When Estelle Morris became Minister for the Arts three years ago, she busily set about organising meetings with the key bodies in all the industries covered by her remit. Film, theatre, literature, the visual arts – it was all fairly straightforward until she came to music.
‘I remember an official saying to me: “Oh blimey, you’ve got to meet the music industry”,’ she says. ‘“If we don’t watch it, that will be about a hundred meetings.” I realised later that if I’d had to meet all the different parts of the industry separately I’d never have got anything done.’
The recently ennobled Baroness Morris of Yardley is even more concerned today than she was then about the industry’s lack of a single voice. No longer a minister since stepping down from the House of Commons at last year’s general election, she now sits on the board of the PRS and is bringing her ample experience to the question of how the music business can make itself heard in the halls of power.
'The first message I got was that it’s very difficult to get one point of contact with the music industry'
A single voice for music is just one of the pressing issues Lady Morris is tackling in her new role. The thorny question of copyright in the digital age is also on her agenda, as is the role of music in education and finding new ways of identifying young talent, topics naturally close to the heart of a former Education Secretary.
That first encounter with the complexity of the music world convinced her that something needed to be done about how the industry expresses itself. ‘There is a real agenda out there for the outside world to engage the music sector on,’ she says. ‘But, although meeting representative bodies never means you’ve met the whole industry, it means you’ve got a point of contact, and the first message I got from government officials was that it’s very difficult to get one point of contact with the music industry.’
That point of contact, she believes, should be a music council, equivalent to the Film Council but without the funding role. ‘We were assured during my time as a minister that the music industry wanted a stronger voice within government, and a music council would provide just that. The Music Business Forum is a good starting point, and one of my last acts as a minister was to authorise officials to engage in discussions with the industry with a view to setting up a music council.
‘It wouldn’t mean that all the different voices are heard by government through one body, but it would mean from government’s point of view that when it’s got to talk to the music industry it’s got a front door. That front door is very important for politicians. It gives them confidence that once they get through it the word will go to the rest of the industry and equally the messages will come back. And there’s a big agenda facing the industry.’
'We were assured that the music industry wanted a stronger voice and a music council would provide that'
A clear musical voice has never been more important, she believes, not least because of the growth in music along with the creative economy generally, something she thinks the government has been slow to recognise. ‘The creative bit of our economy is our fastest-growing sector. Eight out of ten new jobs in London over the next 10 years are going to be in this sector. It’s a third revolution – the industrial revolution, technology revolution, creative revolution - and I sometimes felt that government was only just beginning to recognise the importance of creativity to our economy. So there’s a job to be done.’
The lack of a coherent voice has also meant that the industry’s most pressing issue has not always been adequately confronted. While a minister, Lady Morris heard anxious words from within the industry about copyright law, copyright enforcement and about how dramatic changes in the environment weren’t being addressed, but people within government were telling her that they had the issue under control.
The Intellectual Property Rights Forum, which she jointly chaired in 2004, helped alert government to the urgency of the copyright challenge, as well as helping to overcome a climate of mistrust around this crucial issue. ‘There was a lot of fear. People from the industry feared that this body was going to persuade the industry to give up its copyright without consumers paying. People from the consumer, small business and performers’ end feared that the big companies would tie them up in knots.
‘What actually happened was that the big record companies sat round the table with the consumer rights people and others and, guess what, the sky didn’t fall in. That was a very important first step in recognising that there’s a common agenda.’
Her ambitions for music are not all defensive. Before becoming Arts Minister Lady Morris spent 17 years as a teacher at an inner-city school and then five years dealing with education in government, first as a minister and then as Secretary of State, a combined experience which has given her a unique insight into two entirely different cultures and what they have to offer each other.
‘I’d spent my whole career in a hugely regulated, compulsory sector where government controlled the money that went in and the numbers, where we knew how many 11-year-olds we were going to have in five years’ time because we counted the six-year-olds, and we knew how many teachers we had because we funded their training.
‘I came from that to a sector where that was the last thing that you did. You don’t know how many musicians there are or what the hell they’re doing. It’s got everything from somebody who earns all their living from it to somebody who earns a bit of their living from it and somebody who earns nothing from it but is a brilliant musician.
‘In music, if it doesn’t work, you shake yourself down and start again the next morning. I love that. I’d spent all my working life in a tightly regulated sector, and here I was with people who by nature rebel against regulation. They are the best risk-takers I’ve ever come across.
‘Because education is so tightly structured, sometimes the most difficult thing is to make teachers be innovative. With the best will in the world, the strong accountability system that’s wrapped around them makes them risk-averse. I believe passionately in bringing some of the risk-taking of music into education.
‘Creative Partnerships have been the greatest success in doing this. If you can bring the wild creativity and risk-taking that there is in the music sector into schools, kids love it. That’s how they’ll learn about the music industry, about copyright, to respect somebody’s ideas and know they have to pay for them, because they’ve been working after school or on Saturday mornings or in the holidays with Joe Bloggs who earns his living on the basis of selling his creative ideas.’
Much more also needs to be done, she believes, to identify and encourage young talent. ‘We’ve got to do more talent-spotting. Sometimes you talk to someone who’s made it in music and ask “Who spotted you?”, and it’s all accident.
‘There are much better talent-spotters in football. In sport it’s standard to give talented youngsters a way through and support them and give them money and make sure they’ve got the right equipment. Who’s doing that for young violin-players, for kids on the drums, for the young girl who lives in the inner city but has got a good voice? We can’t just leave it to chance.’
Music and education may be totally different in terms of culture and structure, but Lady Morris says her two career strands have convinced her that with children they combine in a unique way that opens up all kinds of opportunities for musicians.
‘The irony is that all kids love music. Not all kids read books outside of school, but I don’t know a kid who doesn’t listen to music outside of school. Music and kids go together, and anybody that’s got a love of music has got a potential relationship with a child. And that’s something we really should make the most of.’
This article originally appeared in M19, published in March 2006