Britain's Labour Party leader Keir Starmer delivers a speech at Tate Modern on 5 July after his party swept to power in the country's general election Photo: by Justin Tallis/ AFP via Getty Images
The Labour party has won a thumping majority in the UK general election with leader Keir Starmer due to enter No. 10 Downing Street today with a current tally of 410 seats (the Conservatives have so far secured 119 seats while the Liberal Democrats will have 71 Members of Parliament). With such a convincing mandate, arts figures are watching to see whether the culture sector will be transformed in any way, possibly through extra funding (Labour announced its arts and culture plans in early June). Lisa Nandy was meanwhile appointed Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport on 5 July. In the wake of the Labour victory, we asked high-profile names in the art world what they hoped for from the new Labour government.
In no particular order: emergency financial support for regional museums facing bankruptcy; commitment to swifter and transparent trustee appointment processes; treasury confirmation of Exhibitions Tax Relief for museums and galleries; establishment of a Soft Power Council to support UK creative industries; reset of European Union relations to support the easier flow of creative practitioners, musicians and young people between the UK and the continent; inclusion of museum and gallery infrastructure and maintenance in Green New Deal funding; and freedom for city mayors to introduce a hotel tax to fund arts and culture.
I call upon this Labour government to embrace the arts with the same enthusiasm as the last Labour administration, but without its instrumentalisation. The arts should be championed for their own sake, free from extraneous demands imposed by policymakers and professionals. I urge the government to discard the philistine and crude expectations that culture should bolster the economy, identity, promote diversity, address climate change, or any other fashionable cause of the day. Instead, the government should aspire to recognise and appreciate the most important and vital roles of the arts: the pursuit of beauty and truth. This approach will benefit everyone, now and in the future.
An understanding that the ephemeral has greater value than the physical. The Tories have made us obsessed with understanding the world by belongings, things, money and growth. What we need is values we can’t see and measure like magic, stories, memories, conversations, relationships. YOLO [you only live once]. And you can’t take it with you. The right has never been right.
Cultural Learning Alliance would like the EBacc (English Baccalaureate), which excludes arts subjects, to be scrapped. And for Labour’s planned curriculum and assessment review to be really bold and ambitious, and first address the purposes of schooling, so that equal curriculum areas, including the Expressive Arts, can be mapped onto new, clear purposes. We need a future-facing and well-rounded educational experience for all students.
I’m hoping the new government will not just understand and talk up the value and contribution of arts and culture—one of the few things we continue to lead the world in in this country—but will also recognise that a relatively small economic investment into our museums and galleries will make a disproportionately transformative impact on institutions and communities across the UK. The numbers needed to fix the NHS, social care, schools etc. are eye watering. The numbers needed to transform access to life-changing art and culture for millions are modest by comparison.
Considering direct funding to the arts will be far down their list of priorities, I wish the Labour government would implement tax incentives on charitable giving. All political parties seem to expect private philanthropy to fill gaps, but there are virtually no incentives for individuals or corporates to do so. Related to this, Labour needs to carefully consider the negative impact of their policies on non-doms [non-domiciled residents] who make significant philanthropic contributions to the arts and other sectors.
My wish list would be for Labour to fully implement their (excellent) creative industries manifesto, including the greater distribution of art from national museums to the regions, and open access for museum images. Both policies will provoke pushback from national museum leadership teams, who really don’t like change, but must be done soon to help build the audiences of the future.
Support and protect the rights of trans people.
Museums and galleries can play a vital role in improving wellbeing, education, economic growth and bringing joy to communities across every part of the UK. I hope a Labour government will take some important first steps: strategic investment and a review of local authority funding, a Museum Collections Bill that supports the sharing of collections, and a national curriculum that promotes every schoolchild visiting a museum or gallery every year.
We welcome the new Labour government and its commitment to rebuilding a thriving, welcoming UK.
As an independent charity, the Royal Academy of Arts does not receive any government funding, but we look forward to working together and supporting their ambitions in relation to culture, education, tourism and employment.
With Art Education at the core of our mission, our wish list would include a committed, engaged DCMS Secretary working closely with the department of education to ensure that art education is central to the school curriculum, with all the benefits that brings to children, society and the economy. Art is a serious subject.
We’d also wish for increased support for young international artistic talent, with government increasing the visas available to students wishing to come and study in the UK. Right now the RA Schools can only accept British citizens or those with right to remain, settled status or special talent visas.
And finally, we’d look for a greater recognition of the vital role of culture in the UK economy and an increased commitment to revitalising tourism, reintroducing tax-free shopping, improving transport, and building opportunities for employment in the cultural and creative sectors.