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

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what plans he has to allocate the remaining funds in the Culture Recovery Fund.

The majority of the CRF funding is now being deployed with over £500 million allocated so far across both capital and recovery grants. A further £188 million has been allocated to the devolved administrations as part of the Barnett formula and £100 million has been directly allocated to national cultural institutions and English Heritage Trust.

Repayable finance awards (which made up £270m of the Fund) are currently under negotiation, with outcomes expected to be announced in the coming weeks, and part of the £120m capital funding is still to be allocated.

Additionally, DCMS has held back a substantial amount of CRF funding with a view to offering critical support when needed - we do not know what will happen next with this pandemic, and this government wants to support these sectors over the long term.

DCMS and its Arms Length Bodies are working closely to identify the ongoing needs of these sectors, and will make decisions as soon as possible about how best to use the contingency funding left within the CRF to provide further support to the sector.