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 benefits of making community cinemas eligible for the capital funding scheme for cultural venues.

Community cinemas are an important part of our local areas, providing access to culture, creating spaces for connection, and stimulating footfall on our high streets. Cinemas based in eligible not-for-profit mixed arts venues can benefit from capital investment through the Creative Foundations Fund. In a challenging fiscal environment, we have to make difficult choices about where to direct available funding. Whilst we have no current plans to expand the eligibility criteria of existing schemes, we continue to engage with cinema stakeholders to identify options to support the sector.

We are already supporting the cinema sector through permanently lower business rates multipliers and through public funding schemes like the British Film Institute’s National Lottery Audience Projects Fund, or the Heritage Revival Fund, delivered by the Architectural Heritage Fund to help communities across England to rescue and repurpose neglected heritage buildings. We are also investing significantly in stimulating production - including through generous tax credits and the £75 million Screen Growth Package we announced in the Creative Industries Sector Plan - which creates the strong slate of films cinemas need to thrive.