‘If Maria Miller is going to try to convert her Chancellor and Treasury colleagues to the economic value of the arts and creative industries to jobs and growth, she will have our strong backing.  Arts are suffering under this government's cuts at local as well as central government level and the government must think again.

‘But she needs to persuade her Education Secretary as well, that for the sake of all children and the future of arts and creativity in this country, arts must be at the heart of the curriculum. 

‘And she needs to promote the fact that arts and creativity is about much more than the economy: they’re about a sense of identity, of community and the potential of each and every individual.’