Places of Worship Renewal Fund
House of Lords · Lords Chamber · 25 Jun 2026 · 12 speeches · Official Report
Question for Short Debate
Asked by
To ask His Majesty’s Government how the places of worship renewal fund will differ from the Listed Places of Worship Grant Scheme.
My Lords, the church of St James the Apostle has towered over the small village of Somerton, Oxfordshire, for almost 1,000 years. Last Saturday, our daughter Matilda and her new husband James were married there. The bells rang, the bridesmaids looked beautiful and the church was immaculate. It was a perfect setting for a happy day. Our church plays an important part in village life. We have no shop or pub and precious little public transport. Around half the adult population, 87 of us, choose to sign up to be on the electoral roll. Most are not regular churchgoers, but every couple of months many of us attend events which range from traditional services to holiday clubs for children, from talks and fêtes to the annual Orthodox Theophany service in the week of Christian unity. Our nativity play, with a real baby, ponies, sheep and alpacas dressed as camels, is the talk of the valley and frankly makes “The Vicar of Dibley” look rather low-key. This large church is a huge responsibility for a small village. It is grade 1 listed: 45% of grade 1 listed buildings in the country are places of worship. Every five years, we are given a list of repairs that must be carried out. We are currently worrying about how to pay for a repair to the roof, and we are not alone in that. Cleaning the church in the run-up to the wedding, I felt the care that had been lavished on our building for generations. I am very concerned that the actions of this Government mean that on our watch we may fail...
My Lords, if we get this right, we will do far more than preserve historic buildings; we will protect the civic infrastructure that quietly sustains our communities every single day. If we get it wrong, we risk allowing that infrastructure to erode slowly. So I welcome the Government’s intention, and I thank the Minister for bringing this measure forward. However, intentions alone will not sustain these places. What matters now is delivery and that this proposal truly matches the scale of the reality on the ground. This is not really about buildings. It is about whether we recognise, and are prepared to properly support, the role that these places now play as front-line providers of community support. In my own city of Newport, these are not abstract heritage assets. They are places where people go when the system is under pressure. They are where families turn to when times are hard. Increasingly, they are stepping in when others no longer can, and they are doing so largely through volunteers, through faith communities, and through people who give their time and energy without expectations of recognition. My own church, St Woolos Cathedral in Newport-the seat of the Archbishop of Wales, the inspirational and welcoming most reverend Cherry Vann-is a place of history, a place that holds the memory and remains of the Chartists, who died in the struggle for democracy, but its significance does not end there. St Woolos is not simply a monument to our past. It is a working part...
My Lords, I am extremely grateful to the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Prentis, for securing this debate and, indeed, for her wider service to the Church. I congratulate her daughter and son-in-law as well. I thank the many thousands of people across our country who play a part in caring for our wonderful churches and churchyards. My fellow Lords spiritual regret that they are not able to join this debate; many are with their candidates for ordination services taking place this weekend. I know, however, that they share my support for the places of worship renewal fund and the recognition from the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport that places of worship are “part of who we are as a nation”. As the Second Church Estates Commissioner put it when this scheme was raised in Questions in the other place, churches are cornerstones of our communities. It is hard to overstate the significance they hold to people up and down the country, irrespective of faith. They are not only places of worship but vital community assets contributing to heritage, to social cohesion and to local economies. I am pleased, therefore, that the Government recognise this through the fund. I am also aware that there have been collaborative campaigns for long-term sustainable support for the fabric of church buildings. The places of worship renewal fund will help unlock other funding for capital works which would have been unavailable under the previous scheme. In my diocese, for example,...
My Lords, it is a genuine pleasure to follow the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leicester. I enjoyed his contribution, although I have a nagging feeling that what I am about to say may make him wish that he had been scheduled to speak after me rather than before. I may be a minority of one in this debate, with these views, but I am definitely not a minority of one in the House nor in the country. We are living in an increasingly secular Britain, where less than half the population identifies with any religious faith and a mere fraction regularly attends services. Yet this capital fund ring-fences millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money a year for the exclusive benefit of active religious buildings across the country. This is not a natural exercise in heritage conservation. It is an exercise in state patronage, filtering public tax revenue from citizens of all beliefs and none to subsidise the operational footprints of religious institutions. Look at the gross unfairness baked into the eligibility criteria: the historic grade 2 listed village hall, an old miners’ welfare hall or an independent community theatre facing structural collapse cannot touch a single penny of this fund. They are forced to battle for oversubscribed general grants. The irony is that religious organisations are fully entitled to apply for some of these pots too, but an active place of worship now receives a dedicated, exclusive, multimillion-pound safety net. Crucially, the Government have...
My Lords, I welcome the opportunity to debate this important topic, and sincerely thank the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Prentis of Banbury. I recognise that places of worship are an important part of the UK’s heritage and architecture. It is fair to say that my opinion differs greatly from the noble Lord, Lord Scriven, who spoke before me. I have taken a particular great interest in them since I was a board member of English Churches Housing. Places of worship have held a special fascination for me, regardless of the faith-not just for their spirituality, serenity and intimacy, but because they give real insights into the history of the locality. Over the last years, post Brexit, I have regularly visited my local churches for art lessons, musical performances and local fêtes. From the number of activities posted on the boards, you can see they are a real centre of the community-a hub for community cafés, parent and toddler groups, food banks and for addressing many other welfare concerns. Likewise, sacred places of other faiths provide similar support for their congregations. My own experience of Sikh gurdwaras is that many of them provide a daily hot meal to everyone in the community, not just to the practitioners of that faith. Therefore, I believe the renewal fund of £92 million of capital funding over four years announced earlier this year will address the challenging state of repairs of some of our oldest buildings in disrepair. The fact that the funding priority...
My Lords, I thank my noble and learned friend Lady Prentis for bringing this important debate before the House. Parish churches are so often the centre of local communities, including for people of all faiths and none. Nothing can compensate when a centuries-old church closes its doors. Over the past half century, approximately 8,500 churches of all denominations have closed. This is a profound tragedy. During the pandemic, the doors of all our church buildings were suddenly shut, and 75% of the respondents to the National Churches Trust survey said that this had a negative effect on their community. Priests were forbidden by their own bishops from entering the churches that they are called to love and serve-even from ringing the bells to let people know that they were being prayed for. May those decisions never be repeated. As I live alone, I found lockdown particularly difficult. I discovered that the only way I could see other people was when I was shopping. Shopping and embroidery kept me going. I was greatly relieved when I was able to join my son’s bubble, and so in my Toyota hybrid I travelled to and fro-but thankfully very economically. Of course, the established Church has much to answer for. But it appears that the Government are misunderstanding the role of our church buildings once again. It is shameful that the funding was cut by almost half for the listed places of worship scheme in its last year, and now the new places of worship renewal fund will see...
Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville
My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Prentis of Banbury, on securing this important debate. It is a pleasure to see her in her place leading it. She eloquently set out the problems and issues facing churches that have ancient buildings to care for, and I agree with all her comments. I have spent the majority of my adult years attending, organising and contributing to events designed to help raise money for much-needed repairs to leaking roofs, rotten floorboards and new heating systems. This extended to altering the layout of pews so that a community space could be created where worshippers could enjoy a chat and a cup of coffee at the end of a service. The listed places of worship grant was well respected by parishes and provided much-needed funding for both small and larger projects. The new fund, the places of worship renewal fund, is competitive rather than against criteria. Possibly 100 to 150 churches will get a grant, whereas in the past 5,000 gained from the VAT refund. At 20%, this is not to be brushed aside as irrelevant. Added to that, a church will need competent people to put together the application. The overall amount set aside is now less, as has already been said-£23 million a year versus £92 million for four years-but not inflation-proof. Submissions to the fund can be made only twice a year, whereas previously it was rolling. Although I can see many benefits in the renewal fund, I fear it will mean that smaller rural parishes will miss out,...
My Lords, I am very grateful to my noble and learned friend Lady Prentis of Banbury, for securing this debate and congratulate her for the way she set it out. I also congratulate Matilda and James on what sounds like a splendid wedding. As their example shows, we are discussing places that record some of the most important moments in people’s lives and link us, in many cases, to 1,000 years of history of those who have also been through such moments. They are, in urban and rural areas, often the last community venues, providing not just religious services but support to the community in so many ways. As the noble Baroness, Lady Wilcox, said, they are part of our civic infrastructure. The survey by the National Churches Trust has tried to put a figure on this, showing that £55 billion of social value is delivered just through churches, let alone the other places of worship of all faiths and denominations to which these schemes apply. I am grateful to all noble Lords for speaking, and we of course send our best wishes to all the ordinands this Petertide. Liturgically, this is perhaps not the best timing for the debate, but it is a timely one to be having. These buildings, of all faiths and none, are looked after by volunteers; they are not rewarded-in this life anyway-for their service. Not every parish can rely on a former Attorney-General to help them get their head round new schemes. The old scheme had many advantages, and we have heard chiefly about its simplicity and...
My Lords, I am pleased to answer this Question for Short Debate and, like others, I thank the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Prentis of Banbury, for securing the debate. I thank all other noble Lords and the right reverend Prelate, who, despite the weather, stayed to speak in the debate. I congratulate the noble and learned Baroness, or rather her daughter and son-in-law, on their marriage. I will aim, in the time allowed, to answer as many questions as possible, but I will review Hansard and follow up in writing where I do not. In May, as noble Lords are aware, I announced the opening of applications for the places of worship renewal fund. The fund will provide upfront capital grants to restore listed places of worship, with funding targeted towards the places that need it most. I was pleased to be able to secure this funding of £92 million for churches, synagogues, mosques, temples and other places of worship, in recognition of the valuable role they play in the hearts of their communities. In many cases, they provide services well beyond their congregations. The example that the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Prentis, gave in her opening remarks of her local church, St James the Apostle, highlighted this, as did the examples from the noble Baronesses, Lady Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville and Lady Seccombe, my noble friend Lady Wilcox and the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson, who highlighted the effective monetary value of the social value that is provided. Since I became...