The Stage

Osborne vows Tories are committed to arts, but hints at cuts

Published Friday 4 December 2009 at 13:02 by Alistair Smith

Conservative shadow chancellor George Osborne has vowed that the Tories are “deeply committed to the British arts sector” but warned that “whoever wins the next election will have to restrain government funding” in a speech at the Tate Modern this week.

Osborne also said that a Tory government would attempt to lessen bureaucratic interference in the arts and would look at the case for five-year funding agreements for larger cultural organisations, if those same organisations agreed to build up the amount of money they received from private endowments.

He said: “We believe that government funding for the arts is important – and that’s why a Conservative government will continue to fund and support the arts. And of course, we support free entry to galleries and museums, and want that to continue too. But obviously, whoever wins the next election will have to restrain government spending.

“We’ve already seen DCMS cut capital investment for the arts to try to fix a £100 million hole in its accounts. That’s why we need to find complementary sources of funding.”

Part of this extra funding, he said, would come from restoring the money raised from the Lottery to its four original good causes, which include the arts. A Tory government would also ask organisations such as Arts Council England to cut their administrative budgets. It would also encourage ACE to set up a system of match funding whereby the arts council would give grants equal to the money a cultural organisation had raised from other sources such as corporate sponsorship.

Osborne also revealed that Tory shadow arts team would be launching a ‘major review of the creative industries’.

He added: “This review will be published before the election, and will play a key role in shaping not just our creative policies, but our economic strategy too.”