20
Examination of witnesses
Simon Mellor, John Raine and Jamie Arrowsmith.
Q132 The Chair: Welcome, Mr Mellor, Mr Raine and Mr Arrowsmith, who is online. Thank you so much for attending today. Today’s session is the 12th public evidence session on the UK’s future relationship with the United States, and it will focus on transatlantic cultural and educational ties. The session will be streamed live on the Parliament website and a transcript will be taken. Once it is available, you will each be sent a copy of it for minor corrections if necessary. I remind members of the committee that if they have any interests pertinent to their question, they should declare it when first speaking?
Could you each introduce yourselves briefly and make any opening remarks you would like to, and then we will pile in with questions? Shall we start with Mr Mellor?
Simon Mellor: Thank you, Lord De Mauley, and thank you very much to the committee for inviting me to be a witness today. I am the deputy chief executive for arts and museums at Arts Council England, and I lead on international strategy for the Arts Council. I should say that internationalism is hard-wired into our new 10-year strategy. For us, a successful creative and cultural sector is one that is well connected internationally so that our talent in this country has an opportunity to work with peers around the world and so the public in this country have access to world-class culture.
Our primary focus at the Arts Council is about opening up opportunities for artists and organisations in this country, to develop their international connections and develop artistic practice working with their global peers. That in itself has significant soft power and economic benefits.
Today, I will be talking mainly about the creative and cultural sector that the Arts Council invests in. I am not going to be talking about the wider commercial creative industries: film, architecture, fashion et cetera; those are not within our brief. I will obviously be talking about England. We are the Arts Council of England, rather than the wider UK. I should say that we work very closely with our colleagues at the Arts Councils in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland on international projects.
I will just finish by saying that the creative and cultural sector that we invest in is highly international. We invest in 980 organisations on a regular basis, and almost half of them are working internationally all the time. The USA, alongside France and Germany, are the biggest markets for our sector.
John Raine: Good morning and thank you, Lord De Mauley. I am the chair of the Marshall Aid Commemoration Commission—the MACC. The MACC was founded by statute in 1953 and has responsibility for overseeing the delivery of the Marshall Programme, which every year now takes around 50 of the best Marshall graduate scholars and places them in UK universities here for two years of study. That is normally in the form of two master’s degrees; sometimes it extends to a PhD degree as well. The scholars come from a very wide range of backgrounds and universities in the US and similarly go to a wide range of universities here. I will be confining my comments to the contributions that the MACC and the programme make to UK-US relations.
Jamie Arrowsmith: Thank you, Lord De Mauley and members of the committee, and thank you for accommodating my appearance virtually. I am director of Universities UK International. We are part of the representative body of 141 UK universities. Within the team that I lead, we exist to support our member universities to develop and deliver their international strategies really to maximise the benefits that internationalisation and international collaboration bring to our universities, but also to communities across the UK and our country as a whole. That obviously includes student recruitment, but also research and innovation collaboration.
That international dimension really is fundamental to the UK’s universities in both education and research. Around two-thirds of all the research that is produced in the UK is done with an international partner or co-author. That just gives the scale of the international engagements that we have. That has huge economic benefits, but—as one of the previous witnesses just said—there are soft power and strategic benefits from that as well. Of course, within that, the US has long been one of the most frequent and important partners for the UK, particularly in research, which is where I will focus most of my input.
Q133 The Chair: Let me kick off with the first couple of questions. The first one is really aimed at Mr Arrowsmith and Mr Raine and the second one to Mr Raine particularly.
In the context of academia, perhaps you can explain a bit about how the UK benefits from close collaboration with the US. What do we offer the US, and how essential is the US to our academic and university research sector? The second one for Mr Raine particularly is: how do Marshall scholarships support broader UK-US academic collaboration, and how do they strengthen research connections?
Jamie Arrowsmith: The general point is that international collaboration is essential to the UK’s universities and to our academic sector. We excel in terms of quality of research, researchers and institutions, but we do not necessarily have the scale. The UK alone cannot address truly profound global challenges or have developed strategic autonomy in many critical areas. That is why so much of our work is with an international partner.
As I say, we have exceptional researchers and institutions. It is in that context—where collaboration is really critical for the UK’s ambitions in research, innovation, prosperity and security—that the US has long been one of our top partners. It is a global leader and a partner of choice for many UK universities. As a research ecosystem, the US invests as much—if not more—than anyone else, has the largest economy, publishes around a third of all the most highly cited research globally, and has the most universities in the top 100. The UK benefits from being a close, frequent and really deep collaborator with a research partner that does not have just immense quality but also has huge scale.
What the UK brings to that partnership is the quality of our researchers and institutions, the expertise we have, but also this capacity in important areas, historic datasets and complementary research infrastructures. Just as evidence for the quality point, per capita the UK actually outperforms the US on a number of measures—for example, the proportion of most highly cited articles. We have a really high-quality system.
The UK-US relationship is really important to the UK’s ambitions. It is a really deep and long-standing relationship that is based around quality and impact but also the familiarity of our systems, whether that is language, the academic infrastructure or the legal and democratic underpinning. All those things contribute to the relationship. Just to give a sense of the scale of importance, around 16% of all UK research includes a US partner, if we are looking just at research outputs. That is more than a quarter of a million publications over a five-year period.
But is not a one-way relationship. As I say, we add in terms of that quality and expertise but also financially. UK Research and Innovation has invested around £3 billion in partnerships with the US and Canada over an eight to 10-year period. That is just an overview of why the relationship matters.
John Raine: The Marshall Programme has been very successful since 1953 in attracting the very top talent from the US. First, it brings an annual injection of the graduating talent from the US. There are roughly 4 million graduates a year in the US, and we are lucky enough to be able to attract the very best of those, albeit in a small number, and they go directly into UK universities. On the basis of the current intake, about half of those are STEM-related, and a very large proportion of those will continue in a research role in UK universities. The initial benefit is we bring all that talent in as stimulus to UK universities across not just STEM subjects, but many other areas where research will be pursued in humanities and in policy, including in defence and security.
Secondly, the contribution continues to be made by the very large number of Marshall scholars who maintain active professional contact with the UK academic community. It may be in the form simply of the college and university they were at, but many more play a role at the national level. You have that through-career benefit.
Thirdly, quite a lot of them become increasingly involved in the fusion that is required to fund, promote and market research. It is a very exciting area, where scholars seek to acquire not just the academic credentials but also commercial and financial connections and knowledge, in order to make those vital ecosystems work. That is a very positive contribution that increasingly we find Marshall scholars make, for example, in life sciences and medicine.
Then there is another stage later on, where they make a direct contribution to research with payback. Marshall scholars are enormously generous, and many alumni have made very generous donations, not least the estate of Ray Dolby, which has founded the Dolby Centre. That is an £85 million-plus investment in Cambridge.
There are phases of benefits that we enjoy as a result of hosting Marshall scholars here. You can roughly put some figures on it, and they are quite high indeed if you group together all the philanthropic donations that they have made to financial institutions. I would note that the academic contributions that they make, through to participating in and leading research, are equally notable.
The Chair: I have just one quick supplementary. To what extent have you noticed a scaling back in funding from the US side already?
John Raine: As you are aware, Lord De Mauley, the programme is funded by the British Government, so our funding has been scaled back.[1] There is an element that is US, which comes through philanthropic donations from Marshall scholars, and that has not scaled back. If anything, it has become more generous.
The Chair: Mr Arrowsmith, that question about US funding is probably more relevant for you.
Jamie Arrowsmith: If we are just talking about the teaching side at the moment, on top of the scholars that Mr Raine has just outlined, the UK actually gets around 23,000 students from the US. Actually, we are quite a significant beneficiary of what I call the Title IV federal loans, which US students are allowed to take overseas. The last data we saw showed that over $200 million came into the UK. Although that portability element—the ability of US students to bring the money to the UK—remains, we understand there are going to be some quite significant cuts to that Title IV programme from 2026, particularly a programme called Grad PLUS, which lots of US students use to study in the UK. That could have an impact.
In terms of the wider environment of research funding, there have been a lot of changes or a lot of proposed changes within the US system. We may want to come on to this in more detail in a moment, but very significant cuts have been proposed for the main research funders. We have already seen at a project level some activities have been stopped by the research funders. Those kinds of things are already starting to have a bit of an impact in the UK.
Baroness Blackstone: As a former member of the board that you chair—I was on the scholarships commission some years ago—I absolutely endorse what you say about the quality of the candidates who come from the US to do largely master’s degrees here. However, there is a very strange anomaly, and I wonder whether you do not think that this should be rectified. In my view, there is not much of a case for allowing these students to do two master’s degrees. No UK student is funded from taxpayers’ funding for two master’s degrees; it would not be allowed. Why do we allow American students to do this, just because it happens that master’s degrees in the US are two years?
Surely it would be better to double the number of students coming here, because there are plenty of them who are capable of benefiting from the scheme, and thereby give more American students the experience of studying in a good UK university. If you do not want to double the numbers, you could somewhat increase them and put some more funding, which you would save from not giving them two-year programmes, into PhD programmes. They would have much more involvement in research there than the master’s degrees they do, which are 90% teaching courses.
John Raine: Thank you, Baroness Blackstone, for your time on the commission as well. As you can imagine, we look at this very frequently because the purpose of the scholarship funding is twofold: it is to develop the relationships between individual scholars in the UK and to further their studies. We found that the scholars who are applying still respond very positively to the opportunity to do two one-year master’s, but a number of them want to convert it into more sustained study. We have built more flexibility into the scheme for them to be able to pursue longer courses. We have PhD students as well, whom we will fund to give more consistency to their study here.
Baroness Blackstone: Can I just come back to this very briefly? Of course it is fine with PhD students, as they are going to take longer anyway, but it is an unbelievable luxury to allow the American students who are doing master’s courses, just because they would like it, to do two programmes. They are denying more US students the opportunity to come to the UK to benefit from a master’s programme, by them actually taking two courses.
John Raine: First, on the scale of the scholarship scheme, which has grown significantly from 12 to 50 but over 70 years, we have tried to maintain it as an elite scheme. I use that in the most positive sense, in that it remains a highly competitive scheme for scholars to apply to. We have increased the number of opportunities for scholars when they are here to study in other universities—
Baroness Blackstone: It is not right.
John Raine: If they wish, they can study longer courses. There was a meeting yesterday of our education committee, and we are continuing to look at how we get the best return on scholars’ time here against those two objectives. At the moment, we are still offering the majority a two-year master’s.[2]
Q134 Lord Darroch of Kew: First, I am going to just say that I agree with everything you have been saying about two master’s degrees. But each year while I was in Washington, I saw the outgoing group of Marshall scholars, and they were always extremely impressive. The breadth of universities they now come from across the United States has grown wider and wider, which is thanks to the efforts of you and your predecessors, John. I also remember hosting events for former Marshall scholars around America and in Washington, and people would come from the west coast to events and reunions in Washington. We were always getting payback from individuals. Help went beyond what you would expect because of the bond that the Marshall scholarships had created. It is an extremely impressive and important programme, and good luck with taking it forward.
I have two questions linked to the Chair’s point about cuts in federal funding for research, and they are for John and Jamie. First, apart from cuts to research funding, there have also been new visa restrictions introduced by the Trump Administration. Basically, it has taken a sledgehammer to funding and made it much more difficult for people to travel backwards and forwards. How much is this affecting UK-US collaborative partnerships? How much does it affect the Marshall scholars’ scheme? In particular, is it leading to the cancellation of or scaling back of really important UK-US research projects at UK universities yet, or does it look likely to in the future?
John Raine: I might let Jamie take the question about travel to the US. Just from the point of view of the impact on Marshall scholars, the principal impact that we are noticing of changed policies in the US is where there have been closures of courses in the US, which scholars now choose to pursue in the UK. These are not large numbers so far, but in particular areas scholars may be choosing to study here rather than in the US and perhaps taking a longer-term view of where they want to pursue their study. Here might be easier for them in the long term than in the US. In terms of travel and visa regimes, scholars coming to the UK are more sensitive about UK visa regimes than the US regime.
Jamie Arrowsmith: One of the first points I would make is that the volume and frequency of announcements, orders and policy changes have been very difficult to keep track of, both for UK institutions and for colleagues in the US. One reflection when I was in Washington DC was that not every announcement leads to a policy change, but not every policy change is announced. If you add the legal challenges to many of these proposed changes, it makes for a really difficult operating environment. It is difficult for universities and researchers to navigate, and it is difficult for students to understand what the rules might be. As I say, that affects researchers and those working in US institutions but also partners in the UK.
If there is one thing we know in research, it is that universities and research really want stability. In fact, we saw with our own experience in Horizon Europe that, when there was a bit of uncertainty about our association, participation in the collaborative pillars really began to fall. When you have that level of uncertainty, it really starts to impact decision-making.
We can probably group the kinds of developments we have seen into three categories. First, there are the changes of priorities within the US Government and research funders. Research is being focused far more narrowly. That has a significant impact potentially, as whole fields of research may become ineligible for funding, probably the most notable being climate or areas of health and life sciences.
Secondly, there is the politicisation of research and the perceptions of political interference with funding, with delivery organisations like the research funders, but also many of our partners. Everyone has seen the ongoing legal challenges with Harvard, for example. In that politicisation space, we have seen surveys that were sent to researchers around the world working on US-funded projects, asking a series of questions about the focus. These caused a degree of concern because it was unclear what the purpose of the exercise was.
There have been letters sent from the US Department of Education to institutions in the US but also overseas—including to UK universities—in effect, warning that EDI policies would not be allowed. There have been direct challenges to the autonomy and independence of research funders as well. There was an executive order in August that suggests there will, in effect, be political appointments in research funding bodies, which will have far more say over research funding decisions. Those kinds of developments have the potential to have a bit of a chilling effect on collaboration. They create concern and certainly uncertainty.
Thirdly, of course, there are the things that have already been mentioned. There are the actual cuts to funding that have already occurred, at project funder and proposed at the system level. We very quickly saw cuts to USAID and stop-work orders were issued almost immediately on some projects. There have been restrictions placed on overseas recipients, including UK universities, from some funders. More broadly, there are some very significant budget cuts being proposed to the National Science Foundation and National Institutes of Health. Those would profoundly change the scale and focus of the US research ecosystem, although I understand those cuts have not actually gone through yet, and there has been a challenge both from the Senate and the House on that.
There is a range of issues, some of which have a pretty direct and immediate impact, such as funding cuts and reprioritisation, where projects have already stopped, and others that are a little more indirect and shape that wider environment and the perceptions of the US as a partner.
Lord Robertson of Port Ellen: Can I declare the interest that I am a senior counsellor with the Washington-based The Cohen Group? I am also the chancellor of the University of Dundee, so I suppose I have an interest in this. Mr Arrowsmith, you mentioned the politicisation of research in the United States and the implications there. Is this something that is confined to America? Are we beginning to see an increasing isolationism and politicisation from other countries, or is this something that is now basically confined to the impact on American research projects?
Jamie Arrowsmith: That is a really important and pertinent question. My answer would be both yes and no. In terms of that shift towards protectionism and that shift in research being more explicitly focused on strategic priorities of competitive advantage, there are signs that that is more of a global trend, and this is one symptom of that. In fact, there was a report a couple of years ago called The China Question, which actually highlighted that China has long taken that more strategic and directive approach to research funding and partnerships than the UK has.
It is somewhat a live debate at the European level at the moment, with the next framework programme, Framework Programme 10, and the European Competitiveness Fund. In fact, we heard just last week from the chief executive of UK Research and Innovation that, while blue-sky research is absolutely critical to the UK and to global science, we need to do more to ensure that our research is contributing to growth and prosperity and so on. Some changes in prioritisation within the research funders are part of that trend.
Where it is a little different, and certainly from a UK perspective, is the explicit politicisation of research-performing organisations and funding decisions and, as we have already touched upon, the potential removal of whole areas of research, for example, in some parts of the life sciences and in climate.
Lord Robertson of Port Ellen: Would you distinguish between policies designed for competitive advantage, which it would appear you are suggesting exist in most countries and maybe even in ours, and the particular prejudice against the other aspects that are now attracting attention in the United States?
Jamie Arrowsmith: Yes, I would, particularly in comparison to the UK system.
Lord Robertson of Port Ellen: I do not understand the answer, sorry. You are distinguishing between countries like ours and the European Union, which might be basing their policies on competitive advantage, and the politicisation and EDI focus of the United States.
Jamie Arrowsmith: Yes, there is a qualitative difference there. As I say, just reflecting on one of the other developments I mentioned—the letters from the Department of Education in the US around EDI policies—that is a different trend that we certainly have seen. It is distinct from the more strategic focusing of research and research prioritisation for competitive advantage.
Q135 Lord Houghton of Richmond: I have a question still on the research and collaboration with universities angle, and a more general one, for which can I demand of you that you either double down on your conviction or show some humility in your answer? In many ways, the committee wants to try to differentiate: do we have a special relationship with America, or is it a relationship with some special features? If that is the case, is research and collaboration a special feature, truly, and to what extent do you think it can survive the blip of some of Trump’s reforms? Is it also under threat from some wider-changing social attitudes among the American people? It may be that you differ in your answers. I am first going to ask Jamie Arrowsmith and then come to you, John.
Jamie Arrowsmith: It is a very, very important relationship for UK universities and for UK research. Trying to predict the future direction of travel is incredibly difficult, when we are struggling to understand the present in some ways. While there are legitimate concerns that have been raised about some things that we have already mentioned—I would not wish to minimise or downplay them—I would reflect that universities and researchers navigate complex relationships globally every day. They are experienced in working in countries and with partners where there may be political and security challenges. It is important to put it in that context.
It is possible that the relationship may need to adapt in some ways. We may need to look at different ways of working and maybe look at our potential collaborations through the lenses of uncertainty and risk, in a way that has not been necessary in the past. Again, it is likely that there would be a realignment of priorities, certainly on the US side, and that that will obviously orientate the scope and the focus of UK and US collaborations.
Ultimately, there is a real interest and need for the UK to have a constructive and deep relationship with the US and US science and research. That relationship will continue. Again, the scale and the quality of the research is there. We might just have to have this more explicit consideration of the risks and challenges. Some things that we maybe have taken for granted—it has always been very easy to work with the US—we might just have to ask a few more questions about. Ultimately, it is absolutely in the UK’s interest to ensure that we have a continuing strong relationship in science and research with the US.
Lord Houghton of Richmond: So it is special.
Jamie Arrowsmith: Yes.
John Raine: I think it is special too. I might be bound to say that, as chair of the MACC. There are a number of things that make it special. I say special, but not exclusive; we all have other very productive partnerships. First, the specialness resides in something to do with standards. The global rankings of universities are dominated still by UK and US universities. For the scholars we see coming over, what is very important for them is that they can move easily to centres of excellence, which the UK provides. It is easy in that—perhaps this brings me to the second point—shared language and educational culture is sufficient for many to opt automatically to look to a UK university, certainly for master’s and for PhDs. But then when I look at the number of Marshall scholars who stay within the UK community—academic or more broadly—it is quite striking. Even more move in and out of it during the course of a career. The porousness and the similarity of the cultures make it special.
Thirdly, there is a complementarity too. There are areas of excellence and study, which ambitious scholars in the US want and need for their professional reasons to access, and they can do that here. Conversely, they often take back to the US what they have learned here, in pursuit of things that the US can provide that we cannot. It is a fit. It feels very special to me.
If I may just flag what I was saying earlier, the area in which collaboration is both natural across the Atlantic and quite exciting is in the development of research from academia to commerciality, and the involvement of finance and non-academic skills into these really important ecosystems that widen the benefits for the science and grow economies. There is a lot of common ground and common expertise between the US and UK.
The Chair: Can I just ask a supplementary on that? Going to this question of whether we have a special relationship, is how do we compare with other countries in terms of the relationship with the US—India or Germany, for instance? Do we have more exchange of students, or are some other countries on a par with us or ahead of us, perhaps, in terms of numbers of students? I do not know how one would compare.
John Raine: That might be Jamie. I am not sighted on other countries.
Jamie Arrowsmith: As I have said, we host around 23,000 US students in the UK. That is a really positive thing. As I touched on, around one in eight of all our research outputs are in collaboration with a US partner. It is really important. I would say that the US is the number one or number two research partner for most countries in the world. Again, that is the scale and quality point that we have there.
I am going to say it is not just a one-way relationship. It is something that the UK has invested heavily in as well, through research funding, for example. It is really strong. Going back to one of the points that Mr Raine mentioned, it is around that quality as well. The research that we produce, for example, is very high quality and very high impact. It is quality at scale, and that gives it something special, certainly from the UK’s perspective.
The Chair: Do you have a feel for the German-US equivalent or the Indian-US equivalent?
Jamie Arrowsmith: Not particularly, no.
Q136 Baroness Blackstone: I suspect that Jamie Arrowsmith will agree that these other countries have a smaller relationship than the UK with US universities and US research more generally. I want to just ask for a slightly more specific response to what you talked about earlier, regarding the difficulty of the operating environment and perhaps a need for more explicit consideration of the risks and challenges. Has Universities UK been working with the Government to try to get across to the US Government the problems that are posed by denying visas, for example, to students who have already been offered places in US universities, or for that matter—even more importantly—to researchers who are taking part in collaborations in the US?
Lastly, is anything being done to ensure that UK investment—largely by universities but possibly in some cases by companies or government funds of one kind or another—are properly protected in the US in this very difficult operating environment, where nobody knows what is going to happen from one day to the next as far as cutting funding for US research by the federal Government?
Jamie Arrowsmith: I am not sure if I can answer on protecting investments, particularly from the business side. As a representative body and a charity, we do not have direct engagement with the US Government, but we have had a very active dialogue with colleagues in UK Research and Innovation and in UK government departments. It has really been about just trying to share insights and intelligence about what we are seeing, trying to understand from our membership some challenges that they have been seeing, and feeding those into the UK Government so that they can use that.
One mitigation that has been put in place to try to help institutions and researchers has been that UK Research and Innovation has worked very closely with the sector and with grant recipients, for example, to give extra flexibility. If you are working on a collaborative grant, and that is either being paused or there is some uncertainty over the funding, within the bounds of what it is able to do, it is trying to give as much flexibility for the UK partner as possible, so it can try to manage or mitigate those changes that it may be seeing and some of the issues.
The final point is that what we have seen is, again, this is not just a one-way street. We are aware of multilateral projects that involved a US partner where, ultimately and somewhat reluctantly, the collaboration has had to decide to remove the US partner because it could not secure the funding and the programmes were running to a certain time, and it, in effect, established a different consortium. There is a range of things that universities and researchers do to try to manage that risk and uncertainty. They are being supported very well at the moment through UK Research and Innovation. We certainly have that dialogue as well.
Baroness Blackstone: Before Baroness Crawley comes in, can I just apologise to the witnesses that I am going to have to leave in a moment? Not because I am anything other than really interested in this, but I have amendments down in the Bill that is now on the Floor in the Chamber. I am sorry.
Q137 Baroness Crawley: My questions are to Simon Mellor. You said at the beginning of our session that the US, France and Germany represent the biggest interlocutors with UK arts bodies. My question is how important is the UK-US cultural partnership at the moment? Can you provide any examples of where this partnership has been successful? What problems do you see in the future for the cultural partnership?
Simon Mellor: I think I caught all those questions. You are right, I said that the US is a very, very important marketplace for British talent that we are directly involved with. The organisations that we provide regular funding for bring in between £60 million and £70 million a year of income from abroad. More than a third of that comes from North America, predominantly the USA. On the other side, we work with the Home Office to issue about 350 visas every year to US artists. It is a very important exchange between the two countries. That exchange is of very long standing. You could argue that every single art form in this country, but I would point to music and literature especially, has been heavily influenced by more than 150 years of cultural dialogue between our two countries.
The USA is the largest anglophone market in the world, with an incredible array of artists, innovators, venues, producers and opportunities reaching audiences. Viewers and readers in America can and do transform artistic careers in this country. The interplay of artistic influence between our two countries has been essential in what is a shared cultural history. If you think about the way that the US market has changed the profile of artists, from Charles Dickens through to the Rolling Stones, The Beatles, and Adele, breaking in the US was incredibly important for the way those artists’ careers developed. The Royal Shakespeare Company did its first tour in the US in 1913. It took close to a dozen productions at that time and has been touring ever since. The National Theatre has been touring in the US from the 1960s. It is a very important arena for the organisations that we work with.
It is worth thinking about it with three different lenses to try to get into some detail of it. First, there is the partnership around co-production and transfers, by which I mean the joint investment in making new work or remounting work in the USA. Secondly, there is the touring and exchange. Thirdly, there is fundraising. If I may, I will talk a little about each of those and give you what are some good success stories that you were looking for, Baroness Crawley.
I will start with transfers and coproduction. You will know that Broadway has traditionally been a source of really significant income and status for our theatre-makers. A Broadway transfer can result in significant income streams as well as open up new opportunities for our talent, not just in theatre but in film and TV. Alongside that, US partners have been and continue to be an important source of co-producing income. In opera, the Metropolitan and the English National Opera have a history of coproduction, which enables the companies to share costs, resources and artistic visions, allowing for the staging of large-scale international productions at both opera houses.
I will give you an example of a production I worked on when I worked at the Manchester International Festival before I joined the Arts Council. We worked with the Park Avenue Armory in New York to commission a new work from the visual artist Olafur Eliasson, the musician Jamie xx and the choreographer Wayne McGregor. That co-funding enabled that show not just to open in Manchester but then to go on and tour around the world. That relationship is unbelievably important. A lot of work that audiences see in this country would not happen without that partnership.
On touring and exchange, there is obviously an overlap here with transfers and co-productions, but as I said, our orchestras, ballet companies and theatre companies tour frequently. I have talked about the Royal Shakespeare Company and the National Theatre, but also the London Symphony Orchestra, the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and Birmingham Royal Ballet all tour regularly to the USA. This is not just about live performance. An interesting example of success in this area is the National Theatre: it has been incredibly successful in establishing a digital presence in the USA. Last year it had 4.6 million digital engagements in the US with its content and broadcast into 200 cinemas across 50 states. That is an incredible sign of the penetration of the National Theatre into the US cultural scene. That transatlantic collaboration also helps our museums: the exchange and sharing of objects allows the mounting of major shows for the public both in this country and the USA.
Lastly, on fundraising, that extensive and sustained presence of our companies and organisations in the USA has led to a very effective network of fundraising. The National Theatre, for instance, has raised over $40 million in the USA since 2005, and its fundraising in the USA has been growing faster than in this country. The National Gallery raised $23 million in the USA in 2024 alone.
Again, a very good success story in this area is the partnership between the National Portrait Gallery and the Getty Museum in the USA to raise money jointly to purchase Sir Joshua Reynolds’ spectacular “Portrait of Mai”. For those of you who are not aware of it, this painting holds an absolutely pivotal place in global art history, depicting the first Polynesian to visit Britain, and is widely regarded as the finest portrait by one of Britain’s greatest artists. That partnership between the National Portrait Gallery and the Getty allowed that painting to be purchased and brought into public ownership. That painting has therefore toured and been presented in this country and the USA.
There are just some examples there of the detail of that collaboration and how important it is. Baroness Crawley, you asked about the risks and threats. We are seeing some issues there, and I do not know how much detail you would like me to go into now. Would you like me to get into that detail at this point?
Baroness Crawley: Well, there is a question coming up for you that will go into some detail on that. For instance, looking to the future, do you see that UK productions and concerts will have to be more mainstream than progressive or created from new writing, for instance, because of the influence that President Trump’s particular views has on US funders?
Simon Mellor: It is going to be increasingly difficult for many of the companies that we invest in to take some work that they are creating into the USA. It is quite a complicated mix of different issues. There is the EDI issue that we have already talked about, there are the issues around visas and there is the pressure on funding for universities, which are a very important touring circuit for our sector. There are future threats coming down the pipeline that we are worried about. Again, I can talk about those in some detail.
The general post-Covid rising costs have also been very significant in our sector. That is not down to the new Administration in the USA, but it affects freight and travel. The cost of mounting shows on Broadway is now between six and 10 times what it costs to mount a show in the West End. That has an impact, inevitably, on the ability of our talent to have their work presented. There are a number of complicated issues. I am very happy to go into some of that detail if you would like.
Q138 Lord Alderdice: I would like to pick up and take further some things that Baroness Crawley was picking up on, because the reason for this inquiry is not to assess how things have been in the past but to look—that is always a challenge—to the future, which is going to be a very different future. Globally it is going to be very different. You have spoken about the very close relationship with the United States culturally, historically, financially and so on, but it is quite clear that there is not going to be a single hegemon, and that the question of our relationship, for example, with China and India is going to be more important on many of these issues than it has been in the past. The President of the United States is making it quite clear that he wants us and other Europeans to take a very different line in the relationship with China and India from the one that we have been used to following.
I wonder if you could maybe think a little with us about the future as you see it, not just in terms of collaboration with the United States but the opportunity cost if we collaborate with the United States to the degree that it may wish, and therefore do not collaborate with others who do not see the world in the same way at all, and particularly in areas of culture more than even of technology. How you see the world is a really important question. In a way you have hinted that you are aware that there is a challenge there, but I wonder if you could say a little more not just about how important it is to collaborate culturally with the United States, but how there might be an opportunity cost in terms of collaboration with other cultures and countries, if we are identified too closely with collaboration with the United States. All three of you may have thoughts.
Simon Mellor: Yes, shall I try to answer that question? The first thing to just remind ourselves is that we tend to follow where our artists want to work. As I said, the importance of the anglophone market for a lot of our writers, musicians, et cetera cannot be underestimated. That is a key issue. Nevertheless, we know that in certain sectors, for instance, classical music or dance, a lot of the touring that I referred to—the importance of France and Germany and growing importance of China et cetera—is a recognition that there are certain aspects of our creativity and culture that are not language specific.
I do not have a sense that, when our companies work with French, German, or Chinese promoters, they are saying to them, “Well, we’re not comfortable because you’re touring this show to the United States as well”. We are not seeing any of that type of parochialism at this stage, which says, “You come to our country and nowhere else”. You might see them saying, “We’ll invest some additional money if you will do our country first”, for the prestige, but our sector is very used to that type of negotiation.
To be frank, I do not see it as an either/or choice. If the threats, risks and challenges around the partnership with the USA do not get resolved, they will have a very significant impact on the health of our sector in this country. We will struggle to replace that in other international markets.
Q139 Lord Bruce of Bennachie: Simon and Jamie, is there any sense that within America itself there is a reassessment of how it deals with this situation in the creative arts and research? Obviously, our American collaborators who might be on the same page will be looking for ways to get around what the Administration is doing and ensure that these linkages can continue. That was my main question.
Obviously, others have already pursued the other point in the meantime, which was that perhaps we need to be a bit more vigorous in looking for alternatives. It is really the first point that I would like you to answer, which was I wanted to know whether you are picking up a sense of that. I think it was Churchill who said, “England and America are two countries divided by a common language”. That seems more true today. Is there a sense of reassessment across what you might call liberal America, as to how it might get around some of this and whether we can work with it?
Simon Mellor: We are seeing a number of different things happening that are sometimes in contradiction with each other. We are seeing some US donors becoming very nervous around EDI issues in relation to organisations in this country. They are very nervous about being associated with organisations for which actually, as a matter of practice, EDI is part of the weft and weave of running the organisation. We are seeing some reluctance from donors. We are seeing some reluctance from some promoters. The Kennedy Center in Washington, which was an absolute flagship prestige venue, particularly for our large-scale ballet companies, is frankly closed now to many of our companies. They are not able to tour there currently, and that is a problem. As I said, we are also seeing financial and EDI pressures on some US universities impacting their ability to tour.
On the other hand, we are a stubborn lot in the arts, and we can be quite contrary. We are seeing some promoters go, “You know what? I’m going to bring this work over even if it is highly controversial, because I think that’s what the job of the arts is to do: it is to raise those difficult questions”. Lord Bruce, we are seeing a few examples of that. It is important to stress we are in the early months of this, so the patterns are not quite settling in, but I would say that at this point the trend feels more negative than hopeful. I am not saying it will not change, but at this point that is a worry.
Q140 Lord Darroch of Kew: I just have a very quick supplementary. I know the Kennedy Center well from my time there. Is it because under new leadership it does not want British companies going there anymore, or is it a self-censoring view on the part of British touring companies that this is not an appropriate place to go anymore?
Simon Mellor: Oh, no, it removed the entire dance programme team at the Kennedy Center. It was not interested. It did not want this type of work at the Kennedy Center any longer.
Q141 The Chair: Does either of you from the academic side want to make any observations on that point?
Jamie Arrowsmith: I am happy to just make a couple of points, if I may, Chair. First, there are, in effect, three centres of gravity for research and innovation globally: the US, China and the EU, where there is scale and quality. If you take the EU collectively, the EU, US and China are the UK’s three most frequent research collaborators; we have huge links with all three. It has to be in the UK’s national interest to be able to maintain and sustain those relationships.
Just on that point about engaging with colleagues and faculty in the US, I would highlight that a huge amount of the collaboration we actually already have with the US is informal. It takes place outside big funding programmes. If you look at the number of collaborative research outputs we have, they are actually far bigger than the direct funding that is available. They are relationships that are built over many years, and it is really important that we maintain and sustain those through this time, and our academic faculty will certainly be doing that.
Again, an analogy I will draw here is between 2020 and 2023, when the UK was not formally part of the Horizon Europe programme. It was really important that we maintain the dialogue with the academic faculty, even when the political relationship was a little more strained between the UK and the EU. That was really important, and actually it put us in a reasonably good position when that political relationship then moved on and we have been able to rejoin. That is an important example of how the relationships between academics and in academia are really important to sustain, particularly when there might be more political difficulties.
Q142 Baroness Fraser of Craigmaddie: I need to declare an interest, partly because of your comment, Mr Mellor, about the dance programme being removed from the Kennedy Center. I spent much of my working life with the English National Ballet and the Scottish Ballet, and I know that that is a tragedy. I am currently a board member of the British Library, and we have noted with interest the political interference, for example, the dismissal by the President of Carla Hayden, the Librarian of Congress. I currently also sit on the board of Creative Scotland, which includes, unlike the Arts Council, Screen Scotland. We are concerned about not only the visa constrictions that have been mentioned but the implications of tariffs on coproducing of film and production.
As has been said by a couple of my colleagues, what this inquiry is interested in is the longer term, and looking to the future, and really understanding whether we are in a blip or in a trend. My question really is to you, Mr Mellor. You alluded to this in saying that you could go further in Baroness Crawley’s question but, with the decisions that are coming at us at the moment with the current Administration, is this a blip, or are you seeing a longer-term shift affecting the future of UK-US cultural relations and arts partnerships? If so, what should we all in all our organisations be doing to counter this?
Simon Mellor: There are two ways of answering that question. The changes that are connected to the current Administration in Washington are producing quite profound consequences. Now, are those long-term changes, because they actually reflect changes in the US population and their views of their relationship with the UK, or is it a blip? I do not know the answer to that. What we know, though, is that many other Governments for a number of years have recognised that, if you are going to be serious about your soft power in relation to culture, you have to invest in it. You have to find ways of supporting it and getting into some international markets. It is about building long-term partnerships, but you need to pump-prime that often.
Now, traditionally, if you had asked me a year or two years ago, I would have said, “Well actually, the US-UK relationship is so strong that it probably doesn’t require a lot of attention”, but because of its importance historically and today financially for our sector, it needs our attention, and it needs the attention of the Government. There are a few things that we need to think about. First, the closure of the British Council office in Washington was a mistake. It is important that we have a cultural presence in the USA, providing advice and support to the industry, trying to correct some myths around visas. We think the changes to the visa regime have not been quite as profound as some people are suggesting, but there is a fear that has developed. We need that [provision of advice].
Secondly, we should be considering that the previous Government introduced a very effective tax credit scheme to support touring in the UK and Europe. Why do we not extend that to the USA and ideally the rest of the world? We need to find some way of supporting and incentivising touring. We have for a number of years been investing in showcasing opportunities. They are quite low-cost opportunities for us to get talent in the right marketplaces early on; we should be investing more in that.
Lastly, we need to go back to this question of the importance of US donors. We do not do enough compared to other countries to celebrate and thank those donors. There should be some system by which we are formally thanking and making a fuss of them, because actually that makes a big difference to them. In the current situation where, as I said, because of EDI and things they are a bit nervous about whether to keep supporting our companies, if we could be front foot and say, “What can we do to celebrate them, to thank them?” That will make a difference.
John Raine: I very much agree with what Simon has said. In my view, the short answer to how we ensure that in future the relationship remains special is that we invest in the next generation. That has been the principle, certainly, of the Marshall Programme since 1953. If we want to create the best possible perception of the UK and good will towards the UK in the future leaders who will take these decisions, I would say to invest now in those people who are most likely to be those leaders. I am sorry for making what might sound like a rather partisan plea, but the number of Marshall scholars who have gone on to be leading figures and opinion-makers is extraordinary. We are getting something right, and we should continue to invest in that particular programme.
Jamie Arrowsmith: As Mr Mellor was touching on, arts, education, people-to-people links, and research are things that grease the wheels of soft power. The reflection on the US relationship is that this has all happened quite organically in the past because of the extent of the links that we have. As my colleagues have just said, it is likely that we have to work a little more strategically and think about what we actually want from the relationship and then invest in that.
If there is probably one lesson from the tariff policy, it is that President Trump’s Administration definitely has a more transactional view of international relations and international relationships. We need to be willing not to try to just trade on the good will, historic links, and relationships we have but to be more strategic and probably a bit more hard-nosed about what we want from that relationship as the UK and what we are bringing to the table. Some of that will be things that we have already touched on—our quality institutions, our researchers, and the arts sector—some might be investments and funding as well: what is the financial investment that the UK is willing to make in that relationship? We do a lot already and have done historically, but we may need to bring some of that to the fore.
Lord Soames of Fletching: I am sorry for my ignorance; I did not realise that the British Council office had been closed in Washington. When did that happen, and how many British Council offices remain in America?
Simon Mellor: I am pretty sure that there is virtually no British Council presence now in the USA. I think it was in 2021 that the British Council office closed, as a result of some changes it has had to make. I do not want to speak on behalf of the British Council, but you are probably aware that it has had some financial pressures because of the loan it took out. It has had an impact on its presence in the USA and North America.
Lord Robertson of Port Ellen: It has no offices in the United States.
Q143 Baroness Coussins: When we come up with our report and recommendations at the end of this inquiry, it will all be directed towards the UK Government. You have already given quite a lot of the answers to the question I am about to ask anyway, but you may wish to add something, Mr Mellor. Do you think the UK Government are doing enough to safeguard and promote UK-US arts and cultural collaboration? What would you like to see the Government do more, better, or differently? You have already touched on visas, tax credits, thanking US donors and, of course, there is the issue of the British Council, but is there anything else that you would like to add to that list?
Simon Mellor: Well, I would give them credit for their Greater Together campaign that they started earlier this year, which is a specific UK-US partnership. I hope it will be a success. I know a number of the organisations we work with—the Royal Shakespeare Company[3], for instance—are involved in that. I would want to give them some credit for that. The new music growth package that they are putting together has recognised the importance of export, and we are very pleased about that.
As I said, they could be focusing on a number of issues. In relation to their communications with the Administration in the USA, I would say that there are two looming risks that we are very nervous about. First, at the moment, exports of works of art are tariff-free into the USA. The US art market is the largest art market in the world, but our art market here is very codependent with it. If tariffs get introduced in that area, it would be a real blow to our market.
Secondly, I have talked a number of times about fundraising in the USA and these networks. There is a particular charitable law in the States that enables organisations to raise funds in the USA and bring them back into the UK.[4] There are rumours going around that that is going to be looked at by the US Administration, and I would really hope to see our Government stepping in to try to make it clear what an impact that would have. The benefits of the presence of the organisations that we invest in in the USA are not one-way, they are two-way. If you look at the partnership that the Royal Shakespeare Company has with universities in the States and at the partnerships that the National Theatre has with schools across the USA, they are made possible by US donors supporting those companies. I really hope that we can communicate through the right channels the importance of that for US citizens, not just for us.
Q144 Baroness Fraser of Craigmaddie: I have a supplementary to that question. Mr Mellor, you are sitting here as a representative of the Arts Council of England, and I have already declared my interest as a board member of Creative Scotland. Museums, galleries, libraries and everything in the cultural sector is very fragmented. Should and could the UK Government be doing more—including talking to devolved Administrations and organisations—to convene an advocacy power? Some examples you have just highlighted are quite niche. I am wondering who the loudest voice is that is putting Britain’s cause forward. Who should it be, and who should lead the charge on some of these things? Are we collaborating enough to highlight these issues?
Simon Mellor: You will know, Baroness Fraser, that culture is a devolved responsibility. The Government in Westminster have to tread carefully. There is a shared interest across the UK in a really effective soft power initiative that properly brings together all the different arts councils and the different universities that have a shared interest in that. My view is it needs to take a long-term approach that recognises that it will be delivered most effectively by partnerships over many years.
One of the problems we have is that this does not work very neatly with the cycles of Governments. We need to be able to sustain this work beyond the term of a particular Government, and we need to get a broad commitment to the importance of culture in this soft power work. My focus is on culture, but probably the three witnesses share that sense of the role we can play in a really effective soft power push. That soft power itself is going to be more important, weirdly, in this transactional world that some countries are going towards because, if played rightly, it can play directly into different communities in our countries that work slightly outside traditional government circles.
I hope that is helpful. As I said, I am nervous about—I do not think you are implying this—any attempt to recreate a single cultural body for the whole of the UK. That would not be a sensible thing, but there is an opportunity to bring us together around a really effective soft power initiative. There are some starts in that, but it needs to go further.
The Chair: Thank you all very much, Mr Mellor, Mr Raine and Mr Arrowsmith, for a very interesting discussion. As I said earlier, we will show you a copy of the transcript. Our session is now complete.
