The Stage

We’re cultured, not vultures: Conservative arts spokesmen talk to The Stage

Published Thursday 18 March 2010 at 11:35 by Alistair Smith

As the General Election looms, the Conservatives are determined to allay fears that theirs is a party of Philistines set on slashing funding for the arts. Alistair Smith met the top Tory duo who are passionate about art for art’s sake

Sat opposite me in a bare, functional meeting room in Portcullis House - the modern office block over the road from the Houses of Parliament - are Jeremy Hunt and Ed Vaizey, a pair of politicians who in a matter of months could become two of the arts sector’s most important advocates.

If the Conservative Party is successful come the General Election, then it will be down to Messrs Hunt and Vaizey - the putative culture secretary and minister - to make the argument to a Tory treasury that it should resist the urge to make swingeing cuts to the funding which keeps open hundreds of theatres, museums and arts centres across the UK.

A few years ago, the industry - or at least large swathes of it - would have been cringing at the prospect of a Tory government. The outlook now is more one of ambivalence, a recognition that the three main political parties are all on a very similar footing when it comes to the arts.

This represents no mean feat for the Tory culture team, which has overcome a, perhaps unfair, but historic reputation of Philistinism, to win impressive support - not just from the sector, but from within its own party.

“I would say that the three parts of the equation, if you wanted to say that David Cameron’s Conservatives are different, would be our approach to the NHS, our approach to green issues and our approach to the arts,” says Hunt - the senior half of the Tory culture team and a politician who is tipped for high office within the party. “I think we see our approach to the arts as very totemic of a different Conservative Party.”

True to professed form, George Osborne gave a high- profile speech on the arts at the Tate at the end of 2009 and both Hunt and Vaizey are keen to stress that the arts and the creative industries are now taken seriously at the highest levels of the party.

“I would say, don’t just look at me and Ed, look at David Cameron or George Osborne,” continues Hunt. “David Cameron is personally committed to the arts, he’s married to someone who works in the creative industries, he was out in British Fashion week, and George Osborne gave a speech at the Tate in which he spoke passionately about the value of art for art’s sake. When has Alistair Darling ever given a speech on the arts? This is something that comes right from the top of the modern Conservative Party.”

Still, all that support doesn’t mean that the culture world will be immune from belt-tightening under a Conservative government. Exchequer funding will, in all likelihood, be cut under the Tories.

“I think that’s true whichever party wins the election on May 6,” insists Hunt. “I mean Labour has got this leaked Treasury document saying there will be 17% cuts in all non-ring-fenced departments. And the reality is that it’s going to be very, very tough, but we think that with our policies we could actually end up getting more money being channelled into the arts by the end of a parliament, than is currently being channelled into the arts, because of our reforms to the National Lottery and the boost we hope to give to philanthropy. But we want to be honest with people - public spending is going to be tough.”

Vaizey joins in.

“I think it’s important to stress a number of things. First, [culture minister] Margaret Hodge is doing this tease - ‘Will Labour ring-fence arts funding?’. On the same day that she makes that point, Labour has cut the National Heritage Memorial Fund budget by 50%. They’ve slashed Lottery funding to the arts by more than half in the last ten years, they spend less on the arts than we did as the last Conservative government if you take direct grants and Lottery funding combined, in real terms, so it’s totally disingenuous of them to pretend that they are going to protect arts funding.

“We know they are having private conversations with arts bodies about the kinds of cuts they might expect. The other point to make is that everyone is going to have to share their part of the burden, but the arts is not going to be singled out as a special case, to take an additional hit as a soft touch.”

The pair make an impressive team and this marks a pattern in the conversation - Hunt is softly spoken, reasoned, while Vaizey is left to enthuse or take shots at their Labour opponents.

“We would love arts funding to be kept at a very high level,” continues Vaizey, “but we’re living in the economic climate we are. We think philanthropy is very important, but it’s not a substitute for government support. I don’t want people to get the impression that if philanthropy somehow doubled or trebled we would cut back on government support as a result.”

Nor is the Lottery money that they plan to reclaim - the Tories say they will return Lottery funding to its original four good causes by 2012, creating an extra £50 million annually for the arts - a long-term substitute for exchequer cash.

“The Lottery is being used at the moment by the arts council, in its Sustain funding, to plug some gaps,” says Vaizey. “It might be that Lottery funding is used in the short term to support arts organisations at a time of difficult economic climate, but the Lottery is not a substitute for government support and I don’t want people to go away with the impression that when the times are good, a Conservative government would say ‘Well, we’re giving you a lot of money from the Lottery so we’re not going to give you any money from the exchequer.”

The Tories’ Lottery promise is one of the big policies which they feel sets them apart from Labour.

Hunts outlines the others.

“I think we’re going to be tougher on getting all grant-distributing organisations to bring down their admin costs, I think we’re going to be more imaginative and entrepreneurial in trying to release new sources of funding from new donors - I think the Conservative Party has always been the party of wealth creation and I think we understand how to talk to the kinds of people who already generously give to the arts but could be convinced to give a lot more.”

And the pair are making a big priority of cultural education.

“The tragedy is that the grounding in arts education has been a privilege of the minority for much too long and that’s something that if you’re passionate about the arts you think it should be something that everyone should have the opportunity to enjoy,” says Hunt.

But what do the pair define as a ‘good cultural education’?

“Knowing why Mozart is important, knowing who Van Gogh is,” interjects Vaizey. “In that sense, I think Jeremy and I are both quite conservative. I think it’s important to give kids a classical arts education. And I’d add in Le Corbusier and Tracey Emin.”

Another significant difference would be an altered approach to Arts Council England and its relationship with the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. The Tories have no plans to abolish ACE and are keen to stress their commitment to the arms-length principle of funding for the arts, but Hunt believes there are administrative savings to be made at both bodies and there needs to be a shift in policy-making towards the government department.

“We think that DCMS is weaker than it should be when it comes to policy formulation, which is after all what ministers are elected to do,” he explains. “So, we would like ministers to get back in the driving seat when it comes to arts policy, but we don’t want it to get back in the driving seat when it comes to the distribution of grants, which we think should be done at arms-length.

“We do have a view about quangos in general, which is that when it comes to media policy most of it is happening at Ofcom, when it comes to heritage, it’s happening at English Heritage and when it comes to the arts, it’s mostly happening at the arts council. We think that ministers are elected to take a lead on these things. That’s a matter of emphasis. If you have a strong ministerial team at DCMS, which we hope we would be, that’s half the battle won.

“But I think the important point is that when the budgetary environment is going to be very tight, we want to make sure the maximum amount of money is being distributed to arts organisations. That’s why we’ve said to all the quangos that the DCMS is responsible for, that they should keep their admin costs down to 5% of the grants they are distributing. That’s to make sure that that money does what tax payers want it to do, which is to be spent on funding great art and not getting used up in administration and bureaucracy.”

A criticism levelled at the pair - perhaps because of their increased focus on building up philanthropy and endowments - is that their policies are more focussed on the big players in the arts world and overlook the avant-garde and small scale. It is an accusation both bridle at.

“It’s absolute nonsense,” claims Hunt. “The reason some people say that is that we’ve talked about major cultural organisations building up endowments, which we think would be a really important additional stream in the long term. But this is a 15/20-year project and we think that would be a very good thing to do, where people are able to fund-raise for endowment. Just in the way that the Lottery was an additional pillar of funding, I think this could be a very good additional pillar of funding.

“But it’s not going to work for everyone and if you’re an avant-garde theatre group in Sheffield you’re unlikely to be able to raise money for an endowment. That is the best, single argument as to why you need state funding for the arts, because the state is able to sustain funding for types of innovation and creativity that it is very unlikely private donors would be willing to support.

“What we want is a mixed economy for the arts. The way we’ll get the most diversity and creativity is through a plurality of funding sources and state funding is a very, very important part of that.”

“How is [culture secretary] Ben Bradshaw taken seriously by anyone when he comes out with the statement that a play like Enron wouldn’t be funded by the Tories?” adds Vaizey. “First of all, he doesn’t understand our commitment to the arms-length principle and secondly he should have rung Jeremy before he made the statement and found out that Jeremy had been to see Enron at the Royal Court and written to Dominic Cooke to say ‘this is precisely the point of arts subsidy’.”

It would appear they have an answer for almost everything. Vaizey even has a come-back - if a peculiar one - for those who attack the Thatcher government about its record on the arts. “Margaret Thatcher is - here’s a curious fact for you - the only serving British prime minister to have visited the arts council. Not that that might absolve her of all the accusations from the arts sector…”