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

To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what steps she is taking to increase participation in drama among people from lower socio-economic backgrounds.

The Government is committed to ensuring that everyone has the opportunity to experience and participate in culture and the arts whatever their background. To that end we have protected funding for Arts Council England (ACE) throughout the next spending period which will include support for arts programmes in areas where participation is low.

The Culture White Paper sets out a range of commitments aimed at increasing diversity in arts participation. This includes the Cultural Citizens Programme which will provide young people from disadvantaged backgrounds, who live in areas where fewer people visit museums, galleries or the theatre, with meaningful opportunities to experience the arts. Pilots are taking part in Liverpool and Blackpool, Birmingham and Barking and Dagenham. 600 young people will take part in the pilot programmes and will be offered range of cultural activities so they develop lifelong love of the arts. Young people in Birmingham, for example, will also be given free tickets to three different performances in the city, beginning this October with the Birmingham Rep theatre.

ACE also places responsibility on every funded organisation to make their programme of work more reflective of the communities they serve and they fund a number of community arts organisations that look to engage disadvantaged people, such as Cinderford Artspace and Helix Arts which focus on encouraging unemployed adults and employed people on low incomes to participate in the arts. ACE also supports theatres like the Donmar, which runs the YOUNG+FREE programme offering 25 per cent of the tickets to young people who are 25 and under on a weekly basis.