The third major manifesto of the General Election has been released. Wednesday morning saw the arrival of the Green party manifesto, following the Liberal Democrat offering on Monday and the Conservative document on Tuesday. This party is the next to reveal their policies going into the election and what their MPs will be pushing for in the next Parliament.
As expected, the Green Party manifesto has a focus primarily on the environment, highlighting how “the climate emergency continues to accelerate. Scientists warn that we are currently on track for global temperatures to rise by at least 2.5°C, far beyond levels at which humanity can safely survive”. The party has offered a “greener, fairer country together”, which also aims to tackle inequalities, public service shortages and a range of other issues, such as our relationship with the European Union post-Brexit. But the document also has some offerings for the Arts & Theatre industry and community, which are worth taking a deeper dive into
The Policies
The Green Party keep things short and sweet in their opening remarks into our section, saying simply: “Arts, culture and sports are central to people’s mental and physical wellbeing, and to thriving communities. They also make a huge contribution to the UK economy”. 5 items have been promised for the Department of Culture, Media & Sport, with 3 of these (which are all but the media promises) relating to Arts & Theatre, namely:
- A £5bn investment to support community sports, arts and culture
- Keeping local sports facilities, museums, theatres, libraries and art galleries open and thriving
- An end to VAT on cultural activities, lowering the prices of everything from museum tickets to gigs in local pubs and making these more accessible
Analysis & Opinion
The Green Party, famously, have only ever had a single MP – Caroline Lucas who since her election in 2010, has represented the Brighton Pavilion seat. She is stepping away from politics this year, with the Green Party standing in almost every constituency but targeting four main ones, most notably the new Bristol Central seat, which is currently held by Shadow Culture Secretary Thangam Debbonaire. In the past few local elections, the Green Party have seen an exceptional increase in support, over quadrupling councillors in recent years, breaking into new councils and having contingents on many more, which they hope will translate into MPs in three weeks time.
The Green Party are, possibly, the most notable party that can be certain they will not form the next government. Whilst true also for the Liberal Democrats and Scottish National Party (SNP), the Greens are also unlikely to be key in a Hung Parliament situation, although this is not certain. But this is reflected in their manifesto. There aren’t a huge number of new policies (for comparison, the Liberal Democrats had 17 proposals for the same department), and many of them have the same sticking point, which I will return to at the end. For now though, lets look at each of the three policies individually.
The first promises £5 billion for sports, arts and culture. As you can imagine, this is a largely textbook positive policy. Funding for the arts mainly has been decreased sharply in recent years due a range of factors, so more money can only be a good thing, and I myself will be very pleased if this comes to pass. There are, as I can see, two main sticking points with this policy. The first is where does the money come from? We know the Green Party are keen to increase taxes for the super-rich to fund many of the things they propose, but whether this extends to this policy is unclear. £5 billion would be fantastic, but I’m not certain where this figure has come from, and given the pressure many public services are under and need funding to remedy, I would be shocked if this ever actually came to pass.
Secondly, the provision is allocated across the Department of Culture, Media and Sport, but with no idea or framework as to how this would be allocated. Would each of sport, arts and culture have their own share of this figure? Would it function like an application system for funding? Is there a limit as to how much each section could receive? Having the money allocated to these three sectors as a group leaves the possibility that arts and culture may get left in the dark when compared to sports causes. Sport gets a lot more attention in local and national media than the creative arts do, and if this is reflected in Whitehall, the figure Arts & Theatre causes may be allowed to benefit from is likely to be significantly lower than the headline figure. I welcome the pledge of £5 billion, but I cannot say I am certain that Arts & Theatre groups would feel extra funding significantly when competing with sports.
Next, we turn to the pledge to keep sports facilities, museums, theatres, libraries and art galleries open and thriving. Much like the last policy, this is something to be welcomed. Venues are often struggling to remain open, especially those which do not charge for entry or use, as is often the case with museums. As I’m sure you can imagine, as an Arts & Theatre Editor, any effort to save venues and cultural attractions from closing should always be taken, as the benefits it can provide are often immeasurable but crucial.
But nothing can be perfect, and again, there appears to be no clear idea as to where funding for this would come from. There is the possibility that the previously mentioned £5 billion figure would be used to achieve this aim, which if so needs to be made clearer, as the layout suggests these are isolated and individual policies. This policy would absolutely need funding to work, and aside from the headline, we have no real information as to what they intend to do here.
And this largely comes down to strategy. The manifesto doesn’t have any form of strategy as to how we could achieve this. It promises to keep these cultural industries thriving but has no sense of how it would do that. Thriving would involve massively increasing footfall, which unless that £5 billion extends into lowering ticket prices, is unlikely to be seen. It’s no surprise that people of the U.K. have less and less spare money to spend on cultural activities. There are ways to increase exposure to theatres for example, such as through the Society of London Theatre and UK Theatre proposals (which have sadly not been included in the manifesto) but without proper funding, this is unlikely. This policy is certainly welcome, and all parties need to be making commitments such as these to protect the future of our cultural industries, but the Green Party proposal appears to be lacking much of the substance it would need to provide these. Is there a strategy to get this done that just hasn’t been released publicly? Maybe, but unless this is made clear, the manifesto policy appears very aspirational.
To that end, and linking to the previous policy, the Green Party have proposed ending VAT for cultural activities to make them more accessible. The hope is that by ending the tax added to these services and experiences, prices will be lowered. Before we dive into this policy, it’s worth explaining how VAT works. Value Added Tax (VAT) is a surcharge of 20% (or a reduced rate of 5%) on an item’s cost price, sold by VAT-registered businesses. If a theatre ticket cost £10 before VAT, the VAT-inclusive price would be £12 (or £10.50 on the reduced rate). Scaled up, a £100 concert would cost £120 (or £105).
Yet again, on the face of it this is a great idea. By reducing the prices a customer pays for a cultural experience, it would lower the threshold required to access it and allow more people the chance to have those days out. This would be most crucial for those on lower incomes or anyone for whom ticket prices are often prohibitive, expanding the target market and may help to make these industries flourish (as proposed in the previous policy). But there remains a glaring issue with this plan. VAT in the U.K. is added before a price is listed, so when you buy an item, the price you read is VAT-inclusive.
Now, it’s not out of the question that theoretically, if this VAT were to be removed so it’s no longer required, businesses could keep their prices the same, and use the previously VAT figure as an excess to go back into the business, whilst you as a consumer see no impact on your prices. Now this in itself isn’t a bad thing at all, and would certainly help cultural industries stay afloat and work towards new initiatives, restoration projects or similar important goals, but it may not be a policy that you as a consumer would directly benefit from, as prices could remain exactly as they are now. Whether this policy is beneficial relies on both how it is implemented, and how businesses adjust their prices in response, which cannot be determined unless enacted.
These three policies share three core themes. The first is that they are good ideas. Each and every one of them would work towards revolutionising our cultural industries, improving them and helping more people to experience the vibrant heart of our country’s creativity. I would like to see all of these policies be enacted as soon as possible to start making a tangible difference.
But the other two themes are less positive. The first is that they are very clearly aspirational. The Green Party has always had to be an aspirational group ever since they broke through into Parliament, but when you start to consider the realities of the proposals outlined, they feel as if they come from a group that know they will not have to enact them themselves, so lack much of the clarity and planning that I had hoped for. This leans into the final theme regarding costings that also need to be considered. The party promises new change, a boost and a £5 billion injection of funding, whilst also ending VAT on all cultural experiences. They are, on the same page, cutting the funding the government gains from the creative arts whilst also promising a huge spending increase. I’m no economist, but unless the tax on the super-rich raises a lot more money than I was aware of, the sums as I see them simply do not add up.
This manifesto for Arts & Theatre is brilliant in intent but flawed on detail and possibility. The aspirations of the Green Party absolutely must be respected, but I struggle to see how we would realistically get to this point. If by some stroke of miracle the Green Party end up in a coalition, maybe we could see this start to be implemented, but right now it feels as though the party has very few ideas for Arts & Theatre, and those it does have seem hugely aspirational.
The Green Party General Election manifesto was released on June 12th and can be accessed here. The 2024 U.K. General Election will take place on July 4th
