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

To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to help enable (1) museums, and (2) libraries, to act as warm hubs during the coming winter.

The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy has announced an Energy Bill Relief Scheme to support non-domestic energy users (including museums and libraries) with increased energy prices. The support provides a discount on gas and electricity unit prices, applied to energy usage initially between 1 October 2022 and 31 March 2023. That will support museums and libraries to provide heating to people who visit this winter, but no separate support is being provided specifically to enable the sectors to act as warm hubs.

Public libraries are run by local authorities, as are some museums. In these cases it will be for each local authority to identify the needs of local residents and to make decisions about the use of these community assets to meet those needs, including the provision of warm hubs.