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

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, if he will ring-fence part of the charity relief package, announced in April 2020, for BAME charities.

My department is committed to ongoing, regular and in depth engagement with the charity and social enterprise sectors during the COVID-19 pandemic. DCMS will continue to work closely to assess how we can support BAME charities and social enterprises in doing their important work. The Minister for Civil Society holds a fortnightly roundtable to hear directly from BAME civil society organisations to highlight concerns and responses to covid-19.

The Government's £750m targeted funding package and a further £150 million from dormant bank accounts will help charities, social enterprises and vulnerable individuals. We are proactively engaging across government and directly with the sector to maintain a complete picture of the impact and to better understand unmet needs at a national and local level that are not already addressed by existing plans.

My department and the National Lottery Community Fund (NLCF - our distribution partners for the Coronavirus Community Support Fund) have been - and continue to - engage extensively with BAME organisations during the development of the response and are working with a number of organisations to improve the reach of the Coronavirus Community Support Fund. A diverse advisory panel has been set up to support the distribution process for the fund.