NMDC Response to the 2019 Spending Review 10 Sep 2019

NMDC welcomes the news in the Spending Review of an inflationary increase to departmental budgets. For culture, this signals a reversal of over 10 years of damaging cuts.

In last week’s Spending Review, the Chancellor Sajid Javid announced that no departmental budgets would be cut. Though small, the inflationary increase for culture is a positive sign that Government understands the risk that further decreases in funding would have on the sector.

The news of £3.5bn extra in Local Government spending is also welcome. Though there are still difficult challenges to address for Local Authorities, this increase may alleviate some of the pressure on local services.

Ian Blatchford, Chair of NMDC and Director & Chief Executive of the Science Museum Group said:

‘This is welcome news. The Prime Minister’s first major speech was at the Science and Industry Museum in Manchester where he noted the necessity of our culture and heritage to the prosperity of our communities and economic strength. We’re pleased to see that the ambition of this speech has begun to follow through to policy – it recognises that we can no longer stand still, that we must invest if museums are to remain an integral part of our nation’s future. We hope this will the beginning of a positive upward trend of investment.’