Midlands arts and culture cash slashed by £24m

SPENDING on culture, heritage and the arts has been slashed by £24 million since 2010 across the West Midlands – the biggest fall in Britain.

The figure were published by Tom Watson, the Black Country MP and Labour’s Shadow Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport.

Spending was cut by local authorities, but Labour points out that it was a result of huge cuts in the grants that they receive from central government. Last December, Birmingham City Council revealed plans to make £250 million of savings over the next four years.

It already means there is less money for museums, art galleries, theatres and community art and culture organisations.

But the spending squeeze could be even greater once we leave the European Union, because the UK is set to lose access to an EU grant scheme called the Creative Europe Programme.

Over the last two years Creative Europe supported 230 UK cultural and creative organisations and audiovisual companies, as well as the cinema distribution of 84 UK films in other European countries, with grants totalling €40 million.

The Midlands, including the West Midlands and East Midlands, received around £336,000 a year from EU funds for culture in recent years.

Mr Watson said: “The UK’s rich artistic and cultural heritage is the envy of the world and something everyone in this country can be proud of.

“While Labour made the landmark decision to make our national museums entry free of charge, opening up access to millions, new figures we’ve obtained have shown that arts and culture funding has been cut by £165 million since the Tories came to power with local councils and arts organisations now set to lose out on millions more when we leave the EU.

“If the Government is going to make a success of Brexit and create a ‘country that works for everyone’ it must create a country that works for the arts, too.

“But right now we’ve got a Government that’s slashing arts funding and sidelining them from the Brexit top table.”