Oral evidence: International Representation and Promotion of Wales by UK bodies, HC 337

Oral evidence, 26 June 2014.

Witnesses

Geraint Talfan Davies, Chair, Welsh National Opera, Iestyn Garlick, Chair, Teledwyr Annibynnol Cymru, and Dr Rowlands, Director, Wales Literature Exchange, gave evidence.

Chair

Dr Rowlands, Mr Garlick and Mr Talfan Davies, bore da. Diolch yn fawr am ddod yma heddiw. There are not any translation facilities, so I am afraid we will be doing this in English.

Guto Bebb

I have to apologise to the panel, as I will have to leave at half-past 10. That is why I asked to jump in. I was also quite intrigued because the first question is so open-ended that I thought I would ask it. How would you define Welsh culture and how well known is it internationally? If that won’t keep you going for half an hour, I don’t know what will. Is anyone willing to charge in to that very wide question?

Dr Rowlands

Well, that is a very good question.

Guto Bebb

Not mine.

Dr Rowlands

From a literature perspective, the most productive dimension to Welsh culture is the bilingual aspect, because when you are engaging with communities worldwide, it is useful to remember that the most common situation of communities around the world is multilingualism. It is very rare to come across monolingual communities. If you are looking at India, South America, Africa, wherever—even continental Europe—it is very rare for people to speak less than two or three languages. That is the key productive dimension; I can elaborate.

Chair

No, no, that’s great; we like short answers to questions.

Iestyn Garlick

It is very difficult to sum up in a few words what culture is, but it is naturally based on your history and literature; then of course it is the languages of Wales, as has just been mentioned. We live in a bilingual society, and that is really our culture. There are the clichés of the miners, the rugby and the singing, and that is all part of it. In the end, what TAC does—or what TAC members do—is reflect that culture.

Geraint Talfan Davies

In many ways, it is whatever you want it to mean in the context of whatever debate you are having. At one level, it’s the aggregate of everything that we do—the culture of a country could even include science. But if you’re talking about, say, promoting arts and culture—as your Committee is looking at the promotion of arts and culture outside Wales—you can narrow it in different ways. If you look at one side of things, there is landscape, castles—all that is immovable; it is there. That is what Wales is. A lot of our arts activity is something that is mobile. It is something that you can move around the globe and interact with other people. So I think a lot depends on the context of your particular inquiry. If you are looking at the impact of arts and cultural activity on how Wales is defined in the world and how we define its distinctiveness—its distinctive appeal to draw people towards us—then you may be talking about a slightly narrower concept.

Guto Bebb

There is a second part to the question, which is whether it is known internationally. My own experience is that the answer is: not particularly. Are there any areas where we are known internationally in terms of our culture? In relation to literature, for example, I was reading on Sunday that less than 5% of all books sold in the UK have been translated from other languages, which is the lowest percentage of any country in Europe. So what percentage of Welsh literature is translated into other languages? Are there any success stories that we should be aware of that have highlighted Welsh culture on an international stage?

Dr Rowlands

You have some of the evidence here. We have translations into Chinese, which I can pass around. We have translations into Arabic of Cynan Jones. An Argentinean publisher has published Deborah Kay Davies in Spanish. There is Owen Martell in Paris, with his Intermède, and Angharad Price in Bengali, published in Kolkata.

Chair

Will all due respect, Dr Rowlands, that is wonderful news, but how many of those were published for commercial reasons and how many for cultural reasons? To what extent was the publishing paid for and supported by Welsh taxpayers?

Dr Rowlands

Could you give me the end of your question again?

Chair

The angle is this. It’s great to see these Welsh works published in other languages, but to what extent was the decision to do that taken for commercial reasons in the country where they are being sold? To what extent was it decided to support the publishing of Welsh literature in other languages by organisations in Wales?

Dr Rowlands

I think it is important to remember that Welsh books can have a much larger readership abroad by being translated. For example, if you think of William Owen Roberts, a Welsh language writer, the translation of Y Pla or Pestilence sold more than 20,000 copies in German—6,000 in hardback and more than 16,000 in paperback. That is a really significant figure for a Welsh language writer, whose readership is obviously limited by the number of Welsh speakers. When it comes to considering this interplay between the commercial and the noble endeavour dimension, it is important to remember that when it comes to publishing world literature in translation, the translation costs are on top of all other normal publishing costs. When you have an organisation such as Wales Literature Exchange, which supports the translation of literature from Wales abroad, what we support is a percentage of the translation costs, not the publication costs—nothing else. Look at what other countries are doing. For example, Finland invests over €600,000 in the translation of their literature.

Guto Bebb

I don’t want to be negative on this point, but I used to have a book shop and we sold copies of Y Pla in German. I think it was Der Schwarze Tod—I can’t pronounce it; I’m not a linguist. We did sell a copy in German, which I thought was quite interesting—this is going back almost 15 or 20 years. Have there been any similar successes since then, in terms of sales?

Dr Rowlands

Yes. If we’re looking at Y Pla, William Owen Roberts work has gone on to be translated into French. It has been published in the US. It has been published in Macedonian, Romanian, Hungarian and Italian. It really is a snowball effect.

Jonathan Edwards

You mentioned Finland. What is the comparison, in terms of translation costs, between Wales and other countries? Are we spending more or less on translation?

Dr Rowlands

I was in a meeting in Brussels just two weeks ago, where we were publishing the findings of a report, which was looking at how different countries are promoting their literatures internationally and comparing their budgets and investments. It was a very embarrassing moment, because Wales is investing £10,000 a year, when one translation can cost more than £10,000, whereas among the other countries—I have a list here—the Netherlands spend over €700,000 just on translation grants, Estonia, which is perhaps more comparable, spends over €100,000, the Catalans spent €298,000 last year and the Slovaks €93,000, while the Icelandic translation fund is over €100,000. It is an embarrassment.

Guto Bebb

Literature is interesting, but what about the success in selling television?

Iestyn Garlick

I assume you’re talking specifically about selling an actual programme rather than a format.

Guto Bebb

Or a format.

Iestyn Garlick

Well, formats are being sold. It is not a huge amount, but people are making headway. The obvious things that should be looked at—of course, years ago SuperTed did very nicely, thank you.

Guto Bebb

That is going back 30 years.

Iestyn Garlick

It is going back 30 years, but it’s still there. There are various other cartoons that have been sold to al-Jazeera—I think Meees and various other things are making money for companies, but it is not vast. It is not huge. Although people might point to Doctor Who because it is made in Cardiff, it is not particularly Welsh.

Chair

Did you just say SuperTed was being sold to al-Jazeera?

Iestyn Garlick

No, I said Meees was being sold to al-Jazeera. Correct that please, Chair. A company has recently sold a series called Fferm Ffactor to China. These things are happening because the companies themselves are going to markets and selling them. Another person on the TAC council is more qualified than I am to talk about this, but he is not here today because he is in La Rochelle at the Sunny Side of the Doc festival, selling his programmes and formats. It is happening, but it is not huge.

Guto Bebb

In terms of opera, with the obvious exception of Bryn Terfel being a world renowned name, do we have any success stories?

Geraint Talfan Davies

I think that the contribution of Wales to the world of opera is completely disproportionate to its size. Wales has 3 million people. It is the same population as the city of Birmingham. Look at the roll call of people who have become major international stars in the world of opera: Sir Geraint Evans, Dame Margaret Price, Dame Gwyneth Jones, Dame Anne Evans, Bryn Terfel, Dennis O’Neill, Rebecca Evans, Stuart Burrows—you can go on for ever. It is a much more consistent factory of exceptional talent than the factory of Welsh fly-halves, dare I say.

Guto Bebb

Are they recognised as Welsh? Does that highlight Welsh culture when they are successful?

Geraint Talfan Davies

Absolutely it does. The interesting thing about Welsh National Opera is that we have to remember, in some ways, the paucity of opera provision within the UK. There are only four cities in the UK with full-scale opera companies: London, Cardiff, Leeds and Glasgow. If you went to Germany, you would find a major opera company in almost every city, but here there are only four. We are fantastically fortunate that the Welsh capital is one of those cities. Two years ago we launched the American Friends of WNO in New York. We had a big turnout. I have to say that, quite deliberately, we did not concentrate on the Welsh diaspora. We concentrated on opera backers. We did not have George Soros, but we had his brother there. We have had excellent relations with the States. We have just put on an opera by Gordon Getty. The Getty family made a major contribution to a strand of contemporary opera that we are currently running over a period of years—a major gift of $2 million. Last December we became the first British opera company to perform at the Royal Opera House in Muscat in Oman. Next month we are performing at the Savonlinna Opera Festival in Finland. A couple of years ago we were at the Hong Kong Arts Festival performing La Bohème. There is real recognition in the world. The world of opera is a very international business. We have in WNO an outfit that is unquestionably recognised as world class. You could put a WNO production before any audience anywhere in the world, and that would be recognised.

Glyn Davies

I was going to come in on the Welsh National Opera issue later on. The only question I have is whether we are using it. I accept what you say about the status of the Welsh National Opera across the world. I particularly remember going to Japan on the back of a Welsh National Opera tour. It was the WDA then that organised two major receptions. Virtually everybody in Japan—all the business people—came to the reception. It seemed a magnificent way to promote Wales on the back of Welsh National Opera. Are those promoting economic development and business using Welsh National Opera as a promotional vehicle as effectively as they might?

Geraint Talfan Davies

We have to recognise some realities. Shipping 200 people across the world to put on an opera is not a cheap business.

Glyn Davies

But if you were doing it anyway; if people knew you were doing it. That’s the point.

Geraint Talfan Davies

There are two issues here. It is difficult for people to do 100% funding of foreign touring of opera from this end. Increasingly, it is difficult to get people to give 100% funding from the other end, so people are looking for collaborations; but if those things are possible, we have to maximise the impact for Wales. I think I might actually have been on the visit you were referring to. When I was at the BBC, we went with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales to Tokyo in 1995. I remember coming back on the plane with the British ambassador, who said, “You might like to know that that is the biggest grouping of main board directors of top Japanese companies that I’ve ever seen in one room.” That’s the sort of thing we’ve got to aim at. If I was looking at a strategy for how to do this for Wales, we’d need long-term planning for really big hits. The BBC Orchestra visit was a really big hit in Tokyo. When I think back to when the WNO took a major production to New York in the late ’80s, everything came on the back of it. The Secretary of State, the WDA, Prince Charles, Princess Diana—you just couldn’t buy that publicity. The profile for that was absolutely huge, and you can get that sort of impact if you use a large-scale organisation like our own.

Chair

Glyn, did you want to ask any further questions on the Welsh National Opera?

Glyn Davies

No, I don’t think there is anything beyond that. We know how important the Welsh National Opera is; it is really an issue of how we use that to benefit inward investment and I think you pretty well covered all aspects of that in your answer.

Geraint Talfan Davies

We routinely give the Welsh Government details of any possible leads we have in terms of foreign visits. They are well aware of what we are doing. We had very good Welsh Government backing when we went to Oman. We have just done a three-year deal with Covent Garden to perform there this summer, next summer and in 2016. I know that the Welsh Government want to take advantage of that as a platform for entertaining people and so on.

Jonathan Edwards

Mr Garlick, you stated in your evidence that Wales needs to have a national conversation about its brand. What do you mean by that and, if you were in charge of creating the Welsh brand, what would be its key themes?

Iestyn Garlick

When we say we want a national conversation, we are not asking for something grandiose—some huge committee or something. It just needs to be one key player from the various bodies, be that UKTI, the British Council, the Welsh Assembly Government, naturally S4C and the BBC—when I say BBC, I mean BBC Wales—and I would imagine that TAC would also have a place on that. It needs joined-up thinking. That is what we do not have at the moment. What Geraint said about everyone going somewhere together is fantastic. At the moment we have a success with something like Hinterland, but it’s all a bit slapdash—it’s one production here, one production there. If we were all to sit round discussing and to say, “This is where we are going,” everyone could come together. There would be the distributors—I suggested earlier that the companies were maybe doing things on their own, but that is not totally true: BBC Worldwide are promoting Welsh programmes and Welsh companies, as is Sky Vision, so I should correct the impression that they weren’t. Keep it simple; that is what we’re saying.

Jonathan Edwards

Who do you think should be responsible for co-ordinating that?

Iestyn Garlick

I imagine the Welsh Assembly Government should anchor it at least. It doesn’t need to become something huge; it needs to be small, simple and sustainable.

Nia Griffith

On the issue of a Welsh brand, do you think we have a rather fossilised image of Wales? Do we need to modernise that brand?

Iestyn Garlick

There are two schools of thought on the Welsh brand. Some say that if the content is good, it will sell and if it has a Welsh feel or background to it, that is a bonus. In the end, the content has to lead it—we can’t be looking at miners, rugby and hymn singing—and I think Hinterland is doing that. What Rhodri Talfan is suggesting is that English-language productions in Wales have the language in there somewhere. Even if is the odd word, such as “cwtch”, “cariad” or “bach”, that’s what makes it more Welsh than English, and that is what we think of as a brand. I agree that we don’t want to go down the fossilised route.

Dr Rowlands

When we talk about the need for a stronger brand, and so on, I wonder whether we really mean that we need to be more confident when it comes to working internationally. We need more self-belief and we need to work to the longer term. If you look at the way the Welsh Government have been funding presence at the Frankfurt book fair and the London book fair over the past 15 years, it has been a bit like children in the playground who have not yet developed self-confidence. They go from over-emphasising themselves at one moment, at the expense of listening to and being curious about others, and then you have a jolt backwards into the wallflower way of presenting themselves. The first few years that I went to the Frankfurt book fair, which would have been in 1997-98, I remember feeling so frustrated that I was Welsh, because the presence there was so wishy-washy. It was incoherent; it had no presence. But then how many years down the line—two years ago, if I am correct—the Welsh Government decided not to fund a presence at Frankfurt and London. It has been like that—one year yes, one year no. You can’t work internationally like that; you have to be ever-present and ever-attentive. You have to listen and be curious about other cultures. I remember being in a meeting in which someone said, “Why on earth are we publishing Albanian literature in English translation in Wales?” Well, why on earth do you think people in Albania would be interested in reading Welsh literature in Albanian translation if your thinking is like that? If we are not curious about other peoples’ ways of living and thinking, we have no hope in hell.

Nia Griffith

To build on that, do you feel that enough is made of literature from Wales—both English medium and Welsh medium? Everybody knows about Dylan Thomas, but apart from him, do you think enough is made of it as a way of promoting and selling Wales?

Dr Rowlands

No, not at all. Of course, I would argue that a lot is done with the limited funding we have. If you look at how many books from Wales are published in translation worldwide, then yes, a lot is done with the limited funding. It’s like this: you’ve built your rocket, you have all the nails, you’ve worked out where to put all the metal parts and then somebody refuses to give you petrol to let the rocket take off. Working in this field and coming from Wales is incredibly frustrating. I have worked with writers, publishers and translators in China, India, South America and so on, and it made me realise that there is so much interest. They also find it particularly engaging that they can engage with the UK in a different way—especially countries that have, if I can say this, a historically difficult relationship with the UK. They realise that through engagement with Welsh literature, whether in English or Welsh, they have a different way of engaging with the UK. That’s a trick that not only we’re missing, but the UK Government is missing.

Iestyn Garlick

I think we’re the only country in the world that celebrates annually the writing of poetry and has it on television practically 24 hours a day for a whole week. Is it sold anywhere? No.

Jonathan Edwards

Mr Garlick, you mentioned in your evidence that there is no visible Welsh presence in the international TV marketplace. Can you explain and expand a bit more on that? What specific changes would you like to see?

Iestyn Garlick

If you go back historically, at the beginning of S4C, there was something called S4C International, which had a presence in the marketplace and sold successfully. There were series like the series on the papacy and on Egypt, and all came from that collaboration, but for various reasons—cutbacks, etcetera, etcetera—S4C International was sold to a company called Parthenon, which then diminished the S4C Wales brand, because Parthenon was selling more than just Wales. Parthenon was then, in turn, sold to Sky Vision, which, as I mentioned earlier, is promoting Welsh programmes, but along with a whole host of other programmes, so it’s all got watered down and it’s being lost. This is why we are calling for, possibly, some kind of group that would just look after the productions that come out of Wales in Welsh, and in English, of course.

Jonathan Edwards

You mentioned Y Gwyll/Hinterland in your evidence this morning. That has been sold to Danish TV and Netflix as well, I believe.

Iestyn Garlick

Yes, I think so.

Jonathan Edwards

What support do you specifically get from the Welsh Government to help to promote programmes when you have a success like that?

Iestyn Garlick

I am not entirely sure what specific support they are getting. I know that the BBC are involved in Y Gwyll/Hinterland, and so BBC Worldwide kicks in and it is a huge organisation. To have BBC backing for a production that S4C is making is huge. That helps. What funding they get from the Welsh Assembly Government and what role they have I’m not entirely sure, but I do know that the single investment fund in the past has been of great value to the production sector, as has the Alpha Fund, with support from the Welsh Assembly.

Jonathan Edwards

Do independent producers get sufficient support from the Welsh Government?

Iestyn Garlick

Not as a body. Maybe individually if companies have a good idea they can go and ask, but as a sector, not at the moment, no.

Jonathan Edwards

Is there anything we can learn from Ireland about how they market their programmes?

Iestyn Garlick

The Irish just seem to do it well. The Scots have this clear identity because of the way they speak English. You know that they are Irish. You know that they are Scottish. Why you don’t know that I am Welsh, I don’t know. Those Welsh people who have had success internationally tend to become mid-Atlantic. Tom Jones is possibly the exception to the rule. He just sounds Welsh. He sounds as if he only just got on the train in Pontypridd yesterday, and he has lived in America all his life. But he is the exception to the rule. I think something happens to us when we become famous. So that is maybe why I sound Welsh.

Geraint Talfan Davies

I am always slightly surprised that all the great successes that Wales has are called exceptions. How many exceptions do you need to be successful? Whether it is in the world of entertainment or acting with everything from Burton, Hopkins, Sheen—there is a long roll-call. I have mentioned the roll-call of opera singers. You can talk about writers like Dylan Thomas, R. S. Thomas, Gillian Clarke, Gwyneth Lewis and so on—Dannie Abse. The sheer productivity of Welsh culture is enormous. We should recognise just what impact that can have. Two things strike me. One, we need to become even more effective at using it abroad. I suggest that going with some really big hits over a period of time is worthwhile. Secondly, in the selling of Wales and trying to draw people into Wales, culture is undersold. If you look at websites, not just the Visit Wales website but the websites for Cardiff or Swansea, you go straight to activity such as walking, golf, canoeing, pony trekking, mountain biking and so on but you struggle to find culture. You normally find it under things to do. Then you go into another subset and very often you come up with venues. For example, one website I was looking at the other day said, in terms of culture, that you can go to the Wales Millennium Centre. It is a terrific place, but there wasn’t clarity about the sheer range of what can be done. I will take two examples. Swansea has certainly done well on the back of the Dylan Thomas thing and they put forward an extremely good bid for the UK city of culture. I happened to be on the jury for that and they didn’t win, but they put up an extremely good case and you could see the richness that Swansea had to offer. If you look at Cardiff and the music provision in the capital city, I sometimes wonder why we don’t strapline it, “the city of music.” There is the Wales Millennium Centre, Hoddinott Hall, St David’s Hall, the new building of the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama, Welsh National Opera, the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, Music Theatre Wales, Sinfonia Cymru, Vale of Glamorgan festival, the Llandaff music festival, the national dance company and so on. I was talking to two people who are great supporters of WNO and they have moved from Bristol to Cardiff simply because they can access music almost every night of the week. That is something that we are not using to promote it.

Chair

Cardiff “city of music” has a wonderful feel and I am sure we are making note of that. I am sorry to butt in, but I have to gently move us on a bit. Do all of you think that there is sufficient awareness of Welsh culture within British organisations, particularly the British Council, which we visited last week, and the Foreign Office?

Geraint Talfan Davies

I suspect that in all British organisations, getting awareness of a part of the country that is 5% of the population is always tough. I experienced it for 10 years within the BBC and the sentence I came to hate more than anything else was “and to a lesser extent in Wales.” It was a real problem. The British Council clearly does a vital job. Like a lot of other public organisations, I am sure it has had budgetary issues and constraints in recent years. Looking through their literature, annual reports and reports on activity, I think it is an organisation that ought to be more geographically aware of the potential of the cultural assets right throughout the country. Can I mention one specific example? At the moment, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are represented on the board of the British Council by one person. As it happens, at the moment it is the Chairman of the Wales committee, but it is a two-year rotation so that person will represent all three countries. That seems to me a little bit passé and a bit old-fashioned. I cannot really see why an organisation like the British Council wouldn’t have representatives of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland on as a matter of course, much as the BBC Trust has representatives of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Chair

I saw you nodding there, Dr Rowlands.

Dr Rowlands

I agree with that. I think coming from our perspective, the literature perspective, the main challenge we face when working in partnership with the British Council is having sufficient funding from Wales in order to partner with it. I think they would be very keen and happy to partner more—they have, of course—if we could bring the matching funding to the table. At the moment, we are not in that position so that is the main hindrance.

Iestyn Garlick

I agree entirely with what has been said. My only experience of the British Council was a very pleasurable three weeks in Sweden doing Under Milk Wood but that was back in the ’70s. I think this is exactly what we are asking for. We must stop complaining, and we need to do something about it ourselves. You have to start where you have your feet.

Nia Griffith

You will have heard that there has been some criticism of UKTI. What is your assessment of how it promotes Welsh interests? What interaction, if any, have you had with the organisation?

Iestyn Garlick

Very simply, I’d say that it is the same issue as the British Council and everything else: it is trying to be all things to all men, and it’s just not going to work, because, “and to a lesser extent in Wales” is always there, isn’t it? That’s the attitude. I think they should be partners, but not the main thing.

Geraint Talfan Davies

We haven’t had any direct contact with UKTI, except that, on the recent visit to Oman last December, there was a representative from the Welsh Government there. There was a very big turnout of business and industry people. The British ambassador gave a reception at the embassy, where we had two performers giving a recital. That had major representation from the Omani Government and Omani business, particularly from the British Omani Friendship Society, which came up with some significant sponsorship of the company. There are some real benefits to be had, and as a direct result of that, the Welsh Government asked us to provide singers to go again, several months later, to a week in which they were promoting Wales in Doha in Qatar.

Stephen Doughty

That probably follows on quite nicely into my question. The Secretary of State for Wales and the First Minister have undertaken a number of trade visits over the last couple of years: the US, the far east, the middle east and elsewhere. Do you think enough is being made of those visits to promote Wales culturally? What do you think could be done more to ensure that cultural assets are part of those trade delegations?

Geraint Talfan Davies

The suggestion has been made that with these trade delegations, it is useful to have some cultural input there. Particularly if you are trying to sell the place, businesses, I would have thought, need all the hard data and need to know about land, factories, skills, products and so on. They also need to get some sense of the place. If there are ways in which all arts and cultural organisations can build links in different places, once you start opening up these conversations, you never quite know where they are going to end. Some extremely fruitful conversations have come from these meetings.

Stephen Doughty

Do you get approached as a matter of course? You mentioned performers going out to Oman. Do you and the Culture Secretary get approached to be part of these delegations, or is it just if they think about it?

Geraint Talfan Davies

I don’t think we have been approached specifically in relation to trade delegations. That is not to say that we have not done things on our own account. We took the initiative in Oman. Our managing director went out to the world theatre forum in Beijing about 18 months ago. We have had placements within the Welsh National Opera from Wu Promotion in China; somebody came over and spent a month at a time with us. At the moment, that hasn’t borne fruit in a specific trip to China, but sometimes these things take a little time to come to fruition.

Iestyn Garlick

Bear in mind that an awful lot of people in the Welsh television sector have been trained by the BBC. Without a doubt, the BBC training is probably the best in the world and is recognised as such. What we have in the far east is this incredible technology, which is just getting better and quicker at every turn—every month, nearly. We have the experience; they have the technology. There are companies that are part of the TAC council that are working in conjunction with Korea at the moment to make a co-production, using their technology and the Welsh expertise. We should do more of that.

Dr Rowlands

I know that the First Minister has been taking books on trips. For example, when he was in India recently he took translations of Welsh literature into Malay and Tamil. That can be very effective. It stays in people’s mind when you can hand them a book.

Stephen Doughty

Just one last question. I love the idea of Cardiff as a “city of music” and I think that is absolutely fantastic, but do you think enough is being made of promoting specific festivals and specific events across Wales as a way of attracting people to come, or could more be done?

Geraint Talfan Davies

Wales is very fortunate in having a number of high profile events—the National Eisteddfod, Llangollen, Urdd Eisteddfod, the Hay festival, a lot of very good smaller festivals. The WNO Orchestra is performing at the Fishguard festival in a couple of weeks’ time and also performing at Chepstow racecourse—a slightly different ambience. Oddly enough, I think that the one festival that is lacking is a festival that is centred on the capital city. There is a Cardiff festival, of sorts, and it has been local authority backed, but if you looked at the programme, you would say that it is largely for the domestic audience. It is not there to be a big international pull. I am not saying that you can do an Edinburgh. If you did create a festival of that kind it need not necessarily be confined to Cardiff—it might have a rather broader footprint. However, when you look at the data on Edinburgh, I was looking at some the other day for the Edinburgh Fringe: 25 days, 2 million tickets for 40,000 shows at 279 venues, sustaining about 4,000 jobs in the city. That is pretty big stuff. I am not saying that you can do that, but you have a lot of major national organisations in the capital city and I feel if we could somehow get the pieces of the jigsaw, move them around a bit until they all start to fit together, you might be able to create something that was greater than the sum of the parts. I do not want to set up a silly contest in funding, but take something like the Wales Rally GB. The expenditure on the Wales Rally GB is for a two-day event, three days at most—there might well be business spin-offs for the automotive industry and so on—but if you put the same sum of money towards a cultural festival you could run something for a couple of weeks. I think there is a lot that could be done. I was very struck talking to an hotelier in Cardiff recently when he said he was quite surprised when he came to the city that the quietest months were July and August, which is counter-intuitive. There is a lot that could be done on that front and there are discussions going on between the various parties.

Dr Rowlands

To pick up on the letter which this Committee sent to us recently and the interest by the city of Buenos Aires in working further with Wales. Things are already developing on that front and there is real interest in seeing whether we can create some kind of twinning over a period of the year between Cardiff and Buenos Aires, something it has been doing with other cities in Europe.

Chair

I think we are about to hear from Lord Wigley on that in a moment.

Glyn Davies

May I ask a question? It is related, but a different line. People visit Wales or any country because to a large extent they have heard of Wales and they know about it. This is where, when we talk about people like Tom Jones and Bryn Terfel, it has an impact, because people around the world have heard of these stars. The best known person is probably Gareth Bale who plays for Real Madrid. I think sport has got a massive potential, but have we got a problem? I think we have a problem with the British media, which are almost all based in London and treat Wales as an afterthought. I can give you an example that infuriated me hugely last weekend when the English rugby team was smashed by the All Blacks. Wales played brilliantly at the weekend. We lost by a point and we will probably be the world champions next week. I buy The Sunday Telegraph. Its front page and pages 13 and 14 were solidly all about England, with a little bit at the bottom of page 14 about Wales. It is absolutely shocking. I can write to The Telegraph sports editor and be utterly appalled, which I will, but I think this is a common thing. We have a challenge in having the British media recognise Wales. Only if it is England will the British media cover it. I know they relate to the people who read it, but I think that that is a real problem. That one example last week typified it more than anything I have seen in ages. Rugby is part of Welsh culture. I know we try to move on, but we play rugby in Wales and we play it pretty well, and it was just dismissed as a complete afterthought by the British media, and a lot of people around the world read the British media.

Iestyn Garlick

The problem we have, even within Wales itself, is that the Western Mail is not the best-selling paper in Wales. Never mind what you think about the Western Mail, we are not buying our own newspaper.

Geraint Talfan Davies

I take your point about newspapers and media coverage. It might be the subject of another inquiry, because it is a very big subject that I do not want to go into, but what I would say on culture is that the critics do come down to cover productions by the WNO. You do see reviews of concerts by the BBC National Orchestra of Wales and reviews of the National Theatre Wales. In some senses, culture is the way we can make Wales talked about in the British media rather more effectively. You are not going to change the nature of the British media. There is no magic wand, but, if our output is good enough, people will want to beat a path to Wales and they will write about it. There is a lot to be explored there.

Chair

I know you want to come in as well, Dr Rowlands. Can I ask Stephen to ask his final question?

Stephen Doughty

This is a small point. I have asked this in previous evidence sessions. Do you think there is a gap in the Welsh market for a more youth-focused or popular music type festival such as Glastonbury or the Isle of Wight, but perhaps with other stuff alongside it? People travel from all over Europe to go to Roskilde in Denmark. Do you think there is a gap in the market for specifically that age group and profile?

Iestyn Garlick

But are any of these festivals indicative of where they are held? Does Glastonbury have a headline act from Somerset?

Chair

A very good act called Rusty Shackle, from Monmouthshire, are playing at Glastonbury this year. You have just given me the excuse to mention it.

Iestyn Garlick

I will consider myself told.

Stephen Doughty

As a festival often for British bands and a chance for new bands to come through on the side stages, there is a lot of potential there for Welsh bands, Welsh music and Welsh literature and culture on the side of a couple of big headliners, and we do not seem to have a big festival of that nature.

Geraint Talfan Davies

At my age, I am entering into dangerous territory. There has been a good popular music festival in Cardiff in recent years. I do not know whether you would classify the Green Man festival up at Crickhowell as being in the same sort of category. It might be a slightly different market, but it does not necessarily have to be the big one. People tell me that they are very attracted by smaller scale festivals, rather than some festivals that some would say have become too big.

Iestyn Garlick

Bryn Terfel had his festival in north Wales for many years, but that does not happen any more for various reasons. One day of that festival was specifically for Welsh bands to play on a huge stage, with the best possible sounds. It was a fantastic idea and it would be great if it came back.

Chair

The last word to Dr Rowlands, who might be a bit more of the festival age group.

Dr Rowlands

When it comes to festivals and events in Wales, we could be doing far more to create an international context for what we do in Wales so that we are then able to communicate to the world beyond Wales that we are open and curious, and that we want to engage with other cultures. That is something we are not doing enough of. We really could be doing far more of that. It is key to moving from where we are now.

Chair

Thank you very much indeed. Diolch yn fawr iawn. Examination of Witnesses

Witnesses

David Anderson, Director General, Amgueddfa Cymru (National Museum Wales) Nick Capaldi, Chief Executive, Arts Council Wales, and Right Hon. Lord Dafydd Wigley, President, Steering Committee for 150 year Patagonia celebrations, Wales-Argentina Society, gave evidence.

Chair

Welcome, gentlemen. Diolch yn fawr iawn am ddod.

Glyn Davies

I know that this panel sat at the back as we talked to the previous witnesses, and one of the issues we talked a bit about was the definition of Welsh culture. I threw in my bit by suggesting that sport is an important part of Welsh culture. How do you define Welsh culture, and how well known do you think it is—not just in Britain, but internationally?

Nick Capaldi

One of the phrases we have tended to use when talking about Welsh culture is, “Small nation, big art.” We heard something of that in the previous evidence session, in terms of individuals and organisations such as the Welsh National Opera and National Theatre Wales, which are of truly international quality and reputation. We all need to do more to stress that. When I think about Welsh culture, and especially when I talk to people internationally—those who know something of Welsh culture—the words that tend to come up are “quirky”, “innovative”, “unusual”, “friendly”, “collaborative” and “curious”. There is a willingness, when working on the international stage, to collaborate and find out more about different cultures. We notice that when artists from Wales travel abroad and make connections, those connections can be incredibly fruitful and positive.

Lord Wigley

Thank you for being here. I am wearing a non-party political hat today, of course. By the way, I must make a declaration of interest, because my daughter works for Wales Arts International and is partly answerable to Mr Capaldi. There are common threads in Welsh culture that stand out. In terms of our love of music, flair and skill come through. There is an ability with words that some other countries do not have. There is a communal, participative dimension to our culture, and there is also a competitive dimension that you rarely get, but was mentioned earlier—how poets compete with each other, for example. Those threads come together in a unique synthesis. It is worth projecting and there is value in doing so. In regard to how we organise ourselves, there are events that succeed in getting the cultural dimension across. The Llangollen eisteddfod, which is on the week after next, is a glorious example of an initiative that has succeeded. We had “Cardiff Singer of the World”. The WOMEX exhibition in Cardiff brought people from all over the world and gave a stage for Welsh talent to exhibit itself and to then get work overseas as a result of that. At home in Caernarfon, our family have been involved in the international harp festival. There are many dimensions that can bring the world to Wales, but the common threads we have are ones that we have to project in order to get them.

David Anderson

Because the National Museum looks at the complete historical spectrum of Wales as well as contemporary Wales, we would define it as everything created by people in Wales, but also as a living culture enriched by contact, exchange and migration, so obviously the international dimension is important as well. I fully support what was said about the participative and communal dimensions. I have worked in museums, mostly in England, before coming to Wales, and I have never come across a museum that is loved like St Fagans. There is no English museum anywhere near it in that way. That is about a connectivity between at least one part of Welsh culture and the people, and that should really be cherished. An important part of St Fagans is the non-material culture. Museums collect objects, but museums like St Fagans hold oral archives and all sorts of other intangible elements of culture that are really vital, and are often the things most shared by people outside a building’s walls.

Glyn Davies

Promoting culture is a really good thing. We are all Welsh and are proud to see Welsh culture promoted around the world. It is useful to promote that into knowledge of Wales as somewhere people will visit and create trade, and to have those sorts of practical, almost non-cultural benefits flowing from the knowledge and appreciation of Welsh culture. Do you think we do that as effectively as we should? Who might take a lead on that?

Lord Wigley

If I can come in on that, my background was an industrial background at one time. It almost goes without saying that non-industrial factors can influence the industrial location decisions of companies. We had a classic example of that with the DPC corporation, which came to Llanberis. Jim Watson—Watson and Crick DNA—came over to see the site. We knew that his delight was in hill walking and food, and when he went back to the main board in Los Angeles, he could not stop talking about the delights of Wales in terms of those two factors. They asked him about the location: “Oh, sure, the location is all right, but you should have seen the food and the countryside.” The same can be true of culture, and we need to use a whole range of tools to reach people. Maybe the diaspora we have is part of that, but reaching people beyond the diaspora is even more important.

Nick Capaldi

It needs to be locked into every aspect of promoting Wales abroad. Lord Wigley is right that if you are a business person, or are thinking of relocating to a different part of the world, the quality of life for you, your family, your workers and employees will be a pretty important factor in deciding where you want to be.

David Anderson

I support that. There is quite a lot of evidence that even students decide which university they go to depending on how much they think the city or area will be a really lovely place to study, quite apart from the quality of the courses. I have certainly heard a lot that students absolutely love Cardiff as a place to study because of the rich cultural environment. It is a deciding factor, and it is not uncommon for people who come as students later to base business decisions on a love of their experience of the country earlier on in their lives.

Lord Wigley

Of course, it is not only culture. The success that Swansea have had after reaching the premiership and the way that has projected through into Asia has been a tremendous opportunity for the city in many wider contexts.

Glyn Davies

When I was involved in promoting mid-Wales, we had a brilliant development director whose view was that we were being successful and people moved to Wales for eccentricity and serendipity. Building on those two, so much of it is completely unrelated business factors that lead people to come here and then set up a business for all sorts of reasons. To promote the name of Wales at every big event across the world, you need to have people in that country being invited along to know that it is Wales, not just something from Britain.

Lord Wigley

Yes, and we have an opportunity now. We have Obama coming over, and of course Obama is a percentage Welsh, through the Perrys of Anglesey. We have Hillary Clinton whose father was Welsh. Are we using these linkages to maximise our opportunities?

Nia Griffith

Yesterday I was at a meeting where we heard Visit Britain speak about how it promotes Wales. I was horrified that it was just coastline; it did not seem to have the concept of city breaks. Particularly Amgueddfa Cymru and the Arts Council, I wonder how you promote yourselves abroad and how important foreign visitors are to you. What more do you think could be done by an organisation such as Visit Britain? I was thinking of things like London-Bath-Cardiff— that type of package—but they did not seem to be on the radar.

Nick Capaldi

Perhaps I will take the Visit Britain point first. The clue is in the title. Britain does include Wales. All too often there has been a slight sense that it means England, London and a few scraps. While we as an organisation have an excellent and positive relationship with Visit Wales, as one would expect, I think there is a slight sense of frustration that we cannot have a similar relationship with Visit Britain. In terms of what we do to promote international activity and relations, we have within the Arts Council a division called Wales Arts International, which is part-funded by the British Council and is in partnership with it. That is about exchange that is both exporting our own artists abroad and making connections, and bringing work in. In a country with a population of 3 million, artists and arts organisations need a bigger market. Therefore, for us, developing those international opportunities for artists, particularly around Europe, to get those work opportunities is really important, but so, too, is attracting something like the international music trade fair, WOMEX, to Cardiff last year, which brought representatives from more than 100 countries. The reports we had back from that said that it was an overwhelmingly successful event, so 4,000 delegates will travel back to their home countries with a very clear impression of Wales and talking positively about Cardiff.

David Anderson

One benefit of museums working internationally is the very large number of people who can be reached by them. There was the “Wales, Land of the Red Dragon” exhibition that opened in Chongqing last year, and was seen by 96,000 people during the four months that it was on show there. Going back to the discussion about connections with business opportunities and industry, one of the fantastic benefits of having an exhibition on for four months in a major public space in one of the leading Chinese cities is that it is a base that can be used as a backdrop and meeting point for higher education institutions and Welsh business during that whole four-month period. The “Wales, Land of the Red Dragon” exhibition was intended as a historical and cultural overview of Wales, deliberately to provide a context for Chinese visitors who may not be familiar with Wales. We regarded that as a great success from Wales’s point of view—from wider potential for tourism and business, and a higher education perspective. We also sent an exhibition a few years earlier on flight to the United Arab Emirates, which stayed there for a long time. An exhibition a few years ago on the Davies sisters’ art collection went to five venues across the United States and was seen by 200,000 people. An exhibition on landscape is going out again next year—2015-16—and will go to four venues in the United States. We are building up hundreds of thousands of people who are getting exposure to Wales and Welsh cultural life—for a relatively small investment, it has to be said. We think we get a big impact because of that. The challenge, in some ways, is to get UK-wide support and coverage. The British Council has been tremendous. We would not have been able to put on the “Wales, Land of the Red Dragon” exhibition in Chongqing if it had not been such consistent supporters over months and months, ensuring that the relationships were being supported on the ground. I have, perhaps, more uncertainty about the degree to which the BBC is promoting all elements of Welsh culture, but that is another issue.

Stephen Doughty

I want to ask David a specific question. You mentioned the Davies sisters’ collection, which I think is absolutely magnificent. I am always amazed that friends who come from abroad have no idea that that is there. It is great to hear that it is being promoted in the US. What links do you have with the art museums in London? For example, there are people who come to spend a couple of days here and think about where else they might go in the UK, but they are visiting the Tate and elsewhere and then realise there are some absolutely amazing collections down the road. Do you get supported by the big London museums to bring people out of London and into Wales as an entry point into wider things that we do?

David Anderson

We do have exhibition exchanges with London. For example, the Queen exhibition, which went to Edinburgh and Belfast, and was originally in London, came to Cardiff as well. There are a lot of object loans. We are doing a partnership at the moment with the Tate with the recently acquired Constable, which attracted a very big audience in Cardiff when it was shown. It was the first venue where the painting was shown. There are other issues around the London cultural organisations’ perceptions of Wales: a director of a leading art museum in London recently said to me, “Why should I come to Cardiff? There is nothing there.” As you will know only too well, there is sometimes an element of Londoncentricity in attitudes. It is there among some of the leading art institutions and it is sometimes there in the BBC. We struggle to get Artes Mundi, for example, any coverage with the BBC. Year by year, the Turner prize is covered, blanket, on Radio 4, television and everything like that. Artes Mundi, in my view, is at least equal and, according to some Tate insiders and many others, the superior contemporary art competition, yet, to my knowledge, it has never had any coverage on the BBC network, so there are other issues around this about attitudes.

Nia Griffith

Perhaps we could move on to the issue of brand, which you have heard discussed by others. What do you see as the issue with brand? Is it something you want to create? Is it possible to create? Do you go along with TAC’s view that there ought to be a convention to decide upon it?

Lord Wigley

When the National Assembly was set up in 1999, there was—Chair, you will remember this—an initiative taken to try to get a branding for Wales to have a higher profile at the time of “Cool Cymru”.

Chair

“Enter the Dragon” or something, wasn’t it? Was that what it was called?

Lord Wigley

Yes, but it never really clicked, did it? It never really took off. In terms of brand, the most important thing of all is that the image and the substance have to identify with each other. There is no use projecting something that ain’t there. We have to be able to get something across that people find is there. I am sure that the brand does matter. Touching on what was discussed earlier, the greatest brand that we had, flying across the Atlantic dozens of times every day, was the WDA commercial. That reached thousands of decision takers. To have lost that brand—the investment that went into building up the WDA brand—overnight, virtually, was an absolute tragedy. It was a betrayal of what we need in Wales.

Nick Capaldi

I share some of Lord Wigley’s wariness about brand, if it simply becomes a slogan that is just superficial, and is here today, gone tomorrow. What we perhaps need to concentrate on are a series of well defined but enduring messages that talk about the quality of life in Wales, and the things that are good and have meaning and authenticity. These messages should be used consistently. My heart sinks at the prospect of groups of people going into a room to try to come up with a logo and a three-word phrase. We need to rehearse and practise among ourselves what it is we value about Welsh culture, and be clear about defining that and make sure that when we are travelling internationally, we promote those messages.

David Anderson

I would echo what has been said. It is vital that everything that is associated with the images of Wales are those things that are about quality and the warmth that people really experience when they come to Wales for the first time. I had some international visitors over the weekend and they were overwhelmed by how friendly and welcoming people were. One of them said they had never met a friendlier group of staff than they found at the National Museum on Saturday morning. In terms of overseas reception and the “Wales, Land of the Red Dragon” exhibition in Chongqing, I found a huge amount of curiosity and interest in the dragon and the connection of the colour red with Wales. I suppose it is possible to undervalue the strength of that identity because if one tries to think of the English brand, I personally think the Welsh one is a better one to build on in some ways than the rather complex and uncertain one that England has.

Chair

Mr Anderson, you said that you would welcome a more co-ordinated effort from the Welsh Assembly Government to work with national museums to promote what you do. Would you like to elaborate a little on that?

David Anderson

One thing relates to what Geraint Talfan Davies said. There is potential for us to bring our efforts together to make something much more powerful. So the exhibition goes alongside maybe the appearance of the opera company, alongside performing arts, and really making a major hit in a city and getting a scale of publicity, perhaps in the country as well, that we would not otherwise get. There is something more that can be done. I think that Visit Wales has shifted very significantly in the last year or two. That is already bringing dividends in terms of the number of visitors coming into Wales from what I can see. The greater emphasis on the cultural attractions of Wales that Visit Wales is doing is having an impact. It goes back to our earlier conversation.

Chair

Mr Capaldi, to what extent have you been involved in the trade missions that have gone on with the Welsh Assembly Government, if any? What has come out of those?

Nick Capaldi

It has been ad hoc. On some occasions, it has been very good; on others, it has been a little last minute. The secret to getting this right is proper preparation over a long period. One of the difficulties sometimes is matching the aspirations and plans of the cultural sector with the foreign delegations that the First Minister and other Ministers are making. It is about sharing and exchanging the information. There have been some highly successful trade delegations; I am thinking particularly of the First Minister’s trip last year to Maharashtra, India, where we had been working with groups for some time prior to the visit. It created an opportunity for a very distinctive collaborative cultural offer as part of the trade delegation. That makes these visits and delegations memorable. Making things memorable is important. When decision-makers and business people are thinking about the wide plethora of events, receptions and trade delegations that they have been to, the ones that stand out are those that had personality—where you were able to make a personal connection. So what we are doing at the moment with the Welsh Government, and in particular with the First Minister’s office, is trying to get better advance notice. Arts and cultural organisations can sometimes over-protect their future plans because they don’t want to announce something until they are ready. But I think better co-ordination will bring benefits all round.

Jonathan Edwards

The Welsh language project in Patagonia is administered by the British Council, as you know. When we visited Argentina, they informed us that they had distributed thousands of laptops with English language apps in Argentina, but yet there have been no laptops with Welsh language apps in Patagonia. Do you think that the British Council is doing an adequate job?

Lord Wigley

First of all, can I say how glad I was that you had, as a Committee, visited Patagonia? I welcomed a delegation from Trelew in my hometown in Caernarfon on a twinning project only three or four weeks ago. They were high in their praise of the fact that you had taken the trouble to go down there. That is important. The British Council has played a positive role in terms of Wales generally within the Argentine and has linked up with the community in Chubut. In the 1965 centenary, which I visited, the British Council played a significant role there. But it does depend, to some extent, on the people they have in post at any point in time. I believe that there is a new appointment now; a lady whose first mission was to go straight down to Chubut to link up with the Welsh community. That is a positive sign that they are perhaps more sensitive to this dimension. Certainly, they need to work on this, because the Welsh dimension in the Argentine is something that could do so much to help relationships between the United Kingdom and the Argentine, which need to be rebuilt.

Jonathan Edwards

You are on the steering committee for the 150th commemorations.

Lord Wigley

I am president of the steering committee, but not the chair. Marc Phillips chairs it.

Jonathan Edwards

Can you give us some examples of some of the events being planned? Do you have confidence that the local community groups are co-ordinating effectively between Wales and Argentina?

Lord Wigley

I make it clear that the 150 years celebration committee set up four years ago by the Wales-Argentine society is a co-ordinating committee, to try and stimulate interest and to encourage bodies the length and breadth of Wales to be involved, and likewise in Patagonia. However, we are not undertaking the activities ourselves, as that would be totally impossible. There has been a range of activities that have come, almost spontaneously, during the past four years and that should be coming to a peak next year. For example, the BBC have commissioned a Patagonian composer, Hector McDonald, to compose special music for the occasion; National Theatre Wales is considering projects; a celebrating committee in Liverpool is having an event to recall the Mimosa sailing from there; Galeri Caernarfon will have Gwyl Gwanwyn, an annual celebration, in Caernarfon; the Kyffin Williams, a gallery in Llangefni, will be sponsoring Luned Gonzales to come from Patagonia to give a lecture; the Royal Welsh agricultural show; Monmouthshire is the county in charge next year, and they are inviting people from Patagonia over and organising an exhibition; the Urdd has its own programme; the National Eisteddfod in Meifod is expected to have several Patagonian themes; the Velindre hospital appeal is sponsoring a walk down in the Andes; Challenge Wales—this is an exciting one—is hoping to arrange for young people from both Wales and Patagonia to sail the Atlantic down to Patagonia; and there are plans for local plaques and possibly street names. There is a whole range of things. In Patagonia itself, there are two committees—one down in Dyffryn Camwy around Trelew, and the other in Cwm Hyfryd around Esquel—that have their own programmes. We are linking up with them as well.

Jonathan Edwards

The mayor of Trelew was recently in Westminster. He said something that particularly struck me. He said that, for Wales, the Patagonia relationship is a part of our national history and our national story, but for them, it is the first major event in their history. Do you think that we need to take it a bit more seriously in Wales—having a delegate from Patagonia here, for instance?

Lord Wigley

From 1913 to 1965, there had been very little link between Wales and Patagonia. People had gone out there, and they had always been left to their own devices. Since the centenary, there has been much more interaction—people coming and going—and an awareness of each other. One of the main themes that the Welsh Government are taking on board as part of the celebration is to build into the educational structure in Wales, into the curriculum, elements that will be relevant to Patagonia. A lot of work has been done on this and there is some resource being put in. Interactive materials, for example, are being done in three languages—Welsh, English and Spanish—so that it is going to be relevant in Patagonia as well. This is a very significant move forward, but there is certainly a lot more that can be done. Your idea of a Patagonia day could well be taken up.

Stephen Doughty

It was an amazing experience to go out to Patagonia and meet them and it was great to meet the Mayor of Trelew when he came back. It is good to hear you mentioning the Challenge Wales proposal. I was recently on the boat—it was in Penarth marina—and they were very excited that I had been there and knew what the Mimosa was. There are obviously the folks at the celebration—this is maybe for some of the other members of the panel—but what potential do you think there is for much longer-standing cultural trade and exchange that goes beyond people just going back and forth for specific events?

Lord Wigley

Can I briefly respond to that with one major dimension that our Committee has very high in its mind? The legacy from this year is what is going to be important. The legacy of 1965 was a tremendous boost on both sides. The legacy of this has to be planned. I was on the Olympic and Paralympic Legacy Committee in the House of Lords and the main thing we found there was the importance of planning legacy in advance. This is something that has to be built into next year’s celebrations.

Nick Capaldi

A number of the projects that Lord Wigley mentioned were invested in and the legacy element is absolutely key to that. It is not just about taking artists from Wales to Patagonia, but making sure that that exchange and collaboration is locked in. What we know from experience, time after time, is that these relationships stick. Creative people who make a connection, who feel comfortable working with each other, develop new projects and new ideas. We have seen relationships that are now extending to decades come from a series of initial meetings and exchanges. As well as building it into the design of the projects themselves, I am very confident that artists and creative people, given the type of people they are, will make enduring friendships.

Chair

Did you want to ask Jessica Morden’s questions, Stephen?

Stephen Doughty

We touched on the trade fairs and trade links earlier and, with the National Museum of Wales, you mentioned that you didn’t feel that Wales was adequately represented in international trade fairs and elsewhere. We have heard in some of the previous evidence about Welsh representation not being in some of these trade delegations when they go abroad. Can you comment on that further? What do you think needs to change?

David Anderson

I went with the Welsh one. I do get invited sometimes to the trade delegations. I went with the First Minister to the Chongqing and Beijing a couple of years ago. One of the striking things was the importance that the key people we met in China put on culture. On the first day we were there it was the governor of Chongqing, Bo Xilai, and he said that what he values in a relationship with Wales is culture, business and education. We saw the Mayor of Chongqing that evening and he said, “We really value the cultural connections with Wales” and then went on to talk about other things. When we listed the things that the MOU between Chongqing and Wales had produced, virtually everything that had been achieved during the previous few years from that MOU were arts and culture. We would be very foolish to undervalue the importance that other societies and other cultures place on cultural relationships as the foundation for everything else. That was a big lesson for me. As far as the UK is concerned, in my four years in my present role I have never been invited by a UK trade delegation to accompany them abroad. I know that London institutions are, but I have never had that experience. It may have happened in the past, but I have never heard of it having happened in the past from my colleagues in the museum.

Nick Capaldi

I agree. I remember the very big delegation that the UK Prime Minister took to China. It was with a certain frustration that I saw among the crowd at the top of the stairs in front of the plane the grinning face of the Arts Council England chair. I thought, “Why is my chair not represented there as well?” On UK-level trade delegations, I think there is a lot of work to be done. It is getting better at a Wales level, although it has to be about consistency and planning. I have been struck, in talking to colleagues within arts councils around Europe, that the Danish, for example, have a dedicated unit within it whose sole job is to ensure that every time the Queen or the Prime Minister travels abroad, there is a cultural dimension to that visit or trip. They clearly see the value of that, and it is locked into how they do business.

David Anderson

May I add one more thing? The Welsh delegation on that First Minister visit a couple of years ago went to Beijing and the British embassy there. A senior official met us and told us all about Jeremy Hunt’s visit to Beijing as the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport and all the initiatives in England on culture. After a few minutes, it occurred to us that he had not realised that there is a Welsh Minister for Culture and Sport. We then had a conversation about the Minister for Culture and Sport; I think it was then Huw Lewis. If you are talking about cultural relationships between the embassy and us as a group, it should be in that context. There is an issue about the basic understanding of devolution on the part of some highly educated people.

Chair

On that note, thank you all very much for coming along this afternoon. That draws our session to a close. International Representation and Promotion of Wales by UK bodies, HC 1206 2