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

To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the number of regional and local theatres that have permanently closed since March 2020; and the number of areas that have lost their only performance venue since March 2020.

Government recognises the significant financial impact of Covid 19 on the performing arts sector and venues, and the important role theatres play in their local communities. 14% of theatres in the UK are directly operated by local authorities and many more are owned by and subsidised by local authorities. The Theatres Trust has provided details of six theatre buildings where the operator has either withdrawn from their operating contract or gone into liquidation, leaving them without an operator since the start of the pandemic. These theatres are not necessarily closed permanently as efforts are progressing to identify new operators.The Theatres Trust is aware of a small number of further closures, with more details to be published in due course.

The Government is investing an unprecedented £1.57 billion, the biggest ever one-off cash injection into UK culture, to tackle the crisis facing our most loved arts organisations and heritage sites through the Culture Recovery Fund. In the first round of funding, 462 awards were made to applicants whose main artform is ‘theatre’, with a value of over £183m. The number of awards to commercial theatres was 79, with a value of over £26m. This funding benefited a range of theatre organisations, from world-renowned institutions to those crucial to their local community.

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.