Culture Sec Unveils £1.5B Arts Everywhere Funding

Today, I'm announcing the biggest investment in the arts in a generation, 1.5 billion pounds for arts, culture and heritage over the life of this Parliament.

We know you want certainty and stability, and so we have heard you loud and clear.

We are breaking with the reality of life for far too long, the daily grind when it comes to math, trying to keep institutions going, the daily fight for survival to keep the lights on and the doors open. That will allow us, together, to work on investment, create the framework to do what you do best. Collectively, to lift our faces to the horizon, and gaze at the possibilities of the future.

I believe we are a deeply divided nation who have been fractured and fragmented from one another, and lost the ability to understand one another for too long. There are too many people who have not been seen or valued. Their talents unrewarded, their contribution disregarded and disrespected. And for so many people in our country, they do not see themselves reflected in the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves as a nation, and yet we lead the world through film, music, TV, fashion, dance and drama.

Our galleries and our museums are the envy of the world, and they bring joy to people across the globe. When it comes to the sectors that you represent, we are really good at this. But too often, there's those incredible opportunities to find your spark to live a richer, larger life that only the arts can bring, to inspire the world and to shape the future of our country, those opportunities exist only for a privileged few. This has got to change.

My town of Wigan has made extraordinary contributions to the life of this nation, whether it's brass bands or Northern Soul, Ian McKellan or The Verve. But ask yourself this, how would a working class lad from Wigan go on to become one of the greatest actors in the world nowadays? So just as those visionaries, those post war leaders, put arts and culture at the centre of our efforts to rebuild a devastating nation, insisting that theatres and libraries are as vital to the future of our nation as housing and public sanitation.

We will do the same, and I make no apology for saying that just as they rose to the moment we as a government are asking more of you again.

We said we'd shore up the foundations. We will. And today, we are putting our money where our mouth is to do just that.

But we are rebuilding the bricks and mortar so that you can blow the doors off. So that you can throw the doors open to communities, so that you can invite the people in. So that they can have those opportunities, and so that they can play their full part in the life of our nation and the future of our country.

We're asking you to tell the story of our whole nation. We're asking you to serve the communities in which you stand. For those communities. We're asking people to help every child, wherever they are, whatever background, wherever they come from, to find their spark.

And so my request is this: if there's a lot in your basement, get it out to these communities. Because there are young people outside your doors with nowhere to go, nothing to do, with no one who cares. Throw those doors open, make your space their own.

And if you're a national institution, get out into the country that you serve, and most of all, work together across all of your different sectors and in every place. Because you're great, excellent, world-class in music, heritage. Ensure culture belongs to all of us, everywhere. And whether it's Paul Smith for the work that his foundation is doing to bring forward the next generation of young fashion designers to help shape and interpret the future in which we live. Whether it's the work of the amazing Liverpool Philharmonic on my doorstep just down the road from me in Wigan, it is changing lives, changing this country, and helping us go on to brighten the world with the incredible work that they support.

I know this can be done, because I see it every day in action.

I know that you don't have to choose between access and excellence, because I've seen people do it. I've just been at Sadler's Wells East seeing the incredible work that they're doing, insisting not on access or excellence, but on access to excellence for absolutely everyone. Absolutely everybody.

And I see what some of you are doing to protect and defend and shape not just your own institutions, but to see your job at the centre of a divided nation, to help the nation to flourish.

So this is not the start of a return to business as usual, or have the nation in the status quo. This is your invitation, you have the ability to write the future of our country, as Benjamin Zephaniah said, written in verses: the recovery of our nation has to include good jobs, good housing, great opportunities. It has to include a national health service that is there for people who need it. But it cannot be all bread and no roses, and it's our job to give voice to and shape the nation we are, and we know that we can be.

Thank you very much.