Finance (No. 4) Bill

Jonathan Ashworth Excerpts

Wednesday 18th April 2012 Commons Chamber

[Jonathan Ashworth (Leicester South) (Lab)]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for giving way, and I suppose I should declare an interest as a patron of the St Peter’s project in my constituency, where we are trying to raise funds to make much-needed alterations and renovations to St Peter’s church in Highfields. There are already considerable pressures on the listed places of worship grant scheme, which is a very good scheme, but one problem with it is that when a church applies to it there is no certainty about the amount of grant that it will receive. Now that this change is being made, those pressures are only going to increase.

[Mr Bradshaw]

My hon. Friend is exactly right. As I said, the grant already covers only less than half of the cost of repairs, and the £5 million that is being offered to extend it to alterations covers only a quarter of the likely annual cost of those alterations.

A number of churches and cathedrals have already put on hold schemes that were planned or under way. My own cathedral in Exeter faces having to raise several hundred thousand pounds more for its exciting cloister project. The wife of the dean of Wakefield cathedral, which faces an extra £200,000 of costs for alterations, has famously composed a protest song about the VAT hike. The lovely little church in the small Herefordshire village of Llangarron, at which I attended Easter Eucharist, will have to find an extra £60,000 for a project that has been in the pipeline for seven years.

As 26 deans of cathedrals wrote in an unprecedented letter to The Sunday Times on Sunday, this change will seriously jeopardise the sustainability of many of our great buildings, not only for present-day use but for that of future generations. I urge the Government to think again on this very important matter, and I hope, Ms Primarolo, that you will help to facilitate the expression of the will of the House on it shortly.