Minister swerves ‘cultural mutilation’ claim as church VAT scheme extended
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Scrapping a grant scheme for churches and cathedrals would amount to “cultural, social and spiritual mutilation”, an MP has said. The Government on Wednesday extended its listed places of worship grant scheme, which applies to historic buildings from all faiths and allows leaders to claim back VAT costs on repairs and renovations, into March 2026.
Ahead of the announcement, Conservative MP Sir Geoffrey Cox urged culture minister Sir Chris Bryant not to withdraw the programme, which he warned could be “an act of philistine vandalism, that for the sake of a few million pounds putting at risk all these extraordinary buildings”.
Sir Chris later confirmed the scheme would continue, with up to £23 million available for places of worship until next spring. Sir Geoffrey told MPs that small parish churches are “small arks that have existed down the centuries as repositories of the spiritual aspiration, the emotions, the cultural and historical identities of rural communities – ancestors buried there, pilgrimages paid to their gravesides, which one by one are clinging on only by the efforts of half a dozen or so elderly volunteers”.
The MP for Torridge and Tavistock had begun his speech saying: “It would be an act of cultural, social and spiritual mutilation not to continue with this scheme.”. Labour MP Jenny Riddell-Carpenter described an “uphill task” to raise funds for Holy Trinity Church in Blythburgh, near Southwold, a 15th-century church in her Suffolk Coastal constituency with a parish of around 300 people.
