Ed Vaizey spent much of his time as shadow culture minister persuading people that the Conservatives cared about the arts and they would be safe in their hands.
So it is ironic that now he is in power he will have to oversee what many fear will be savage cuts following the announcement of the government’s comprehensive spending review later this month.
“Obviously I am not particularly ecstatic to be coming in at the point where we are having to tighten our belts, but that is life,” says Vaizey, the minister for culture, communications and the creative industries.
Those working in arts and culture fear that this belt tightening will be so severe that it will force many organisations to close. Last month a network of artists and arts organisations launched a campaign warning of the huge damage that 25% cuts would cause.
Ralph Rugoff, the director of London’s Hayward Gallery, appealed to the government “not to make cuts so radical and so extreme that they would seriously sabotage” the country’s status as a global leader in arts and culture.
The Museums Association (MA) has also been warning about the effects of cutting funding, particularly for the Renaissance in the Regions programme. The results of an MA survey of nine Renaissance hubs point to declining services, falling visitor numbers and the potential mothballing of collections.
“We want to keep Renaissance, there is no doubt about that,” Vaizey says. “To a certain extent, the final shape of the new Renaissance will depend on the spending review. It’s a simple matter of pounds, shillings and pence.
"There won’t be as much money as there has been, that is just a fact of life because of the spending environment we are working in. That will mean we have to make sure we focus Renaissance in order for it to be as effective as possible.”
One of the first significant acts by Vaizey and his boss, culture secretary Jeremy Hunt, was to announce the abolition of the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council (MLA).
The MLA is not particularly loved by the sector, but it oversees important programmes such as Renaissance, the Portable Antiquities Scheme, Strategic Commissioning and many others. These responsibilities have to go somewhere.
“The arts council would be the most likely home for the vast majority of functions,” says Vaizey. “If that is the final decision we make, then we must ensure that museums have a profile in that institution.”
Vaizey says this would mean some MLA staff transferring to Arts Council England (ACE), but also museum expertise being represented on its board and Renaissance being seen as an important programme within the organisation.
Vaizey is working closely with MLA chief executive Roy Clare and chairman Andrew Motion on winding down the organisation. “They have been very straightforward in terms of dealing with it and understanding our political priorities to reduce overheads and create a clearer landscape in terms of arm’s length bodies.”
As well as a future role for ACE, there are also UK-wide issues to sort out. The Federation of Museums and Art Galleries of Wales has warned that the end of the MLA “may spell disaster for museums in Wales”, as they depend on MLA programmes such as Acceptance in Lieu and the Portable Antiquities Scheme.
Vaizey says the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) will look at how the UK-wide work of the MLA could be devolved.
The abolition of the MLA is part of a wider DCMS review of arm’s length bodies and an announcement of other changes is expected this month. The merger or streamlining of organisations such as English Heritage and the Heritage Lottery Fund is being looked at.
Museums and galleries all over the UK are fearful of the spending review. Local authority venues feel particularly vulnerable, as they will be hit by cuts from above from central government and below from local government.
Vaizey does not offer a great deal of comfort, beyond calls for organisations to share resources and expertise more effectively.
“The way forward is simply to say there has to be more sophisticated thinking in terms of how local authorities work together to provide museum services. If a local authority is worried about the cost of supporting its local museum it should be thinking: ‘Are there local authorities nearby that we could work with to create critical mass?’”
Vaizey believes the MA is a good model, as it provides “easily accessible advice to museums about how to be as effective as possible in terms of how they use their collections and how they innovate”.
He points to MA initiatives such as Effective Collections, which helps museums of all sizes make better use of the artefacts they care for.
Much has been made of the Conservatives’ hopes for more philanthropic support for the arts, and Vaizey is keen to fulfil a manifesto promise to improve tax breaks for lifetime giving.
But he does not see philanthropy as a panacea for the sector’s problems and says it should not be used as a substitute for government support. He is also aware that raising money from private sources is hard in the regions.
“As Jeremy has made clear, this is a 20-year project. We are trying to change the culture of giving to and supporting the arts, so it is not going to happen overnight.”
As well as philanthropy, giving greater freedom to national museums was another high-profile Conservative cultural policy, but this is proving problematic.
“It is one of the great ironies of life, I suppose, that you start with an incredibly simple proposition, that we would like to give national museums more freedom, but it ends up, despite all parties being willing, to be a much more complicated process than you anticipated. So we have not made as rapid progress as we wanted but we have certainly narrowed down the options.”
Despite this, he is still keen for national museums to have more freedom and says they will be allowed to decide how to implement the cuts that are coming their way.
“I have spent the last three years telling people that I think we have some of the finest museum directors in the world, so the idea that I could second guess them about the most effective way to use whatever grant central government is able to give them, would be a mistake.
"I don’t want to sit in Whitehall dictating to museums on issues like diversity or audience engagement. I trust the people who run museums to be passionate advocates for what they do and to want to attract the widest possible audience.”
Vaizey says abolishing free entry will not be an option for museums. He also says that the DCMS will continue to fund national museums directly, even though national arts organisations such as the Royal Opera House and the National Theatre receive their funding directly from ACE.
One change that will happen is a greater share of lottery funding for the arts, sport and heritage, which will come from a reduction in money going to the Big Lottery Fund. The DCMS is to implement this starting in April next year.
The next few years are going to be turbulent ones and Vaizey will need to be an astute operator if he is to come out the other side with his reputation intact. But he is certainly committed to culture and has a good knowledge of the sector following four years as shadow culture minister.
“My mum [Marina Vaizey] was the art critic of the Sunday Times, and has been a trustee of a great many museums, from the Imperial War Museum to the Geffrye, so I always grew up around the visual arts and museums,” he says. “This was the job that I asked David Cameron for, so I was thrilled to have got the job now that I am in government.”
Whether he is still thrilled following the funding cuts that will be revealed later this month remains to be seen.
Ed Vaizey was born in 1968 and studied at Merton College, Oxford. After university he spent two years as a political researcher, before training and practising as a barrister. From 1996 to 2004 he was director of a public relations company. He became a political speechwriter in 2004.
He was elected as the member of parliament for Wantage and Didcot in May 2005. He was the shadow culture and creative industries minister from 2006 until he became a government minister in May 2010.