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

To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what assessment she has made of the potential impact of reductions to the Listed Places of Worship Grants Scheme on the Government's aim of increasing access to the arts at (a) local, (b) regional and (c) national level.

DCMS Ministers received advice on changes to the Listed Places of Worship Grant Scheme, including consideration of the potential impacts of various options to scale the scheme.

We believe that the changes announced were necessary and adequate given the tight fiscal challenges we inherited from the previous government and considering competing financial demands in other parts of the heritage and cultural sector, and will continue the widest distribution of the scheme’s benefits within the available means. Based on previous scheme data, we expect 94% of claims to be unaffected by this change.