Andy Burnham – put the arts in your 10-year plan
The new Prime Minister is writing a "10-year plan" for the UK. The arts and culture must be part of it, as an essential ingredient in the future we all want to build.
On his first day in Downing Street, Andy Burnham revealed that he is working on a “10-year plan” – a path to where he believes the whole country wants to be, “wherever we’re coming from, whatever party we support”.1
Whoever we are, wherever we live and however we vote, we need the arts in our lives. Sounds and stories that resonate. Pictures and performances that captivate. Opportunities to connect to one another – to dance, to sing and to laugh together. These are not luxury items, but essential ingredients in the fabric of a healthy society.
In too many places, that fabric has been fraying. The arts can help to mend it. Rather than squeezing the arts out of our schools and universities, let’s nurture creativity and curiosity. Instead of letting our libraries and cultural venues close down, let’s build and protect the places that fire our imaginations and bring people together. Instead of continuing down a path of decline (UK public funding for culture is now at one of the lowest levels in Europe2), let’s invest in our artists and cultural organisations, so that they – and we – can flourish and grow.
This Labour Government was elected on the promise of a decade of national renewal, pledging to “place the arts back where they belong, at the centre of a new, hopeful, modern story of Britain”.3 This 10-year plan is a golden opportunity to deliver on that promise and realise that potential. We must not let it go to waste.
By revitalising the arts, we can revitalise the nation.
Prime Minister – we urge you to:
✏️ Put the arts and culture in your 10-year plan
🚀 Commit to building a country where the arts are available from childhood, accessible to all and thriving everywhere
The arts have revitalised this nation before, and they can do it again.
80 years ago, from the rubble of the Second World War, the Labour government made arts and culture an integral part of their plan to rebuild the nation, alongside the construction of a million new homes and the creation of the National Health Service. They established the Arts Council, empowered local councils to build venues and fund artists, and produced the Festival of Britain as “a tonic to the nation”.
We need the arts to play a similar role now – transforming lives, communities and the whole country for the better. And that’s why we need them in the 10-year plan for the UK.
“There’s no doubt that this country could build itself up through a cultivation of the arts, through a determination to release its energies and take on the mantle of other places, and other times – Athens, Florence, and others – which have transformed their societies through the arts. Why can’t we?”
– Lord Melvyn Bragg, speaking in Parliament in 2024