Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport Lisa Nandy promised more for the arts at RSC lecture - but is it enough?
Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport Lisa Nandy chose Stratford last week as the place to announce a raft of new arts funding. The Herald hears from local arts bodies what they make of government promises and how they are surviving financially.
LAST Thursday (20th February) Stratford had the honour of visit from culture secretary Lisa Nandy to announce a new pot of £270 million arts funding.
The great and the good from arts organisations across the nation attended the RSC’s Other Place, where the minister delivered a rousing speech and the news that the Arts Everywhere Fund would give arts venues, museums, libraries and the heritage sector “a major boost for growth”, and to address England’s “crumbling” cultural infrastructure.
She was also there to deliver the inaugural Jennie Lee Lecture in front of around 150 guests seated in the theatre auditorium.
Feisty Scottish miner’s daughter and Labour MP in the Wilson government, Lee (1904-1988) set the template for arts funding with her trailblazing white paper of 1965, entitled A Policy for the Arts – The First Steps. A sharp and no-nonsense advocate, Lee’s vision was that arts should be central to everyday life and publicly supported for the benefit of all. Her mantra was “all of our children should be given the kind of education that was the monopoly of the privileged few”.
Nandy has the same manner and authentic style as Lee – and has vowed, like her esteemed predecessor, to make “arts for everyone, everywhere” a reality, as part of the government’s Plan for Change, which includes a new £85 million Creative Foundations Fund to support urgent capital works to keep arts' venues across the country up and running.
Between interesting glimpses into her own upbringing in Wigan and Manchester – including a seminal trip to see The Sooty Show, her most vivid arts encounter as a youngster, Nandy spoke with passion about arts in Britain, and the neglect it has suffered under the Tories.
“This country must always resist the temptation to see the arts as a luxury,” she said. “The visual arts, music, film, theatre, opera, spoken word, poetry, literature and dance - are the building blocks of our cultural life, indispensable to the life of a nation, always, but especially now.
“So much has been taken from us in this dark divisive decade but above all our sense of self-confidence as a nation.
“But we are good at the arts. We export music, film and literature all over the world. We attract investment to every part of the UK from every part of the globe. We are the interpreters and the storytellers, with so many stories to tell that must be heard.
“And despite everything that has been thrown at us, wherever I go in Britain I feel as much ambition for family, community and country as ever before. In the end, for all the fracture, the truth remains that our best hope… is each other.
“This is the country that George Orwell said ‘lies beneath the surface’.”
It was an impressive showing from Nandy, and she went down well.
However the money pots being made available to arts organisations were somewhat eclipsed by Keir Starmer’s announcement this week that the defence budget would rise by £6bn a year extra from 2027. Guns are still perhaps preferred over bums on seats…
Over to our Stratford arts organisations to see what they think.
However the money pots being made available to arts organisations were somewhat eclipsed by Keir Starmer’s announcement this week that the defence budget would rise by £6bn a year extra from 2027. Guns are still perhaps preferred over bums on seats…
Over to our Stratford arts organisations to see what they think. (Stories will appear separately on the web.)
