5. What steps is the Welsh Government taking to support grass-roots music venues across Wales? OQ61316

Creative Wales focuses on the commercial music sector, providing support for infrastructure such as grass-roots venues through to artist support. This has included sponsoring events taking place in Welsh venues and direct funding totalling over £9 million since launching in 2020.

Last year has been named the worst year for music venues—125 grass-roots music venues across the UK were closed in that year. The Music Venue Trust, who represent an alliance of 500 music venues, have stated that this has resulted in the loss of 4,000 jobs. Despite many venues struggling with the already high running costs, this Labour Government has decided to cut business rate relief from 75 per cent to 40 per cent, causing them to suffer higher costs than their competitors across the border. Not only does the Welsh Labour Party cut funding to the Welsh National Opera, but this increase in tax rates now puts one third of grass-roots music venues in Wales at risk of closure. Clearly, the Labour Government is committed to killing Wales’s reputation as the land of song.

First Minister, you literally are asking these venues to close by doing this. I acknowledge the £718,000 given to music venues by Creative Wales. However, this is not a sustainable form of funding. Each music venue that closes is a great loss to a local community, as they provide memorable experiences that can't be replicated online. In my own Constituency, TJ’s was a popular venue in Newport, which I frequented myself, and which hosted over 5,000 bands, but now lies in disrepair, closing in 2010. Will this Government work with Creative Wales to improve the system of funding to make it sustainable for grass-roots music venues in compensation for the higher tax rates?

I think we need to start with the funding context in which we operate and then look at what we are proactively doing to support music venues. You can't avoid—especially as a Conservative Member—the reality that our budget has been reduced by £700 million in real terms. When we had the budget debate, Conservative Members were demanding additional spending in virtually every area—more money for the NHS, more money for local government, more money for schools, more money in every area without ever saying what would be reduced to pay for the demands that had been made. This Government has a proud record of producing budgets that balance, that set out clearly what our priorities are and then having to fund those priorities, and to make the difficult choices to make sure that we do actually prioritise the NHS and local government as our two big areas of spend in the last budget. We would have a much better set of choices to make if growth in the economy had been real over the last decade, if we actually didn't have a deliberate reduction to our budget.

When it comes to what we're doing, we've actually supported 22 different venues across Wales with an increased level of funding. The Music Venue Trust themselves have actually previously praised the speed and effectiveness of financial support from the Welsh Government. I know it's a difficult time for music venues. It comes back to the points we were talking about earlier on the cost-of-living crisis. Music venues are a discretionary spend. It's additional spend past essentials, not just for low-income families but people in middle-income groups, who are finding it harder and harder, particularly with the rise in food and energy costs that have not gone away. That, in many ways, is the biggest challenge facing our music venues—having enough people who have the additional income who want to go out and enjoy music venues and are then able to find a range of different venues that have a product they want to use and go back to. That's why growth in the economy matters and why the work we have already done matters. That is why I'm proud that Creative Wales will continue to prioritise live music venues in its business plan for the year ahead, and have a number of actions to do so. I absolutely believe a change at a UK level would be a risk well worth betting on for this sector and many others.

Music venues are important for the development of musicians. The Bunkhouse in Swansea is a very good example. When Ed Sheeran played in Singleton park, he said it was his second visit to Swansea as he had previously played at Sin City, a small music venue in Swansea. The rent for music venues went up by, on average, 37.5 per cent last year. Is there any action the Welsh Government can take to limit these increases, and does the First Minister support a sector levy on larger concert venues to support smaller venues? 

There are two points. The first is that, typically, these are matters of a private landlord and tenant, but I'm interested, in particular if the Member has some examples, in what that would look like, so I can have a discussion with Lesley Griffiths, who is the relevant Cabinet Secretary, on what action we may or may not be able to take. But commercial landlord matters I think were raised last week by Hefin David as well about the legal power we have and how we may or may not be able to intervene. However, we are looking at issues around the potential for a levy. Progress is being made on a potential voluntary levy that could come from larger venues to help support smaller ones. That's work that I think is genuinely interesting. We could potentially do that on our own in Wales. We could also look at the potential for a larger levy and how that could be undertaken. With the extraordinary success, for example, of Taylor Swift and her tour, and if you see the Foo Fighters tonight, it's not just that Cardiff is a big events capital but actually what that then could mean for smaller venues if a levy were able to come into play. So, I think it is something that we are definitely interested in further discussing with the sector.