Dame Caroline Dinenage, Chair of CMS Committee, responds to DCMS funding cuts

In response to the real-terms cuts to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport's budget announced in the Spending Review, Chair of the Culture, Media and Sports Committee, Dame Caroline Dinenage said:

“A real-terms cut for DCMS is the wrong choice by the Chancellor. Promises of significant increases for the creative industries are welcome, although the detail needed to scrutinise this claim is lacking. There are also the huge unanswered questions of how the Department is going to manage these cuts, and what parts of culture, media and sport will be made to bear the brunt of them.

“At the same time, a real-terms cut to the FCDO puts the UK's soft power credentials and the sustainability of the BBC World Service in question, risking undermining the Chancellor's promise of securonomics. As geo-politics become more uncertain, we cannot afford to simply step back and create a vacuum for hostile states' media to fill.”

“My Committee will be scrutinising the impact these decisions will have, and looking at the detail of the Creative Industries Sector Plan when it arrives, to see what the full impact of the Chancellor's decision is”