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

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what steps the Government has taken to support theatres during the covid-19 outbreak.

Theatres have been eligible to access Government COVID-19 support throughout the duration of the COVID-19 outbreak. This includes various government-backed loans, business grants, reduction in VAT and the extended furlough and self-employed support schemes. Theatres were also able to access the discretionary Local Restrictions Support Grant and Additional Restrictions Grant which provided Local Authorities with funds to support businesses who met the eligibility criteria. And, earlier this year the Chancellor announced one-off top up grants for retail, hospitality and leisure businesses worth up to £9,000 per property to help businesses through to the Spring.

Theatres have also benefited from the Cultural Recovery Fund. To date, over £1.2 billion has been allocated from this fund, reaching over 5000 individual organisations and sites. Of this funding, awards with a value of over £183m were made to applicants whose main artform is ‘theatre’ in Round 1 recovery grant funding, and in Round 2 almost £60 million was awarded to help theatres plan for reopening in every corner of the country from the West End’s Criterion Theatre to the Wolverhampton Grand Theatre.

In the 2021 Budget, the Chancellor announced an additional £300 million to support theatres, museums and other cultural organisations in England through the Culture Recovery Fund. This extra funding, together with other cultural support such as funding for our national museums, means that our total support package for culture during the pandemic is now approaching £2bn. These are unprecedented sums.