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

To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what funding her Department is providing to grassroots music venues in Bradford West constituency.

The Government is committed to supporting our grassroots music venues, which are the lifeblood and research and development centres of our world-leading music sector.

The Department for Culture, Media and Sport is in regular discussions with all parts of the music industry, including live venues at every level. We are working with industry and across Government to improve the sector's economic resilience to future economic shocks, as we did through the pandemic, and the recent Energy Bills Support Scheme.

We will continue to engage with the sector on the impact of current pressures. As part of this engagement, I recently met the Music Venues Trust to discuss issues facing the live music sector, and how to support growth of the music sector and wider Creative Industries.

Regarding support for Bradford West specifically, across all artforms and disciplines, the Arts Council has invested £21.86 million since 2018/19 in 145 projects. This includes seven successful music specific applications, including:

• Nightrain, a 400 capacity live music venue, received £11,000 in 2021 via the Supporting Grassroots Live Music Fund to purchase new sound equipment, which enabled the venue to offer more opportunities to up and coming bands.

• Nightrain also received two Culture Recovery Fund awards, totalling £168,500.

• 18 Bradford West based projects received Culture Recovery Funding totalling £3.93 million. These included producers and cultural venue The Brick Box, including The Brick Box Rooms, which are often utilised for music performances. The Brick Box received £25,000 through the Arts Council’s Emergency Response funds for organisations, £105,000 through Culture Recovery Fund and £90,000 in National Lottery Project Grants.

• Another music sector organisation which received Culture Recovery Fund support was Pro Audio Systems, who received £263,000, enabling the provision of quality electronic audio equipment to venues in the region.

• Lukas Hornby, Bradford-based producer, DJ, VJ, composer and musician received £2,500 from the Arts Council’s Emergency Response fund for individuals.

• National Lottery Project Grant awards have also been made to grassroots community choirs the Friendship Choir (£14,000) and Millside Voices Community Choir (£15,000).

The Creative Industries have been identified by this Government as a priority growth sector. We will shortly be publishing a Creative Industries Sector Vision that will set out our ambitions, shared with industry, to support all parts of the creative sector to 2030. We look forward to working with the music industry to deliver on these objectives.