(Transcript) Oliver Dowden goes on BBC Radio Four's Today programme to talk about Government's arts support package and the panto season

Transcript of Oliver Dowden on BBC Radio Four's Today show (6 July 2020) 

Dowden: "It is a really important day today. Culture and arts are at the heart of our nation. Not only do they enrich the soul – from Shakespeare to Ed Sheeran – but they power our economy. We really are a creative industries superpower. So, I was determined – as was the Chancellor and the Prime Minister – to ensure that we protect our rich cultural legacy. And that is what today's announcement is all about.

"Of course, we'll need to protect the crown jewels – those institutions of national and international significance – but we've also been very clear that we want to ensure that this goes out across the whole county. Particularly in areas where there's very little cultural infrastructure – maybe only one theatre or one gallery – it's even more important to preserve those so you don't have a loss of that for the local community."

Dowden: "Freelancers are already able to benefit from the freelance furlough scheme. The essence of this package is about preserving those cultural institutions. We will listen to the applications that we receive about how those institutions can be most cost-effectively preserved. But at the heart of this, this world-beating £1.57 billion pound package, is about ensuring we protect those institutions for future generations."

Dowden: "There is risk. When we reduced from two metres to a metre, there was risk and we mitigated against that. In some exceptionally limited circumstances, as on aeroplanes, there has been a further easing. But in relation to each easing, that increases massively the risk of transmission, which is why through all of this we have been going slow, baby steps to go along that path.

"In relation to theatres, what we said is that they can rehearse and perform behind closed doors. I hope shortly we'll be publishing guidance for them to be able to perform outside and then for them to be able to perform with social distancing. The point at which they can perform without social distancing is some way off. If you think about most of our theatres, they're often Victorian theatres, people are packed in close together.

"I want to ensure it can happen – I was at The London Palladium just last week with Andrew Lloyd Webber looking at some of the mitigations that they've introduced based on their experience in South Korea. But these are all mitigations. It also has to be weighed upon in the context of the wider impact on the R number."

Dowden: "The vast majority of British people up and down the country showed good common sense and observed the rules, and rightly they observed the rules because if people don't observe the rules there is the risk of infections increasing again."

Dowden: "I would love us to get to a point where we could have Christmas pantos back.

"The challenges are: you've got [ages] from granny to grandchild; you've got kids shouting and screaming, ‘Is he behind you?' and all the other stuff we love doing; it's highly interactive – there's usually bubble soap being chucked around or whatever else. All of those represent huge transmission risks. So it is at the very difficult end of it, but of course we will work through all the challenges. But I want to be realistic about it. If we can do it, we will, but it looks challenging."

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