Any future new government should maintain current levels of investment in the arts in order to boost the economy and the UK's quality of live, according to the chief executive of Arts Council England (ACE), Alan Davey.

Addressing the Culture Is Right conference at the Unicorn Theatre on London's South Bank, Davey said every £1 invested in the arts and cultural sector levers in an additional £2 from elsewhere. ACE plans to invest £1.6bn of government and National Lottery money in order to support arts and culture between 2008-11, which Davey believes is crucial to attracting foreign investment and creating a national cultural identity.

Davey said: "While I have shown how arts money works hard, and does create wealth, it has an ultimate end that [John] Ruskin knew was important to any society - the creation of beauty, and something that goes beyond the material and straight to who we are. "The role of artists is to give expression and meaning to the world around us, and the role of funders is to support them in what they do best - to challenge, to thrill, to excite and to inspire us; to produce the marvellous and the beautiful."

Other speakers at the Culture Is Right event included shadow arts minister Ed Vaizey; Munira Murza, the Greater London Authority's director of arts strategy; Tony Hall, chief executive officer of the Royal Opera House and Tom Bewick, chief executive officer of Creative and Cultural Skills.