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

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what recent steps her Department has taken to support local libraries and regional museums.

On 12 March the Arts Minister announced the public libraries, museums, galleries and cultural venues across the country that will benefit from £48 million of funding - part of the Cultural Investment Fund - to improve people’s access to the arts, safeguard cultural assets for future generations, and power economic growth through culture.

This includes:

• investing £5 million in 25 library services through the Libraries Improvement Fund (LIF) to upgrade their buildings and technology, to enable them to be resilient and equipped to meet the changing needs of local communities; and

• £18.8 million through the Museum Estate and Development Fund (MEND) to help fund museum and local authority infrastructure projects and urgent maintenance works.

Through the Cultural Investment Fund we will invest up to a further £128.4 million of capital investment in innovative cultural and creative projects, libraries, and museums across the country over the Spending Review period (22/23 - 24/25), predominantly outside London. Earlier this month, we announced £48 million of investment through the Cultural Investment Fund, of which nearly £10 million was made for the North East, backing five projects.

DCMS also supports regional museums through a variety of core and project funding through Arts Council England and other Arms Length Bodies, tax relief opportunities, and other direct support such as the DCMS/Wolfson Museums and Galleries Improvement Fund, the latest round of which was launched on 17 March this year.