Asked by: Jerome Mayhew (Conservative - Broadland and Fakenham)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, whether her Department plans to review the new Places of Worship Renewal Fund annually to consider its budget in line with inflation.
Answered by Ian Murray - Minister of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
The Places of Worship Renewal Fund, a new capital fund announced on 22 January 2026, will have an annual budget of £23m starting in 2026/27. This is providing certainty for the remaining years of the Spending Review until 2029/30, providing £92m over the period.
Asked by: Jerome Mayhew (Conservative - Broadland and Fakenham)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what financial support her Department will give to listed churches in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland once the Listed Places of Worship Grant Scheme has ended.
Answered by Ian Murray - Minister of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
Heritage funding is a devolved matter. However, listed places of worship in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have benefitted from VAT rebate grants from the UK-wide Listed Places of Worship Grant Scheme, which ran from 2001 to 2026.
At Spending Reviews, the Devolved Governments receive Barnett consequentials as a proportion of overall departmental settlements, not specific funding lines or programmes. In last year’s Spending Review, Barnett consequentials were confirmed for Devolved Governments in the usual way, taking into account the overall DCMS allocation, which includes capital funding for the England only Places of Worship Renewal Fund. Decisions on how this funding is spent are for the Devolved Governments to take.
We are working closely with other funders in the sector to ensure that opportunities for funding places of worship throughout the UK are maximised. The NLHF already offers grants for places of worship across all the UK and is currently investing £100m over 3 years through National Lottery Heritage Grants and a strategic initiative designed to provide targeted support to build capacity.
Asked by: Jerome Mayhew (Conservative - Broadland and Fakenham)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, when her Department will announce the full details of the new Places of Renewal Fund.
Answered by Ian Murray - Minister of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
Further details regarding the eligibility criteria and application process for the Places of Worship Renewal Fund will be published in due course.
Asked by: Jerome Mayhew (Conservative - Broadland and Fakenham)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, whether the new Places of Renewal Fund will function as a VAT reclaim scheme, in the same way as the Listed Places of Worship Grant Scheme previously worked.
Answered by Ian Murray - Minister of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
The Places of Worship Renewal Fund is a new capital fund announced on 22 January 2026. This will have an annual budget of £23m starting in 2026/27. This is providing certainty for the remaining years of the Spending Review until 2029/30, providing £92m over the period. Support will be targeted at places of most need. Further details regarding the eligibility criteria and application process, will be published in due course. The Places of Worship Renewal Fund will award grants for projects to cover capital works, rather than just the VAT element of a project, as is the case with the Listed Places of Worship Grant Scheme. In some cases the amount granted could be greater than just the VAT element currently funded.
Asked by: Jerome Mayhew (Conservative - Broadland and Fakenham)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what financial support her Department will give to churches at risk of closure that cannot apply for VAT reclaims on repairs through the Listed Places of Worship Grant Scheme, since it has allocated its budget for 2025/26.
Answered by Ian Murray - Minister of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
This government is launching a new capital fund to support listed places of worship, the Places of Worship Renewal Fund. This will have an annual budget of £23m starting in 2026/27. This is providing certainty for the remaining years of the Spending Review until 2029/30, providing £92m over the period. Support will be targeted at places of most need. Further details regarding the eligibility criteria and application process, will be published in due course.
Asked by: Jerome Mayhew (Conservative - Broadland and Fakenham)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what steps her Department is taking to expand broadband coverage in rural areas.
Answered by Julia Lopez - Shadow Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology
The Government is investing £5 billion through Project Gigabit to deliver lightning-fast, reliable broadband to hard-to-reach areas across the UK. By the end of March 2022, we had delivered gigabit-capable broadband to over 740,000 premises, ahead of our target of 720,000 premises. Combined with commercial gigabit delivery, we are on track to hit our target of 85 per cent UK gigabit coverage in 2025.
We have launched procurements with a value of over £700 million to bring gigabit connections to hundreds of thousands more rural and hard-to-reach homes and businesses, and we recently signed our first contracts in North Dorset, Teesdale and North Northumberland.
As part of Project Gigabit the Government is investing up to £210 million in the Gigabit Broadband Voucher Scheme to support rural homes and businesses with the cost of installing new gigabit-capable connections. To date, we have issued over 106,000 vouchers to homes and businesses through the Gigabit Broadband Voucher Scheme and previous iterations. Further information is available on the gigabit voucher website including eligibility criteria and how to apply for the scheme.
Asked by: Jerome Mayhew (Conservative - Broadland and Fakenham)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what progress has been made on rolling out the shared rural mobile phone network in Broadland constituency.
Answered by Matt Warman
The Shared Rural Network, which the Government announced in March 2025, will see operators collectively increase mobile phone coverage throughout the UK to 95% by the end of 2025, underpinned by legally binding coverage commitments.
The exact site deployment plans and associated timescales will be managed by the operators themselves in order for them to best deliver the agreed coverage outcomes, so at this time, and until the operators’ final radio planning exercise is complete, we do not currently have specific details on the precise impact that the Shared Rural Network will have on individual communities across the whole of the UK, including those in the Broadland constituency. However, we expect that consumers will feel the benefit of the programme long before its conclusion and the operators will consult with communities as roll out plans become clearer.
Asked by: Jerome Mayhew (Conservative - Broadland and Fakenham)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what plans he has to allocate funding from the £5 billion fund to support the rollout of full-fibre, 5G and other gigabit-capable networks to Broadland constituency.
Answered by Matt Warman
The ambition to invest £5bn for the rollout of full fibre and gigabit capable networks in the hardest to reach areas of the UK was announced in September 2019. This was reiterated in the Conservative Party Manifesto. In anticipation of the funding being announced in the March budget, mobilisation of the delivery programme is underway.
An application for State Aid approval has been submitted in parallel to both the European Commission and the UK Competition and Markets Authority.
Modelling of the Intervention Area (“the final 20% of premises / F20”) is underway.
The procurement approach is being designed in conjunction with Government Commercial Organisation and Crown Commercial Services
The delivery team is ramping up resources, processes and systems in preparation
Supplier and Local Authority engagement and workshops are underway
Plans are not yet at a sufficiently mature or at a sufficiently detailed stage to answer funding plans and dates at a constituency level, however we will provide more granular detail over the coming months. In the meantime our existing fibre delivery programmes continue to deliver further coverage. These include the Superfast, Local Full Fibre Networks, Rural Gigabit Connectivity Programmes as well as our Gigabit Broadband Voucher Scheme.