Arts and the creative industries will be a key part of the UK government’s drive for economic growth, the culture secretary, Lisa Nandy, has said as she promised to “bulldoze” barriers that hold back potential.
Nandy gave a speech in Gateshead where she vowed to “turbocharge” the nation’s creative industries, whether film, television, music, fashion, theatre or video games.
She was speaking on Friday at the first Creative Industries Growth Summit, where audience members included bosses from companies such as Netflix and Spotify and leaders of publicly funded arts organisations including the V&A and the Edinburgh international festival.
Nandy accused previous Conservative governments of not appreciating and “underpricing” the economic value of arts and culture.
She said: “Every government has understood the cultural value of the creative industries. They’ve understood the social value. Very little attention has been paid to the economic potential.
“It is one thing to talk, it is another to act. The creative industries have not been shy in coming forward to tell us what is holding them back.”
She added: “Too often you’ve done extraordinary things, not in partnership with your government, but despite it. You’ve been knocking on doors in Whitehall for far too long with a clear message. You want the stability that gives investors confidence to back you. You want a government willing to take a bulldozer to every barrier to growth.”
Nandy said the government was “taking the brakes off” some of the fastest growing industries in the UK. “Investors like Netflix and Amazon are banging on our door wanting to invest in projects. By partnering with them, we know that we can do more.”
Nandy said creative industry bosses told her time and again about skills shortages stemming from a lack of investment and the downgrading of arts subjects on the school curriculum.
“It is a tragedy when you think of how many children would love to get jobs in film or fashion or video games, but simply can’t.” It would be like “dreaming of going to the moon” and that can’t be right, Nandy said.
During her speech, Nandy announced a £60m package of support to drive growth. The biggest chunk, £40m, is, the government said, to support grassroots creative ventures such as start-up video game studios, music venues and other creative businesses.
Four UK cultural projects will receive funding, including a new internationally recognised Centre for Writing in Newcastle, which gets £5m.
The others are: £5m for the National Glass Centre in Sunderland, a “world-class facility for glassmaking”; £3.5m for Harmony Works, a music education centre in Sheffield; and £2.7m for The Tropicana, a cultural venue in Weston-super-Mare.
There were cheers during Nandy’s speech when the investment in the Centre for Writing in Newcastle was announced. Claire Malcolm, the chief executive of New Writing North, which has spearheaded the project, said she was thrilled and excited to get government support.
Nandy also praised the plans to build studios on the former crane-making Crown Works site on the banks of the Wear in Sunderland, which the government is supporting with money. The north-east should become the “Hollywood of the UK”, she said.
It was a positive day in which more than 250 people gathered from the creative sector, but in the background was always the fear that the arts might be first in line if big government spending cuts are to come.
Nandy, however, suggested the days of the arts being an optional extra were over. “Arts and creativity and culture is not a ‘nice to have’. It is an essential part of who we are as a country,” she said. “The story that a nation tells itself, about itself, matters.
“For too many people in this country, and for far too long, they just haven’t seen themselves reflected in our national story. We are determined that is going to change, but for us this is not just about stardust, it is about serious, hard-headed economics.”
