as chancellor Jeremy Hunt’s Spring Budget enacts a permanent rate for Theatre Tax Relief, a move welcomed with relief from many in the industry.