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Appendix 1 Economy Committee – 26 March 2018 Transcript of Item 5 – The Mayor’s Draft Culture Strategy Caroline Russell AM (Chair): That brings us to today’s main discussion item on the Mayor’s draft Cultural Strategy for London. I am now going to welcome our guests. We have Jenny Waldman CBE, Director of 14-18 NOW; Sharon Ament, Director, Museum of London; Ben Evans, Chair, Cultural Leadership Board; Justine Simons OBE, Deputy Mayor for Culture and the Creative Industries; Shonagh Manson, Assistant Director of Culture and Creative Industries, Greater London Authority (GLA); and Councillor Clare Coghill, Leader of the Council for the London Borough of Waltham Forest, now the Borough of Culture. I welcome you all. Thank you so much for coming to talk with us this morning. I am going to start off with a very general question mainly for Justine, asking you to outline the Mayor’s vision for culture in London, how this draft strategy will help him to achieve it and how we would judge its success. Justine Simons OBE (Deputy Mayor for Culture and the Creative Industries): Thank you. Good morning everyone. Many thanks, Caroline, and the Committee for inviting me here to talk to you about the Mayor’s draft Cultural Strategy entitled A Culture for All Londoners. We really welcome today’s session, which is kicking off the consultation period. I really hope the discussions today will contribute to and inform the final strategy. I would like to say a few words about culture to set some context and to look at why it is an increasing priority for cities all over the world, and then talk about the Strategy, our vision and how we will achieve it. Sadiq [Khan, Mayor of London] has made culture and creative industries one of his top priorities. He is the first London Mayor to do this. Cities all around the world are also waking up to the power of culture. I chair the World Cities Culture Forum and every year 35 global cities get together to look at how culture can be embedded into urban policy. What has become clear to this group of cities is that cultural entities are no longer a ‘nice to have’. It has gone from nice to mainstream. Why is this? I put it down to five reasons. Firstly, in an increasingly globalised world culture gives cities their own distinctive identity or brand, if you will. When global competition is fierce cities need to stand out. They need a unique selling point and they need an edge; culture can help with this. London has been defined through the decades by creative tribes, whether that was Mary Quant’s [Welsh fashion designer] miniskirt revolution, reactionary punks in the 1970s or grime music, making waves today on the world’s stage. London Fashion Week, the Design Festival, award-winning theatre, the Brits and the BAFTAs, all do an incredible job of showcasing our success as a capital city. Given the uncertainties over Brexit it is essential that London retains its competitive edge. We need to invest in the things that make this city a success. Our success is in great part due to sustained investment in the creative industries. Film London, the film agency for London, has built partnerships and promoted London as a result. London is now the third-biggest capital for film after Los Angeles (LA) and New York. Forty films are shot on the streets of London every day. Film London now tracks over £1 billion of inward investment into film and high-end television (TV) every year. The same is true for fashion. London is now one of the top four fashion capitals, along with Paris, Milan and New York. London Fashion Week puts the capital onto the global map and lures overseas buyers. This means that London fashion businesses, the majority of which are small to medium enterprises (SME), make £100 million in new sales in London Fashion Week every year. Our culture and creative industries are often our international calling card. We can look at how artists and creatives have helped us with the London is Open campaign, the now iconic David Shrigley [Artist] posters telling people that London welcomes you. Our theatre, dance and film industries have also got behind the London is Open campaign. Global reputation is important. London’s reputation for quality, creativity and talent attracts investment and positions London as a leading international city. That brings me to my second point, culture generates money and jobs for cities. In London the creative industries bring in £47 billion a year. One in six jobs are in the creative economy. Jobs in the creative economy are growing four times faster than the economy at large. Throughout this period of austerity culture and the creative industries have kept on growing. The creative economy has helped London to weather the storm. Looking at the national picture, the creative industries are worth almost £92 billion to the United Kingdom (UK) economy. As we say in the Strategy, the creative economy is larger than the automated, life sciences, aerospace, oil and gas industries combined. There are a huge range of jobs, including the supply chains that are also supported by the creative industries. We mention some of these in the Strategy when we talk about jobs. When we talk about investing in culture the beneficiaries are not just creative people. We are talking about a huge range of jobs and supply chains that support the creative process. To give you an example, the producer of the Bond films, Barbara Broccoli, told me that every time she makes a Bond film she needs 1,000 carpenters; there are also caterers, drivers, electricians, accountants and all manner of jobs behind the scenes. As for the creative jobs, they are the jobs of the future because 87% of creative jobs will not be automated. Why is that? As I often say, you cannot automate the imagination. The third reason for supporting culture is because it is a major driver for tourists. Research from London & Partners tell us that four out of five people say the main reason they come to London is culture, that is both visitors and those coming to live and work here. London is the most visited city on the planet; 31.2 million visitors came last year, four out of five of them coming for culture is therefore a big deal. Cultural tourists spend £7.3 billion a year in London. Increasingly tourists are demanding more authentic experiences, they want to live life as a Londoner. We must respond to this demand, particularly if we are going to appeal to second and third time visitors who now want something different. Visitors are not just staying in Zone 1 but further afield in outer London. Therefore, we need to get smarter about the visitor offer across the city, not just in the centre. Tourists are increasingly looking to social media when deciding where to go on holiday. What people say about London and how they rate the city’s offer on sites like TripAdvisor is increasingly how they are making the decision on whether to visit London. The reputation of our cultural offer is therefore crucial. To reiterate the point that I made a moment ago, with Brexit looming we must invest in our cultural offer. We need to remain ahead of the game. We need to build on our successes. We must remain innovative and competitive. However, culture in cities is about more than these impressive economic figures and tourism potential. Reason number four, regeneration and place making. Creatives are often described as the ‘shock troops’ of regeneration, moving into unloved cheap spaces and breathing life into rundown areas of town. We have seen this cycle repeat itself all over London, from Camden Town to Upper Street in Islington, and more recently places like Shoreditch and Peckham. In the 1950s the Royal Festival Hall kick started major development along the South Bank. In the 1990s the Tate Modern did the same for Bankside. This is why we are planning a major new cultural quarter for the Olympic Park. The Victoria and Albert Museum, the Smithsonian, Sadler’s Wells, the London College of Fashion and University College London will move in to create a new world-class destination for London. It is a brilliant legacy for 2012. It will create new jobs and contribute to the regeneration of East London. It will benefit Londoners and visitors for generations to come. We are also preparing a cultural vision for the Royal Docks in the east. English National Ballet and the London Film School have already announced plans to move to a new home there. This part of London - from Stratford to the Estuary - has also been identified as having £22 billion of development potential and our vision is for culture to be at the heart of this. The Mayor has a bold vision for the Thames Estuary. We want to build a new generation of large production centres along the Thames Estuary that we call the Thames Estuary Production Corridor. This will include the largest film studio in London built in the last 25 years that will be in Dagenham East. The operator was announced last week, Pacifica Ventures, which is a major studio behind Breaking Bad and The Avengers. This is fantastic news for London and for Dagenham. We want this to be the first of many creative centres along the Thames Estuary. Our focus is not just on the east of London. We are embedding culture in plans for Old Oak and Park Royal.

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