Jeremy Hunt seeks charitable revolution to power Britain's creative industries

Jeremy Hunt MP, Shadow Culture Secretary, gave his first big speech on the arts yesterday evening.  He was speaking to Peter Whittle's increasingly influential New Culture Forum.  Within the audience were Sir Nicholas Serota, Director of Tate Modern; Nicholas Hytner, Director of the National Theatre; Neil McGregor, Director of the British Museum; and Colin Tweedie of Arts and Business.

Here are some of the main points made by Mr Hunt within an impressive speech delivered without notes:

The creative industries are vital to the British economy and regeneration. They account for 3.7% of the national income and 1.9 million jobs.  No social regeneration project is complete without a strong creative sector dimension.

Labour has done many good things for the arts but the renaissance began under the Conservatives in 1994 with the establishment of the National Lottery.  He noted that the Lottery had provided £3.8bn for the arts and £4.1bn for heritage.  Labour had, he said, reduced funding for the arts by raiding the Lottery pot and taking from what was originally intended for the 'four pillars' - arts, heritage, sport, local community causes.  A Conservative Government's National Lottery Independence Bill would restore the exclusivity of Lottery funding for the four pillars and this would mean nearly £100m more each year for the arts and heritage.

More private charity. Further to ensuring that the arts received more public funding he also said that Conservatives would do more to encourage private giving to good causes.  Saluting the work of Greg Clark MP, Shadow Charities Minister and his co-author of papers on 'progressive conservatism', he said that £3bn to £4bn extra could be made available to the arts and other good causes if giving rose to 1% as a percentage of UK national income, from its current level of 0.7%.  This shouldn't be impossible given the huge wealth in the City, for example.  In the US philanthropy is at 1.7%.  He discussed streamlining gift aid, using the honours system for recognising major philanthropists and encouraging endowments but most important were new social norms.  Giving to charity must become as normal as leaving a tip of 10% at a restaurant, he said.  Both Greg Clark and Jeremy Hunt have been strongly influenced by Daniel Finkelstein's thinking on the importance of social behaviours.

Less bureaucracy.  Jeremy Hunt promised to look at the bureaucracy that had meant the Arts Council spent 12p of every pound it donates on administration.  It was just 5p.  Action against this sort of bureaucracy and the red tape that government imposes on the arts sector in more direct ways could free significant resources.

No ifs, no buts, free museums were here to stay.  Following last year's controversy which saw the sacking of his predecessor Hugo Swire, Jeremy Hunt affirmed that free museum access would be protected by a Conservative government.  Noting that admissions had increased by 80% he applauded then Culture Secretary Chris Smith's victory over then Chancellor, Gordon Brown.

Mr Hunt said that the arts shouldn't be seen in purely 'instrumental' terms by politicians but also in 'inspirational' terms.  Quoting Alain de Botton he said that the arts helped us thrive, not just survive.

PS There's a really silly story in The Sun this morning that suggests Jeremy Hunt endorsed graffiti.  He did nothing of the sort.  He merely noted how one piece of graffiti on the M40 - Why do I do this every day? - was an example of how the arts can often challenge us.

Comments

[Umbrella man]

Funding the arts via the National Lottery amounts to one of the most regressive forms of tax. The poor buy a very large share of Lottery tickets and the rich benefit most from arts subsidies. Most Lottery proceeds should be going to local charities and not the arts.

[Dave McBay]

Umbrella Man writes utter tosh. The National Lottery isn't a regressive form of tax. Spending anything on the lottery is completely optional. If people wish to waste their money on a pipe dream then it is great that good causes, including some of the Arts, should benefit.

[Umbrella man]

It may be voluntary Dave but the proceeds should go back to the people who largely use the Lottery.

[Auntie Flo']

Well said, Jeremy Hunt, and thank you for an excellent keynote speech.

Nulabour is destroying the arts and heritage outside of its own heartlands. A Conservative government must take action to restore our precious cultural and historic heritage, in its many and diverse forms, popular as well as classic, which is the heart and soul our national culture and spirit.

[Sally Roberts]

Well done Jeremy for this excellent keynote speech. I like particularly the emphasis on encouraging philanthropy which contributes so much to the Arts in the USA. We need to encourage big donors not just to support opera, ballet and classical music which they already do to a great extent but must provide incentives for them to donate to the more populist causes as well.

[Dave McBay]

Umbrella Man: "but the proceeds should go back to the people who largely use the Lottery."

Why? My involuntary taxes don't, by and large, come back to me. At least the "feeling lucky" folk are choosing to waste their money.

The Arts, mores the pity, aren't just opera, ballet and high-brow theatre. There's plenty of p.c. community arts baloney that is consumed (however unwillingly) by the great unwashed Lottery Ticket buyer. What's wrong with the idea that the Supermarket Sweep brigade may elevate their horizons at some point? The Victorians had the right idea on this one... uplifting the aspirations of the common bloke by providing access to high art.

[Libertarian]

Tax relief for "the creative industries" is actually a form of favouritism and subsidy.

The Beatles, Rolling Stones and Pink Floyd did not the support of the big quangos, state-organised gambling and tax relief to be successful. Subsidies to opera houses and orchestras inflate the fees of top artistes and conductors.

Several of our top impressarios got rich using taxpayers' money to market test theatre productions and taking the successful ones private in the West End and on tour.

It is time to halt the Arts gravy train.

[fugitive ink]

Probably the most depressing feature of Hunt's oration, at least as reported here, is how very little it differs in any material way from the bland, supportive, dull stuff that politicians of all parties say about 'the arts' - it's just as well he made that carefully-crafted 'gaffe' about graffiti, as otherwise who'd have noticed his speech at all?