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

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what assessment he made of regional inequality when allocating funding from the Cultural Recovery Fund.

Over £1 billion worth of funding from the Culture Recovery Fund has been allocated across all four nations of the UK. This includes over £800 million to almost 3800 arts, culture and heritage organisations in England, helping to support at least 75,000 jobs. Organisations were supported if they were culturally significant, could demonstrate that they are at risk of failure and that they had taken all reasonable steps to support themselves financially.

DCMS has worked closely with its Arm’s Length Bodies, who are delivering the fund to so we can best support the valuable cultural fabric of our towns and regions. Criteria have been applied to allocate funding to ensure we are supporting organisations that have national and local importance. Grants have been awarded to organisations as diverse as the Birmingham Hippodrome, Shakespeare’s Globe, Blackpool Tower Ballroom, Opera North and the Yorkshire Sculpture Park, as well as thousands more ranging from internationally recognised cultural institutions to locally cherished organisations.

In the first round, 67% of grants awards worth over £1 million were awarded to organisations outside London. Regions particularly hard hit by the pandemic have felt the tangible impact of the fund. For example, funding is supporting organisations which employ 69% of arts sector employees in the West Midlands and 43% in the North West.

The second round is in progress, and a further £300 million of support was announced by HM Treasury at Spring budget to continue to support key cultural organisations, bridge the sector as audiences begin to return, and ensure a vibrant future for the culture sector, including theatres, as the nation recovers from the pandemic.