Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:

To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, whether his Department provides support to local community groups that seek to purchase closed pubs in their local areas.

We recognise the central role that pubs play in our towns and villages and welcome more applications. Our Community Ownership Fund helps community groups to buy or take over local community assets at risk of being lost. Across the first bidding round we have funded 5 pubs valued at £990,696 and will support many more in future rounds.