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

To ask Her Majesty's Government when they plan to publish the criteria for bids for the UK City of Culture 2025; when they expect (1) bidding cities to return expressions of interest, and (2) to announce the winning bid; and what plans they have to commit to having a UK City of Culture in 2029.

The UK City of Culture competition is a flagship DCMS programme and a proven model for using culture and creativity to regenerate and transform places. We want to continue to harness this power, especially as places across the UK plan for their recovery from Covid-19. We are currently in dialogue with the devolved administrations and expect to publish the criteria for bidders in the coming months. Subject to the launch date, we anticipate a timetable that will ask places to return expressions of interest towards the middle of this year, and to announce the winning bid at the end of Coventry’s year as UK City of Culture in May 2022. UK City of Culture has been a quadrennial process since 2013 and any announcements about future competitions will be made once the 2025 competition has been confirmed.