Published: 12/09/2024
Updated: 06/11/2024
Update following Autumn Budget:
We are grateful to the Historic Religious Buildings Alliance for sharing the following update following last week’s budget:
DCMS said they are now entering a period of business planning within which they will determine what happens with the Listed Places of Worship Grant Scheme once the current funding arrangements expire at the end of March 2025. They expect this process to potentially take a number of months. But they hope to get an answer on the Scheme as soon as they can, as they know the sector needs clarity on future arrangements. They will update us as soon as they have more clarity.
We continue to stress the need for clarity to enable financial planning of cash-strapped parishes.
The Listed Places of Worship Grant Scheme was established in 2001. Under its terms, VAT on eligible repairs or alterations over £1,000 to a listed place of worship can be reclaimed. The scheme is currently guaranteed until 31 March 2025.
No doubt you are aware that the government is reviewing all expenditure schemes in the run up to the October budget. The Listed Places of Worship Scheme could be cut.
This scheme has been a lifeline for historic places of worship across the UK, as well as for heritage charities such as the Friends. We want to impress upon Government just how important this scheme is, and implore them to continue it. Our letter to the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport is at the end of this page.
If you have experience of the scheme and its value, please do consider adding your voice to the cause. The wonderful Historic Religious Buildings Alliance have prepared the following helpful instructions to make it easy for people to send an email of support, and have given us permission to share them here.
1. In your subject line, put 'Attn: the Secretary of State (LPWGS)', or something similar. Make sure you say at the beginning why you are writing — to ask for the Listed Places of Worship Grant Scheme to be extended beyond March 2025.
2. If you have concrete experience of the Scheme, then in just one or two paragraphs explain what your project is/was for, and why the VAT refund is/was important. If the building is used for community activities, or is important to local people in other ways, say something about this.
3. Send your email to The Rt Hon Lisa Nandy MP, Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport 1st Floor, 100 Parliament Street, London SW1A 2BQ at enquiries@dcms.gov.uk. You can also copy your own MP (find their email address https://www.parliament.uk/get-involved/contact-an-mp-or-lord/).
Our letter to Lisa Nandy, Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport:
Dear Ms Nandy
I am writing to you to with an earnest plea that the Listed Places of Worship Grant Scheme is continued beyond March 2025.
We are a small charity that rescues and repairs places of worship. For our projects in England, we raise all of our income from membership subscriptions, donations, and grants. It can take years to raise enough money to undertake the necessary repairs. Last year we spent £997,648 employing architects, engineers, ecologists, archaeologist, contractors, tradespeople and craftspeople. Without the facility to reclaim VAT, this would have cost us an additional £200,000, which we don’t have to spare. Indeed, nationally, church donations are in decline – income has reduced by 14% over the last five years – all the while costs increase.
We are just one charity. The impact of this cut at a parish level would be devastating. Many of our parish churches are already on their knees. There are approximately 15,000 listed churches in England and 45% of Grade I listed buildings are places of worship. We place the burden of caring for thousands of the nation’s most important buildings – undoubtedly the nation’s greatest free heritage resources - on a tiny proportion of the public who are, for the most part, volunteers. They are maintained and supported by worshipping communities, in some cases a diminishing group, but a group which not only raises money to repair its historic building, but also raises funds for charitable causes within its own community and across the world.
When MPs discuss the future of this scheme, it is vital to acknowledge the far-reaching benefits places of worship collectively offer the nation. Places of worship are the centre of many communities. They are the very essence of place-making. They provide enormous value to society, value that our country would be immeasurably poorer without. The National Churches Trust’s House of Good report calculated that the total, UK-wide, economic and social value of places of worship had a market value and replacement cost of £2.4bn per year. This is more than you could ever hope to gain by cancelling the VAT reimbursement scheme.
I hope you can see the value and importance of this country’s places of worship, and continue to support them into the future.
Yours sincerely
Rachel Morley
--
Director
