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

To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what steps her Department is taking to support cultural engagement with the Irish community.

I value the UK’s strong cultural relationship with Ireland which has been developed over many years of successful partnerships between UK and Irish arts and cultural organisations and I recognise the substantial contribution that the Irish community makes to British cultural life.

Since the start of the current parliament, The National Lottery Heritage Fund has awarded three grants totalling £290,074 to projects which explore the history and the experiences of the Irish diaspora in Britain.

In a joint statement at the UK-Ireland summit in March, the Prime Minister and the Taoiseach announced a further programme of cultural cooperation between the two countries. My Department developing a programme to support new projects between the Irish national cultural institutions and leading UK counterparts.

Further commitments made by the PM and Taoiseach include establishing an Ireland-UK Youth Forum as a way to bring together young people to understand, discuss and respond to their views on how they can be considered by both of our governments.

We also look forward to jointly hosting the upcoming EURO2028 Men’s Football Championships and the 2030 T20 Men’s Cricket World Cup.