Lord Andrew Lloyd Webber has said funding for the arts will become increasingly difficult around the world and called on those who have had success in the industry to do what they can to help as he was presented with an outstanding achievement award.

The composer collected his gong at the South Bank Sky Arts Awards after a video tribute from collaborators and stars of his many shows, including Sir Tim Rice, Glenn Close and Sir Cameron Mackintosh.

Holding the prize, he said we are in a difficult time for the arts.

He added: “The arts have never been more important, particularly in this country, I think all of us who have had the opportunity and the luck of having had success in the arts, and I have made a great living out of the one thing I’m passionate about, must consider that we must put something back ourselves.

“So if you think you can found a scholarship or do anything to help young people do anything to keep arts on the map and keep arts in schools, it’s really vital, please do so.”

Lord Andrew Lloyd Webber on the Graham Norton Show
Lord Andrew Lloyd Webber (Dominic Lipinski/PA)

Speaking backstage afterwards, he told the Press Association: “No matter what your political persuasion is I think if you face the stark fact, if our national debt interest is greater than the entire cost of the NHS and we all want to pay more for our doctors and our nurses, but we have that millstone hanging over us, I can’t see that anything substantial can be done for the arts.

“You can say yes of course we want it, of course we do, but then you start to read things.

“I read in the New York Times and I couldn’t believe it, that it was wrong for the Royal Borough of Kensington to have sponsored opera in Hyde Park.

“What do you say? It’s mixing an appalling tragedy (the Grenfell Tower fire) with something completely different in my view, but there is going to be a climate in which people are going to be saying ‘well should we be spending so much on something that is the preserve of the few?’ but we all know that if you have music in schools it has remarkable results not only for behaviour but for learning language.

“We know that is not the case but it’s an argument that has to still be made and it will be more difficult for arts funding, not just in Britain but around the world.”

During the ceremony hosted by Lord Melvyn Bragg at the Savoy Hotel in London, David Bowie was honoured with a posthumous award for his final album Blackstar.

His 25th studio album won the Pop Music category and Iggy Pop accepted the gong on his late friend’s behalf, with a touching video message recorded from his US home.

Pop paid tribute to Bowie, saying that the late star changed “the game in rock and roll and in popular music”, but was also a fan of The South Bank Show.

Describing how the pair “shared digs… in London at a beautiful old Victorian house that was looked after by a lady named Mrs Potter,” he said his friend “didn’t want to miss” The South Bank Show on TV.

Fleabag, which was written by and starred Phoebe Waller-Bridge, who is tipped to take over from Peter Capaldi in Doctor Who, won the comedy category.

Ken Loach’s benefits drama I, Daniel Blake won the film category, with Loach using his acceptance speech to encourage people to “put their head above the parapet and join in.”

Harry Potter And The Cursed Child scooped the theatre gong, which was presented by Bond director Sam Mendes.

Happy Valley, starring Sarah Lancashire, beat off competition from The Crown to win best TV drama.

The Visual Art award went to Artangel for a project in which artists responded to the architecture of Reading Prison.

The English National Ballet’s production of Giselle and Rose Tremain’s book The Gustav Sonata also picked up awards.

The South Bank Sky Arts Awards ceremony is broadcast on Sky Arts on Wednesday at 8pm.

:: Winners

Classical Music: Philharmonia Orchestra, Stravinsky: Myths and Rituals
Comedy: Fleabag (BBC3)
Dance: English National Ballet, Akram Khan’s Giselle
Film: I, Daniel Blake
Literature: The Gustav Sonata, Rose Tremain
Opera: Wagner: Der Ring des Nibelungen (The Ring Cycle), Opera North
Pop Music: David Bowie, Blackstar
Theatre: Harry Potter And The Cursed Child, Palace Theatre
TV Drama: Happy Valley (BBC1)
Visual Art: Artangel, Inside: Artists And Writers In Reading Prison
Times Breakthrough: Classical Music – Sheku Kanneh-Mason
Outstanding Achievement: Lord Andrew Lloyd Webber