Grassroots Arts and Culture: Luton — House of Commons, 2020-09-22
Topic: Culture
Rachel Louise Hopkins (Labour, Centre-left): It is a huge privilege to have my first Adjournment debate on grassroots arts and culture in Luton—my patch and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Luton North (Sarah Owen). Luton has a long history of being a creative town, particularly since the 1800s, when we had a thriving straw plaiting and hat making trade. The wonderful Wardown House Museum and Gallery in Luton South has the most complete headwear and hat industry collection in the world, showcasing industry objects and paper archives relating to the English hat industry. At this stage, it would be remiss of me not to mention and thank the fantastic Museum Makers, a wonderful bunch of volunteers committed to supporting our museum in innovative ways Luton is a global town, where more than 130 different languages are spoken. Our super diversity has enabled a wide range of creative opportunities to flourish, which has an amazing impact on people’s day-to-day lives, from food to fashion, from dance to design. Participation in grassroots and community arts activity has played an important role in developing community cohesion, building social capital and enabling local people to lead happy, healthy and prosperous lives The importance of the arts should not be understated; when we are not at work, we all, in one way or another, spend our free time consuming art in all its forms. Whether it is TV, radio, magazines, music, art, online content—all of that has been created by people working in the arts and cultural sector. A recent Creative Industries Federation report states that, before the coronavirus pandemic and the attached health restrictions, the creative sector was growing at five times the rate of the wider economy, employing more than 2 million people and contributing £111 billion to the economy—more than the aerospace, automotive, life sciences and oil and gas industries combined The Luton arts and culture strategy group, made up of representatives from six of Luton’s key cultural organisations—Luton Borough Council, Revoluton Arts, Tangled Feet, the Culture Trust Luton, the UK Centre for Carnival Arts and the University of Bedfordshire—informs me that the creative industries in Luton contributed £36 million to the local economy in 2018, and leveraged an additional £3.2 million in inward investment in 2019. Luton’s cultural strategy has worked hard to embed arts and the creative sector at the heart of the sustainable transformation of our town, building shared growth through an inclusive local economy, developing skills and jobs and shaping town centre regeneration Last year saw Luton’s pilot year of culture, "People Power Passion", a modern and exciting cultural programme that explored a key historical moment in Luton: the 1919 Peace Day riots, when local people burnt down the town hall in protest at being excluded by the bigwigs running the council after the first world war. We explored that through fantastic arts and cultural events, and while it was inspiring and enjoyable, the investment in this cultural programme, with diverse participants and audiences reflecting the whole of our community, importantly employed 84 artists, trained 13 young people from diverse backgrounds, worked with 400 local participants and engaged 138 volunteers. This participation of our community in large-scale outdoor cultural events builds on our spectacular one-day international carnival, our excellent mela and our vibrant St Patrick’s Day festival. Again, it is at this grassroots level that we see such fantastic work by local creatives, supported so well by local volunteers and charities.