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

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what steps he is taking to ensure that covid-19 related funding allocated to cultural organisations is distributed equitably.

Rigorous criteria have rightly been applied to all applications made to the Culture Recovery Fund (CRF), to ensure we are supporting organisations that have national and local importance, and those that play a key role in the levelling up agenda. Additionally, decisions on larger grant payments have been scrutinised by the independent CRF Board. The Board also takes decisions on the repayable finance element of the Fund. This adds additional assurance that funding decisions are fair and unbiased.

To date over £500 million has been allocated to over 2,000 organisations across England, and 70 per cent of the latest round of Culture Recovery funding was awarded outside London.