Culture Secretary cannot confirm funding for sector ’emerging from crisis’

Culture Secretary Angus Robertson said the Scottish Government wants to “substantially increase” funding for the arts – but could not confirm how much cash will be provided without “clarity” from the UK Government.

Mr Robertson insisted ministers at Holyrood were “entirely dependent on clarity from the UK Government about what our budgetary situation is likely to be” before they can confirm if culture funding will rise in line with previous promises.

It came as he said the sector was “emerging from crisis”, adding that “some organisations and venues “have been confronting very existential challenges”.

The Culture Secretary added: “Not every organisation has been going through a crisis but the pressures have been such that there has been a collective crisis and we are in the process of emerging from it.”

To help the sector the Scottish Government had previously pledged to increase investment by £100 million a year by 2028-29, with an additional £25 million expected to be provided in 2025-26.

But Mr Robertson told MSPs on Holyrood’s Culture Committee: “It is only once we have the necessary practical assurance around the Scottish Government’s budget for 2025-26 that we will be able to set our commitments for the culture portfolio.”

Shortly before appearing at the committee, the Culture Secretary had written to bosses at the arts body Creative Scotland, saying while they wanted “confirmation of the 2025/26 budgetary position in the immediate future” the Scottish Government “cannot set detailed budgets for the coming financial year prior to knowing what our own budget will be”.

As a result Creative Scotland said it would have to delay decisions on which projects it will fund until the end of January.

Robert Wilson, chairman of the arts body, said: “While we would have preferred to announce the outcome from this application process in October as planned, and have been working collaboratively with the Scottish Government to endeavour to do so, we also understand the extreme budget pressures that exist.”

Labour’s Neil Bibby hit out, saying: “What we’re seeing is chaos and a mess. The Scottish Government have promised, made clear commitments and promises to increase the budget by at least £25 million in 2025-26 for months.

“Yet half-an-hour before this committee meets this morning you write to Creative Scotland saying you can’t tell what the funding position is going to be next year. This is chaotic.”

Mr Robertson however said that the Scottish Government needed to know the “budgetary decisions made by the UK Government” before he could confirm how much funding the sector will receive.

He told MSPs: “Our aim is for the culture budget in 2025-26 to substantially increase, as a second step towards fulfilling our overall funding commitment towards an additional £100 million annually.”

But the Culture Secretary added: “It is only once we have the necessary practical assurance around the Scottish Government’s budget for 2025-26 that we will be able to set our commitments for the culture portfolio.”

He said he wished he could “give clarity to the creative sector a lot earlier”, but he said that Chancellor Rachel Reeves will deliver her first Budget three months and 26 days after Labour won the general election – noting that Gordon Brown had delivered his first budget just over two months after Tony Blair came to power in 1997, while George Osborne took just one month and 16 days to prepare his budget after the Tories won the 2010 general election.

The Scottish Government will deliver its budget “as quickly as we possibly can” on December 4, Mr Robertson said, adding that in the meantime he was “making every case I can in government to make sure the funding is in place”.

But with the SNP no longer having a majority at Holyrood following the ending of its powersharing deal with the Greens, Mr Robertson stressed to other parties the importance of backing the government’s budget.

He told the committee: “The current Scottish Government is operating in a minority parliamentary situation, so to get a budget through it will require a majority of MSPs to vote for the budget.

“That’s why it’s not just a question of commitments by the government.

“If we are agreed that the scale of the challenge is such that it is, and if we are agreed we require to deliver additional resources that the government has committed to wanting to deliver, then we need to vote for it.”

But Mr Bibby said afterwards: “Angus Robertson has not led arts organisations up the garden path as much as to the edge of the cliff.

“He has unleashed chaos on our cultural sector at the time that our artists, musicians and creatives desperately want clarity.

“Rather than offering easy fictions, the SNP should leave creative writing to the professionals and concentrate on providing the reassurance our vibrant arts and cultural sector needs.”

Tory MSP Meghan Gallacher said: “Many arts and cultural organisations are on the brink of collapse yet are now facing a further period of huge uncertainty.

“It is typical that SNP ministers are passing the buck and saying any final decision relies on what the Labour Government delivers in the UK Budget later this month rather than accepting responsibility for their own financial incompetence.”

Liberal Democrat leader Alex Cole-Hamilton MSP said the Scottish Government could only provide the culture sector with “endless disruption and uncertainty”.

He added: “The SNP’s excuses and platitudes are worth nothing to a sector it has repeatedly thrown under the bus.”