England risks a "talent drain" of artists taking advantage of a more welcoming Scottish funding and political climate, Laurie Sansom, the artistic director of the National Theatre of Scotland, has warned.

Sansom, 40, who took up the reins at the NTS this summer after running the Royal and Derngate in Northampton, said on Wednesday that such a talent migration "will absolutely happen" if the "climate in England becomes more difficult, particularly for emerging artists".

Funding cuts to grassroots theatre in England will "damage the DNA of the arts ecology. A generation down the line, that will affect what's going on in the national companies," he warned.

Sansom criticised culture secretary Maria Miller's "disastrous" speech on the arts given at the British Museum in April, which suggested that arts funding should be regarded as "venture capital" expecting future economic dividends.

By contrast, he said, Fiona Hyslop, her opposite number in the Scottish government, had made a "magnificent" riposte in June when she set out the Scottish National party's views on culture: it "roots us in place, and helps to empower, enrich and shape our communities," she said in a speech given in Edinburgh. According to Sansom: "I think the SNP have done themselves a great favour by expressing how important culture is to them.

"I know full well how a certain agenda coming out of Westminster is really damaging grassroots culture, and that was underlined by Maria Miller's speech.

"It was so refreshing for [Scotland's] minister of culture to nail her colours to the mast and articulate so well what the value of culture is for a country. That makes it such a different climate from what exists in England."

Sansom, 40, took over the company this summer from its founding director, Vicky Featherstone, who is now running the Royal Court in London.

On the role of the arts in the debate on Scottish independence, he said: "Culture sits right at the heart of it." He has already announced two shows for next year that touch on the referendum debate directly: one of them, provisionally entitled the Yes No I Don't Know Show, is co-devised by playwrights David Greig and David MacLennan. It will be "almost a variety show made up of over 100 commissions from writers and thinkers," said Sansom, "that will tour Scotland, shifting and changing according to where it is landing." The other, Rantin', by Glasgow-based theatre artist Kieran Hurley, will gather the public's "postcards, rants, poems, letters to Scotland that can form part of the debate," he said.

No part of the rest of the 2014 programme, which is yet to be announced, will be untouched by the referendum debate, he said – taking a contrasting position to that of Sir Jonathan Mills, the director of the Edinburgh international festival, who last week said that he would avoid commissioning work directly about the referendum.

"It is forming a context for the work that a lot of Scottish artists want to make. I don't think it will come as any surprise that in some way or another all the programme is about Scotland's cultural heritage – certain historical moments, certain maverick figures. It is forming a narrative about how national identity connects with personal identity."

At the same time, he said, "the company can't and wouldn't take a political standpoint; but obviously it has to be a forum where artists are free to do that without any hint of censorship or editorial control."