Coronavirus: Welsh arts reopening 'not on immediate horizon at all'

The Wales Millennium Centre is staying closed for the rest of 2020

Opportunities for arts venues to reopen are "not on the immediate horizon at all" due to coronavirus, Wales' first minister has warned.

Mark Drakeford said this was an area where the UK government "really does have to step up to the plate".

He told a Senedd committee the Welsh Government lacks the "firepower" to support the whole sector.

Industry figures have warned the sector faces "real hardship" during lockdown.

"I worry as much about this sector as any other in the Welsh economy, because the impact of coronavirus on it is not a short term impact", Mr Drakeford told the Senedd Committee for the Scrutiny of the First Minister.

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"I worry hugely about tourism but we've at least been able to do some things to help the tourism sector to recover in this season, whereas the opportunities for arts venues to reopen are not on the immediate horizon at all."

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It comes as the first minister called on the UK government to do more, saying the Welsh Government lacked the "firepower" to support the whole sector.

Mr Drakeford said the "cultural industries in Wales have been at the forefront of what makes Wales, what it is today, and the face that Wales turns to the world".

He said the UK government's self-employed income support and furlough schemes should be "calibrated so they continue to support those parts of the economy that will not be able to resume".

"And that is the way in which individual workers are best supported and, as a result, that some of our larger venues can be supported as well."

The Welsh Government is in "regular consultation", Mr Drakeford said, with the Arts Council of Wales and there was a £7m arts resilience fund "alongside the £8m for the Sports Council".

"We will go on thinking hard about the part we can play, but our part will not do what the sector needs if it is not accompanied by a continuation of a calibrated and focused sector specific set of arrangements from the UK government to support these vital industries."

He added: "We just don't have the firepower in the Welsh Government to support a whole sector, who are not going to be able to resume work in the ways that others are going to be able to."