Covid-19 and the arts and culture sectors

A debate will be held on Covid-19 and the Cultural and Entertainment Sectors on Tuesday 2 March 2021.

The arts, cultural and entertainment sector has been hit hard by the Covid-19 pandemic. In a July 2020 report, the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee warned that the pandemic presented “the biggest threat to the UK’s cultural infrastructure, institutions and workforce in a generation”.

On 5 July 2020, the Department for Culture Media Digital and Sport (DCMS) and the Treasury announced £1.57 billion funding for cultural, arts and heritage institutions – the Culture Recovery Fund. By 11 December 2020, £1 billion worth of funding had been allocated.

Contribution of arts and culture to UK economy

In 2019 arts and culture contributed £10.47 billion to the UK economy. This corresponds to 0.5% of total UK economic output. There were an estimated 226,000 jobs in the arts and culture sector in 2019, 40% of these were based in London. Here arts and culture is defined to include performing arts, creative arts, writers, museums, libraries and other cultural attractions. 

In the fourth quarter of 2020 (Q4) arts and culture economic output was 46% below the previous year (Q4 2019) having seen limited recovery since the onset of the pandemic in March 2020.