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

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, whether he plans to make additional covid-19 support available for music and theatre productions that have to cancel as a result of the covid-19 outbreak.

In response to the rising Omicron infection rates and impact on the arts, culture and heritage sector, £30 million from the Culture Recovery Fund has been made newly available. This funding has been used to increase the budget for the reopened Emergency Resource Support strand of CRF, which supports organisations which are within 12 weeks of no longer trading viably.

Many of those who work in musical and theatrical productions are freelancers. As such, the government, via Arts Council England, is also providing an immediate £1.5 million to support freelancers affected by the pandemic, underpinning a further £1.35 million of funding from the theatre sector.