“The worker must have bread, but she must have roses too." This adage, much loved by the trade union and women’s rights movements, tells a universal truth: that we all have the right to live, not simply exist.

We should all experience the thrill of live music. Be moved to tears by the theatre. See art that makes us think in a way we never have before. Laugh at the way comedians tell our culture back to us in a way we know to be true. Experience that collective sense of joy when our football team scores. Have our hearts warmed when our children are wowed by museum exhibitions they have never seen before.

These are the roses of life and we need them as much as bread.

But in Scotland the roses are being cut. And it’s Creative Scotland, a non-departmental public body of the Scottish Government, holding the shears under duress.

From this Friday, it will close its Open Fund for Individuals, one of their key funding programmes that supports artists, writers, producers and other creatives. The fund is worth £6million and half of that was due to come from Scottish Government funding. Creative Scotland is also closing youth music funding worth £1.8m.

The decision came after the Scottish Government said it was unable to confirm the release of £6.6m in grant-in-aid in the current financial year, 2024-25.

This is the latest in a series of public fallouts between Creative Scotland and the Scottish Government. The Government originally cut £6.6m in February 2023, reversed that decision after public pressure, then reimposed the cut in September 2023. The then First Minister Humza Yousaf pledged an additional £100m for the arts sector by 2028 in October last year, with the promise of restoring the £6.6m in funding as part of the 2024/25 budget.

Supposedly, the Scottish Government is committed to increase funding by £25m next year, but you can understand why that will now be treated with caution by a sector that must fight to put bread on the table.

And while the Scottish Government and Creative Scotland have another public bunfight, arts workers are caught in the crossfire.

What makes this doubly damaging is that this decision has been taken in the context of wider funding uncertainty – with every festival, every artistic event and every artistic venue having no confirmed funding from the Scottish Government beyond the end of the financial year in March 2025.

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Hundreds of arts organisations have applied for Creative Scotland’s Multi-Year Fund and are in limbo waiting on an announcement from Creative Scotland in October, as well as the UK Government Budget at the end of October and the Scottish Government Budget in December. All three institutions bear some responsibility for the situation in which artists in Scotland find themselves.

Let’s be clear about the potential impact of these cuts. Without public funding, our arts risk becoming the preserve of the rich. Arts and culture is for everyone. What hope have we got for any working-class creative to make it if we deny them the very funding that gives them access to these spaces?

This isn’t just an issue with festivals in Edinburgh. Festivals across Scotland have been cancelled or are at risk. The crisis of funding in local government means libraries, culture and sports provision is being increasingly cut. These cuts are on top of an already low baseline. Across Europe, on average, governments invest 1.5% of their budget in the arts. In Scotland it is 0.56%.

Thankfully, trade unions in the creative industries aren’t taking this lying down. The performing arts and entertainment union, Equity, is planning a demo for the 5th September. I’ll be there and making clear that this funding must be restored.

Because the reality is, that for all the chat from both the Scottish and UK governments about the difficult fiscal situation, there is no shortage of money in our society. Wealth in the UK – in the form of property wealth, financial wealth, pensions wealth and physical wealth – is 50% higher than it was in 1997. Household wealth now stands at six times GDP, up from three times GDP in the 1980s.

The key driver of this huge rise in wealth is unearned passive gains. Think of landlords and property developers who buy up property and watch prices go up, while others can’t get on the property ladder.

But while wealth has increased in importance, our tax system hasn’t caught up. Revenues from wealth-related taxes have barely moved since the 1980s, remaining around 3% of GDP.

Many of the levers to tax wealth lie with the UK Government. And it must use its Budget in October to equalise capital gains with income tax, increase inheritance tax, invest in a fully resourced cadre of HMRC staff to tackle tax avoidance, and look at implementing a national wealth tax on the richest individuals.

But the Scottish Government isn’t powerless. It has the power to introduce a wealth tax, provided it is implemented at a local level. Scotland might not be as rich as the south of England, but our ten richest individuals are worth £23billion. A 2% wealth tax on those individuals alone could raise £459m. That could fund the arts funds being cut 70 times over.

(Image: The play Childminder had support from Creative Scotland)

Even more obviously, the Scottish Government could replace the council tax. The council tax is hugely regressive and is based on property values from 1991, a time when the Soviet Union still existed and Rod Stewart was still wearing spandex and leopard print. If the Scottish Government is serious about supporting our arts, as well as investing in our public services, a property valuation must be undertaken as a matter of urgency.

These two measures alone, which are within the gift of the Scottish Parliament, would enable the Scottish Government to raise more than £2bn.

The reality is that if we want to have nice things then we need to pay for them. And that must involve redistributing wealth for the benefit of everyone.

The bread is going stale. The roses are wilting and workers simply cannot wait until spring to see them in bloom again.