U.K. Government Freezes Out Music & Culture in New Spending Statement; Industry Responds With Alarm

Industry experts fear budget cuts will further damage a sector already struggling from years of underfunding and complex issues surrounding generative AI.

Mar 26, 2025 - 22:20

U.K. Government Freezes Out Music & Culture in New Spending Statement; Industry Responds With Alarm

LONDON – Following the arrival of the U.K. government’s Spring Statement — an overview of its upcoming budgetary and spending plans — on Wednesday (Mar. 26), the U.K. creative industries are expressing concern over what the new budget could mean for artists, grassroots music venues and music education this year.

Since coming into power after winning an overwhelming majority with 412 elected MPs in last July’s General Election, Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour Party and Lisa Nandy — the U.K.’s culture, media and sport secretary — have run their campaign on promises of economic growth and a greater respect for the British arts. Last summer, they pledged a new National Music Education Network in their manifesto that would deliver increased resources for parents, teachers, and children. The creative industries were also named as a growth-driving pillar in the U.K.’s modern industrial strategy, with an aim to grow the sector by £50 billion by 2030.

In November, Chancellor Rachel Reeves delivered the first Labour budget in 15 years, which raised some taxes — notably national insurance contributions for employers — that will allow the government to invest in the National Health Service (NHS), education and infrastructure. She also committed £6.7 billion ($8.6 billion) for education investment in 2025.

In the Spring Statement, however, which was delivered by Reeves from London this afternoon, a fresh set of cuts to government spending and public investment were outlined. She also told MPs that “the world has changed” since her first budget just under five months ago, and that those changes were to blame for the string of downgrades she put forward.

When discussing departmental budgets, which dictate how much different parts of government can spend until 2030, Reeves said she aims to make the state “leaner and more agile.” Early reports suggested that day-to-day department spending was set to increase by an average of 1.3% per year above inflation; Reeves said it will rise by 1.2%. Furthermore, she confirmed that cuts will fall on departments outside of health, defense and education, whose departmental spending is not “protected,” she said.

“The Spring Statement makes it clear that most government departments, including the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, face real-terms cuts,” Roberto Neri, CEO of The Ivors Academy, tells Billboard U.K. “This will put further pressure on already stretched budgets at the BBC and Arts Council England, two of the most significant commissioners of new music.”

Years of underfunding from previous governments, tough financial conditions for artists and grassroots venues and complex issues surrounding generative artificial intelligence (AI) are all significant challenges for the sector. A hearing at The Houses of Parliament in October 2023, for example, found that 1,000 music teachers have been lost in the past decade, while a 2025 report by Music Mark found that Labour had inherited a shortfall in its music education budget over the next five years.

A briefing published by U.K. Music in Sept. 2024, meanwhile, suggested that the international appetite for British music remains strong — with overall exports growing by 15% to £4.6 billion ($5.9 billion) last year — but that the health of the country’s music ecosystem must be looked at more closely, Neri posits.

“Since the pandemic, the U.K.’s music industry has grown almost twice as fast as the wider economy — and we’re fighting to ensure songwriters and composers see more of the benefits,” Neri says. “As the government prioritises economic growth, it should back our world-leading songwriters and composers, the source of all value in music, and invest in the infrastructure they depend on.”

The lack of new policy around music and culture in the Spring Statement is also of concern to Ben Selway, managing director at Access Creative College (ACC), the U.K.’s largest independent training provider across creative fields. Former pupils at Access Creative’s seven national campuses include Ed Sheeran (now a patron of the ACC), Rita Ora and Jorja Douglas of BRIT-nominated girl group FLO.

The future of music education in the U.K., Selway says, depends on “how effectively we are able to reverse the negative trends we’ve seen over the past decades, from the closure of grassroots music venues to a reduction in funding in real terms, and mitigate the risks that threaten the music industry, such as AI and copyright.”

Selway also highlights the recent statement made by the Ed Sheeran Foundation, whose namesake made headlines earlier this week with the release of an open letter — signed by other A-listers including Sir Elton John and Harry Styles — calling upon the government to ensure music education remains high on the agenda. “This creative industry brings so much to our culture, our communities, our economy, our personal wellbeing, but music education has fallen through the gaps. That’s why I’m asking the government, collectively, to correct the mistakes of its past and to protect and grow this for generations to come,” Sheeran wrote.

Sophie Brownlee, external affairs manager at the Music Venue Trust (an organisation that supports the grassroots music scene) told Billboard U.K. that “the chancellor, treasury and DCMS have all the facts and data they need to know how to reverse the decline in access to live music and culture in our communities.” She added: “For the chancellor to choose, once again, not to act on this opportunity will not generate growth or meet the Government’s wider ambitions for the creative industries. Instead, it will see more grassroots music venues close, many in already deprived communities, further jobs lost, and the continuation of undervaluing local culture in the U.K.”

Though Reeves announced plans to invest more in AI technologies across the civil service and defense sectors, her statement didn’t broach the government’s 10-week consultation, which took place in late 2024, on whether copyrighted content, including music, can lawfully be used by developers to train generative AI models.

In recent months, the AI question has become a highly debated talking point among the industry, proving controversial among creatives and copyright holders. The government’s resulting report said an “opt out” approach would give rights holders a greater ability to license the use of their content, but those plans are yet to be confirmed.

Tom Kiehl of U.K. Music argues this is not a time to become complacent. “The chancellor has talked again about her strategy for economic growth and some of the potential benefits of AI,” he says. “However, there was nothing in her statement about the huge damage that would be caused to the music industry by government plans to give AI firms unfettered access to music under sweeping changes to copyright law. The proposals would be a disaster for the U.K.’s £7.6 billion music industry.

“We need an urgent rethink from the Government and the Chancellor over those plans,” Kiehl continued, “which would allow firms to train their AI models on British music without having to pay or seek permission from the people who created the work or own the rights.”