Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what steps his Department is taking to support the arts and cultural sector in Coventry during the covid-19 outbreak.

The Government recognises the huge contribution the arts and culture sector makes, not only to the economy and international reputation of the United Kingdom, but also to the wellbeing and enrichment of its people. It is for this reason that we have invested an unprecedented £1.57 billion, the biggest ever one-off cash injection, into UK culture to tackle the crisis facing our most loved arts organisations and heritage sites across the country including Coventry, which is to be our next City of Culture.

The Arts Council has allocated over £500k from its Emergency Response Fund to the city including £68k to individuals. The Culture Recovery Fund has awarded over £2.7 million in recovery grant funding (as of 11 Nov) to arts and heritage organisations in Coventry to help support them through the current Covid-19 outbreak.

In addition ACE allocated £3.4m, to Coventry City of Culture Trust (delivery body) to ensure Coventry’s success as City of Culture. The arts and cultural sector is instrumental to Coventry’s success and the Trust have; employed local art/cultural freelancers, invested in cultural infrastructure and during the first lockdown initiated a resilience fund for the local arts community. Coventry will be one of the first to host major events post Covid and, whilst challenges have been posed by the pandemic, their activity and programming has provided a much needed injection of cash into the sector and supported artists in the region, nationally and internationally.