Nadine Dorries has lambasted Arts Council England, saying that the funding body she used to control withdrew all subsidy from English National Opera as a “stunt”.
The former culture secretary described Arts Council England’s (ACE’s) decision to cut ENO’s £12.6 million annual grant as shocking, lazy and politically motivated.
Dorries broke her silence yesterday on the settlement announced in November, which withdrew £24 million from organisations in London and distributed it to others outside the capital.
English National Opera, the Donmar Warehouse and Hampstead Theatre were among the renowned organisations in London that lost all their funding. The arts council said it had been under instruction from Dorries, who was culture secretary for 12 months from September 2021, to move money away from the capital as part of the government’s levelling-up agenda.
However, Dorries said yesterday that it had been the arts council’s decision to “attack” the ENO. She tweeted that it had “pulled this as a stunt to try [and] reverse levelling up and funding being transferred to poorer communities in the north of England”.
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“It’s lazy and political. Their money comes from you, the tax payer via government but only they get to decide where it is spent,” she wrote, adding that ACE had made the case “for arms-length bodies to be brought under political control”.
It is assumed that Dorries, who could not be contacted yesterday, is suggesting the council deliberately pursued a shock tactic of withdrawing all of ENO’s money — which brought widespread condemnation from across the political spectrum — in an effort to stun politicians into reversing their levelling-up policy.
Dorries made the claim hours after she made history by becoming the first politician and first “negative” winner of The Stage 100 list of the most influential people in Britain’s performing arts industry.
The Stage, which has run the award for 25 years, said Dorries had demolished the independence of ACE and taken a “wrecking ball to opera and new writing”. It said she had “neutered, potentially irreversibly” the power and influence of ACE, which has conventionally made its funding decisions free of government interference.
Dorries, who before yesterday had not spoken publicly about ACE’s November funding settlement, tweeted that she had topped The Stage’s award and “blamed for lazy, politically motivated decision making at ACE who shockingly cut £16 million ENO grant”.
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“It was ACE’s decision to attack ENO — culture secretary has no say where,” she said, adding it had been a “dire” decision. “If there ever was a case for the decision for arms-length bodies to be brought under political control, ACE have just made it,” she said.
Dorries was also critical this week of the decision by Michelle Donelan, her successor as culture secretary, to stop the government’s planned privatisation of Channel 4.
Donelan said the sale of the publicly owned but commercially funded broadcaster, which had been pursued by Dorries, would be too disruptive. She said there were “better ways to secure” the channel’s long-term sustainability in the face of increased competition from, for example, streaming companies.
Dorries wrote on Wednesday: “Three years of a progressive Tory government being washed down the drain. Levelling up, dumped. Social care reform, dumped. Keeping young and vulnerable people safe online, watered down. A bonfire of EU legislation, not happening. Sale of C4 giving back £2 billion reversed. Replaced with what?”
An Arts Council England spokeswoman said: “We have delivered on the instruction given to us by the government in February 2022 to disburse additional funding we received to benefit areas outside of London and to reduce the budget for London.
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“We were clear with organisations throughout the funding application process that a smaller budget for London would result in difficult decisions.”
