Nick Ahad: British film industry ends up on the cutting room floor

Back in May, I openly applauded the Culture Secretary in this column for pledging his Government's financial support to the arts. It turns out that all may not be as it seemed. Since then I have sat back in amazement and watched as the axe has slashed at arts companies – or been brandished threateningly at them – on an almost daily basis. And now this.

The biggest story in the arts world this week is the fact that the UK Film Council is to be abolished. Not facing cuts, like the Arts Council, or every other arts organisation in the country. No, just gone.

Having been in regular contact recently with the Arts Council about the cuts, and as I am organising a meeting between Yorkshire's theatres to talk about the funding crisis, another cut wasn't the greatest surprise.

The depth of the cut and where it will happen, was.

I'd have been less surprised if the Prime Minister had started wandering around South East Asia, making proclamations like some sort of returning colonialist.

The argument for the arts simply can't be put any more strongly. That they are having to mount such a strong defence in the first place is a travesty.

Theatre brings into the economy more money than is spent on it. That's all you need to know.

There are lots of esoteric and ultimately unquantifiable riches we gain from schemes such as free access to our country's museums, but if you want the brass tacks, here they are. The arts cost only 0.07 per cent of total public spending – 7p in every 100. The Arts Council theatre budget for 2008 was 54m; in return, the theatre paid back 76m in VAT in London alone.

The UK Film Council, which celebrates a decade in existence this year, has been instrumental in bringing you the following: In The Loop, The Constant Gardener, Gosford Park, This is England, Bend it Like Beckham, Nowhere Boy. Without this organisation these films would not exist. Still think the arts aren't worth funding?

Forget the money these films bring into the economy (lots), look at how much poorer we'd be without them.

With an annual budget of 15m and a staff of 75, The UK Film Council has invested 160m into more than 900 movies over the course of the last decade, as well as providing support for the SkillSet training programmes and the Digital Screen Network.

Soon it simply won't be there. And the scariest thing? We don't know what's going to replace it.

No-one is immune to the cuts we need to make in public spending, I accept that. But to simply get rid of the whole organisation leaves British film in a perilous state.

I can't put it any clearer than Lord Puttnam, president of the Film Distributors' Association: "Over the past decade, the Film Council has been a layer of strategic glue that's helped bind the many parts of our disparate industry together. It is sure to be widely missed."

To hear interviews with the likes of Barry Cryer, Paul Merton and Alan Ayckbourn, and for an in-depth look at what's happening across the county, listen to or download the Yorkshire Post's arts podcast at www.yorkshirepost/podcasts