Edward Vaizey has been reappointed the minister of state responsible for culture, following the UK general election. With his considerable experience and enthusiasm, he is likely to be welcomed back in the art world. He was shadow minister for the arts from 2006 until 2010, when he was appointed minister for culture, communications and the creative industries. Last July he was given additional responsibility for digital industries at the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills.
On 12 May Vaizey was again given responsibility for the arts at the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, under the newly appointed secretary of state, John Whittingdale. Vaizey will also continue to deal with digital industries at the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, which is now headed by Sajid Javid, his former secretary of state at the culture department.
In the arts, Vaizey’s main challenge will be to deal with funding cuts, since Prime Minister David Cameron plans to continue to slash government expenditure. The other sensitive issue will be to ensure that a larger proportion of government and lottery funding goes to art projects outside London, to help redress present regional imbalance. Vaizey, the Conservative MP for Didcot and Wantage, in Oxfordshire, is the son of the art critic Marina Vaizey.
