Dame Caroline Dinenage has responded to the DCMS funding cuts announced in the government’s Spending Review.
In her speech to the House of Commons on Wednesday, Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves confirmed the UK’s Department of Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) would see a real terms cut in funding over the next five years.
Capital spending will be held at today’s rate of £700 million until the 2029/30 period, an effective cut of 2.8 per cent in the funds available for growth and investment.
In a statement, Dinenage, chair of the cross-party Culture Media and Sport committee, said: “A real-terms cut for DCMS is the wrong choice by the Chancellor. Promises of significant increases for the creative industries are welcome, although the detail needed to scrutinise this claim is lacking. There are also the huge unanswered questions of how the Department is going to manage these cuts, and what parts of culture, media and sport will be made to bear the brunt of them.
“At the same time, a real-terms cut to the FCDO puts the UK’s soft power credentials and the sustainability of the BBC World Service in question, risking undermining the Chancellor’s promise of securonomics. As geo-politics become more uncertain, we cannot afford to simply step back and create a vacuum for hostile states’ media to fill.”
