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

To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, whether she has made an assessment of the effectiveness of the National Lottery Heritage Fund in awarding grants to small charities.

The National Lottery Heritage Fund makes funding decisions independently of HM Government.

The Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport sets Policy Directions for the UK and England. The National Lottery Heritage Fund ensures that its investment activities and strategies are aligned with these directions, as well as with the Financial Directions that it receives from HM Government, which were also issued under the National Lottery Act 1993.

The Heritage Fund has developed its strategy for 2023–33, Heritage 2033, which sets out the long-term vision and ambition of the Fund, as well as a series of 3-year plans for how to realise that strategy, which was endorsed by DCMS Ministers and which the Fund monitors and reports to the Department against.