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 the resilience of (a) cultural and (b) community venues in (i) Surrey and (ii) Surrey Heath constituency.

We recognise the challenges that cultural and community venues face. The government is committed to supporting these venues across the country which is why we announced the Arts Everywhere Fund earlier this year, committing £270 million to support cultural venues to carry out urgent repairs, upgrade infrastructure and improve financial resilience. As part of that, both the £85 million Creative Foundations Fund and the £25 million Museum Estate Development Fund are supporting non-profit cultural organisations to undertake urgent capital works, building repairs, retrofits and equipment upgrades improving safety, energy efficiency, accessibility and long-term viability of venues in communities across the country.

The government has also kept in place improved tax reliefs on theatre productions (via the Theatre Tax Relief), which helps theatres better absorb rising running costs. Since April 2025, theatres, orchestras and museums and galleries have benefited from higher tax relief rates of 40 percent for non-touring productions, and 45 percent for orchestral and touring productions.

On top of tax reliefs, we support arts and cultural venues through the 2023-2027 Arts Council England National Portfolio Investment Programme, and National Lottery Project Grants. This funding has provided over £570 million in 2024/25 to cultural venues across the country, of all shapes and sizes; of which £11.5 million of that funding has been in Surrey.