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

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what discussions he has had with the Chancellor of the Exchequer on future funding to support the arts in (a) Coventry and (b) the UK.

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 Coventry including £68k to individuals. The Culture Recovery Fund has awarded over £6 million in funding (as of 17 December) 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.

Throughout this crisis, the government’s priority has been to protect people's jobs and livelihoods. At this year's Spending Review, we confirmed that the government has now spent over £280 billion this year.