Religious Organisations (Grants)

Mr. Greg Knight
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport how much her Department has provided in (a) grant and (b) non-repayable grant to (i) the Church of England, (ii) Islamic organisations and (iii) other religions in the past five years; who the recipients were of each grant; and what the amount of the grant was in each case.

Mr. Lammy
The Department for Culture, Media and Sport makes grants to faith groups via the Listed Places of Worship Grant scheme. The scheme returns the equivalent of the VAT incurred in making repairs to listed buildings used primarily for worship. All grants are non-repayable. The amounts disbursed since the start of the scheme in 2001 to the faith groups listed are in the table. Grants to other Christian denominations are excluded from the table.

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|Faith group          |Amounts disbursed (£)|
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|Church of England    |35,067,908.75        |
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|Islamic Organisations|12,885.78            |
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|Jewish               |253,344.92           |
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|Buddhist             |149,734.86           |
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|Hindu                |7,740.01             |
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|Sikh                 |21,537.70            |
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English Heritage, sponsored by the Department, contributes to the Repair Grants for Places of Worship in England scheme, operated and funded jointly with the Heritage Lottery Fund. The scheme funds repairs to listed places of worship. All grants are non-repayable.

Since the launch of the scheme in April 2002, 1,035 offers have been made over four annual bidding rounds. These offers were made up as follows:

928 offers totalling £82,778,000 to Church of England congregations;

no offers to Islamic organisations;

one offer totalling £175,000 to the Buddhist congregation;

one offer totalling £116,000 to the Sikh congregation;

seven offers totalling £881,000 to the Jewish congregations.

The remaining offers were made to Christian congregations other than those of the Church of England.

In addition, English Heritage operates a grant scheme for cathedrals, under which around £7 million has been offered in the last five years.