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

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what assessment he has made of the support required by the arts sector following the rise in the number of positive omicron covid-19 cases.

DCMS is committed to supporting arts and culture across the country. This commitment is evident in the Government’s recent Spending Round, where it was announced that Arts Council England will be receiving over £375 million of government funding in 2021/22.

In November 2021 we also announced that 925 arts, heritage and cultural organisations would benefit from the third round of the Culture Recovery Fund (CRF). In total, over £1.5 billion has now been allocated from the CRF which has helped to save around 5,000 individual organisations and sites, including funding allocated to the DCMS sponsored national cultural institutions. This constitutes the largest ever public investment in the arts in UK history.

The third round of CRF is still open for applications, providing vital ongoing support for the cultural, heritage and creative sectors. £30 million from the Culture Recovery Fund is being made newly available for organisations as part of the Chancellor's £1 billion support package, and this funding will be used to double the budget for the Emergency Resource Support strand of CRF which has been extended in order to meet the demand from across the cultural sector.