11

Written evidence submitted by the National Churches Trust

We are grateful for the opportunity to respond to the Culture, Media and Sport Committee’s inquiry examining the importance of built heritage in the UK and the barriers to its preservation.

Summary

With 38,500 churches across the UK and over 20,000 of these listed, the future of our church buildings is now one of the greatest heritage challenges facing the nation. Given the role that churches play in the life of communities, and in providing an enormous range of local services, this is not just a heritage challenge but a social one too: there is a serious risk of a long-term decline in the quality of the UK’s social infrastructure when churches close. Both of these challenges are greatest where communities are poorer and/or more isolated - which of course are also the places where the need is often greatest.

The problem stems ultimately from the changing nature of religion in British society. But there are many other factors involved and it is too simplistic to attribute the issue entirely to a decline in church attendance. In our experience, almost any church building can have a positive future given the right leadership, an enterprising approach to involving the community, and the ability to raise funds for major repairs.

At the heart of the future of our church buildings lie the people who look after them. These include tens of thousands of volunteers and clergy, and any policy needs to give them the confidence, skills and support to succeed. The attitude of different denominations, of government and the heritage bodies are all critical to this: together they can create an environment that makes success at local level more likely, or the opposite. At present co-ordination between these bodies is very weak and there is no policy to match the challenge.

The future of thousands of church buildings is now hanging in the balance, and it will be actions in the next few years that will determine their fate. Our key recommendations are:

• Government should recognise its leadership role and the interest of Parliament. It should work cross-party, with the principal denominations and with civil society to develop a plan of action for the future of our church buildings.

• Until progress can be made toward a zero VAT regime for repair and maintenance, the Listed Places of Worship Grant Scheme should be made permanent, and return to being fully funded without a cap.

• We propose a new capital funding scheme for listed buildings of all faiths and denominations, establishing a recurring fund of at least £50 million per year, with proportionate funding provided for the devolved administrations. The majority of the cost should be covered by the taxpayer with contributions from other partners and should be administered in collaboration with relevant organisations in the faith buildings and heritage sector.

The National Churches Trust

The National Churches Trust is the UK’s national charity for churches, chapels and meeting houses that are open for worship. Our mission is to keep these tens of thousands of buildings at the heart of their communities - in good repair, widely used and appreciated, and serving local people. Each year we give about 300 grants to churches and chapels either for repairs or to improve facilities like toilets and kitchens so that the buildings can serve a wider range of uses. We also give advice and support to the volunteers who typically look after these buildings, and we speak up on behalf of the country’s religious heritage, producing original research. As a charity we rely on philanthropic donations and receive no government or denominational funding.

With our origins as a charity dating to the early 19th century, our record in supporting the UK’s 38,500 Christian places of worship across all denominations, our experience of working with the thousands of church volunteers, and our independence from both state and religious organisations, mean that we are able to respond to this inquiry from a unique and authoritative perspective.

National Heritage

Church buildings benefit the nation culturally, economically, socially and spiritually. The United Kingdom has some of the most historic and beautiful churches, chapels and meeting houses to be found anywhere in the world. Indeed, because the UK is an island it has been insulated from many of the ravages of centuries of European warfare, and so often has far finer and older churches than in other European nations. Over 20,000 of the UK’s church buildings have statutory listed status as being the most important parts of our heritage[1]. This is one of the highest proportions of listing among all types of buildings. And those churches and chapels include nearly half of Britain’s most important historic buildings (Grade I or equivalent). They are a UK wide heritage asset.

“…churches were and still are glorious. I regard them as a dispersed gallery of vernacular art, especially that of the Middle Ages, without equal anywhere in the world.” 

Sir Simon Jenkins[2]

Our 2023 poll showed that 68% of UK adults agree that churches and chapels are an important part of our history and heritage [3]. The outline of a church spire is an essential feature in any classic depiction of the UK landscape or cityscape. However, churches also house works of art - sculpture, painting, metalwork, woodwork and stained glass - vastly exceeding in quality and number the contents of the country’s museums. Churches are the custodians of our national story, many holding artifacts and heritage assets that document the history of the British Isles. Churches, and the vast majority of cathedrals, are free to enter. They are a cultural treasure house available to all.

Economic and Social Impact

In every town and village across the UK, churches have been a local safety net for centuries. The Bloom Report, ‘Does Government do God?’ an independent review commissioned by the previous Government and published in 2023, identified at least 22 community activities that take place in churches and other places of worship[4].

Churches are so much more than places of worship. Churches are a home for foodbanks, community groups, repair shops, mum and toddler groups, social spaces, choirs, and youth groups, amongst others. Our House of Good report, which used HM Treasury Green Book methodology, and which has been widely cited in Parliament and the national press, showed that the economic and social value of churches was at least £55bn per year and that for every £1 invested in a church over £16 of social good is created in communities[5].

The UK’s churches also provide essential health-related support services that would cost the NHS at least £8.4bn to deliver[6]. From drug and alcohol addiction support to mental health counselling churches directly provide or host a growing list of vital health related services for people in urgent need. In the hot summer, they are designated as cool spaces, and in the harsh cold winter, they are used as warm spaces. Churches are used as part of social prescribing, they are a base for Parish Nurses, and some, such as St Marylebone Parish Church, are also locations for the delivery of NHS services. They are a vital part of improving the nation’s health and enable the delivery of the Government’s mission to ‘Build an NHS Fit for the Future’.

Churches can be a community resource, but they can also be a resource for local authorities too. Where there is a desire to deliver public services ‘in the neighbourhood’, as called for by the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, churches are available to actively assist through established volunteer networks and as a location. One of the potential barriers to this is a potential reticence for Local Authorities to engage with churches for being seen to prioritise one faith over another. This misconception can be overcome. This misconception can be overcome. As one of the contributions at the Westminster Hall Debate on the Listed Places of Worship Grant Scheme noted:

“I, as a Muslim, volunteer for a Sikh charity serving food in a Christian church for the whole community”[7]

The All Party Parliamentary Group on Faith and Society developed the ‘Faith Covenant’, which provides a good framework to promote open practical working in this area. Local Authorities across the country are signing up to the Faith Covenant, with recent examples in Dundee, Walsall, Greater Manchester and Cornwall[8]. Churches are here to help.

Placemaking

Religious heritage forms an essential part of the UK’s tourism industry and must play a key role in the Government’s mission to ‘Kickstart Economic Growth’. Churches are drivers of tourism from both within the country and from overseas. As well as individual buildings, church trails that encourage tourists to visit on foot bring people across the country to heritage sites and provide a local income boost. Tourism is one of the most important sectors in the UK economy. In 2021 the value of day visits to heritage sites in England alone was £5.5bn. For international visitors, Visit Britain found that 78% of people selected ‘exploring history and heritage’ as an important driver in selecting any international destination for a break or holiday. [ECC Footnotes]

“You can see city skyscrapers that are sometimes 100 feet tall but they are just big blocks. You don’t notice them and you have no feeling about them. When you see a tower or steeple rising up, by contrast, it gives you a totally different feeling.

“I would rather that we persuade people that church buildings still have a relevance to them today, even when many of us aren’t believers. There is a real danger that agnostics like me will take churches for granted, assume they will just always be there, and then one day we wake up to find them locked up and abandoned.” 

Sir Michael Palin[9]

With world-class heritage in every corner of the country, more can be made of the nation’s churches. DCMS, working with its newly created Visitor Economy Advisory Council should commission a national study into how to make more of the unrivalled heritage of the UK’s churches. A new national strategy would boost visitors to historic churches and revitalise local areas. These are our most accessible and most numerous heritage treasures and they need to be marketed as such. Because they are everywhere, they can bolster tourism in struggling regions which lack quality museums or picturesque landscapes.

Churches are cornerstones of placemaking. They are the heart of the community. They are recognised by some Local Authorities as a driver for regenerating town centres and deprived areas. As well as the setting for worship and an individual’s life events such as marriages and funerals, they are a venue where people come in groups to celebrate, as seen in the huge coverage of the recent coronation of King Charles III. Perhaps more importantly they are place where local people instinctively go for collective solace in a time of crisis. If there is a social or natural disaster, whether that be shared grief from a young victim of crime, a village overwhelmed by flooding, or as is the case of Tundergarth Church in Lockerbie, a place of remembrance to those killed in an act of terror, people come together in their local church building. A church is a home for all.

Funding

Neither the Government nor the national denominations provide any regular permanent funding for the cost of repairs to church buildings, whatever their significance. VAT rebates for repairs to places of worship have recently been slashed in half and capped at £25,000 per site per year. The UK’s churches are a national asset. However the burden of keeping these buildings open rests almost entirely on congregations – the people who actually attend services.

This contrasts with France, a secular state, where church buildings are directly maintained by the state (by the national government in the case of cathedrals, and by local government for the rest). Germany, Austria, Switzerland and most of Scandinavia have established a church tax covering anyone who is “a member” of the church, whether or not they attend. Italy, Spain and Portugal offer more choice but still have a majority of people voluntarily paying the state to support churches.

The UK state used to provide funding for church buildings. State aid for historic churches was introduced in 1977. These grants made a major impact: by 2004 they were worth about £50m a year in today’s money. Ringfenced grants for churches continued in various forms for the next 40 years until 2017. In this context, the National Lottery Heritage Fund’s aspiration to award £100m over 3 years for places of worship is a welcome step in the right direction and recognises how important churches are for the nation[10]. Yet, it is funding that volunteers, often elderly, can sometimes find hard to access due both to the complexity of the application process and the competition they face from professional fundraisers. What’s more, in real terms it is a large reduction on what was available 20 years ago, at a time when churches are more in need than ever due to the ravages of climate change on their fabric.

The sole surviving piece of state funding is the Listed Places of Worship Grant Scheme, which enables only listed places of worship in the UK to claim back the VAT that they have paid on their repairs. This was established by Gordon Brown in 2001 for two years and has been renewed by subsequent Chancellors. In 2023 the Government reported that almost 5,000 religious buildings were helped by this scheme[11]. This scheme has been renewed for 1 year with a cap of £25k. Whilst this renewal is welcome it does not address the long term needs that churches face.

When funding has been given by the state, its impact has been substantial. For example, the Heritage Stimulus Fund was announced in July 2020 as part of the wider Culture Recovery Fund initiative from the DCMS to help the heritage sector recover from the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. Capital funding was provided by the Grants Programme of Major Works (GPoMW) to Christian places of worship. This was a collaborative effort between the state and partners such as Historic England, the Church of England, and the National Churches Trust. This enabled and encouraged churches to apply for funds, which could be distributed at pace, whilst sill ensuring a high level of quality assurance.

The results of the independent evaluation report on these grants to churches revealed that the two strongest impacts on recipients of the grants were a ‘greater connection to heritage’ and a ‘sense of pride in place’[12]. The research also shows that the grantees saw a direct link between building improvements and the preservation or enhancement of their social and economic contributions in local areas with one commenting:

“Now we have a safe and watertight building we can concentrate on using it for social and community as well as worship opportunities.” [13]

Grants to churches have a profoundly positive impact on the local community but also make economic sense too. The investment of £21.2m through the GPoMW led to total net economic benefits of between £37.8m and £155.4m [14]

Heritage Crisis

Many churches find themselves in a parlous state, with growing repair bills, leaking roofs, crumbling stonework and struggling to pay for the work needed to maintain a warm and weatherproof building. Despite a desire to keep their church building open and in good repair, a small band of willing volunteers often find that caring for a substantial heritage asset is beyond their abilities. It is the poorest rural communities that find the burden greatest, and plenty of poorer urban churches face a crisis too.

There are 969 places of worship on Historic England’s 2024 Heritage at Risk Register. This is a net increase of 26 over the total on the 2023 Register. 958 of these places of worship are cathedrals, parish churches, chapels and meeting houses[15]. Across the UK, an estimated 3,500 churches have closed in the last ten years. In Wales, two thirds of chapels that were once open have now closed. In the last two decades, the Church in Wales has closed 15 per cent of its churches and expects the rate of closure to increase in coming years. The Church of Scotland—guardian of many of the country’s most important buildings—is bracing for the closure of perhaps 30-40 per cent of its churches. The backlog of repairs for just the Church of England churches is at least £1bn and the annual need is estimated to be £150m a year.

At significant points in our history Governments have understood the role that churches play in national identity, community support, and social cohesion. Church buildings are for all, and we all need to work together. We ask that this Government acknowledges the scale of the challenge and plays a role, that only it can, by showing leadership. We ask the Minister of State for Media, Tourism and the Creative Industries to commission a review to establish how churches can best be supported in the twenty-first century. A long term and collaborative approach is needed, where there is a commitment on a national and local level form Government, denominations, the heritage sector, and civil society. This will help to enable a way forward for church buildings which is not one of managed decline, but one that enables churches to continue to be a benefit available for each and all of us.

We ask that the Government recognises church buildings as the greatest heritage challenge of our time.

1. What are the most significant challenges facing owners and operators of built heritage assets, and how are they affecting what those sites can offer? 

1. Volunteers: There is a significant challenge in recruiting and retaining volunteers. Many of the UK’s historic buildings, such as those owned by the National Trust and other heritage organisations, as well as privately owned properties open to the public, are looked after by paid staff. However, almost every local church, chapel and meeting house is looked after by volunteers. It is these people who are responsible for the future of the UK’s greatest collection of historic buildings and their contents. Often these volunteers, many of whom are older, lack professional training in building maintenance or fundraising. So do most clergy, some of whom find themselves responsible for multiple historic church buildings. The level of support they get from their national denomination or at the regional or diocesan level varies tremendously. As a result, dealing with even simple problems such as clearing gutters or replacing slipped tiles can be delayed or not done at all. But the day-to-day care and maintenance of church buildings is crucial to their future

2. Funding model: With no regular permanent funding in place for church buildings from the state, the responsibility falls instead on local people. Although many congregations raise much of the money needed to pay for repairs themselves, it is not realistic for the cost of major work to rest solely on local shoulders. Unlike many other European countries, in the UK, the Government does not provide any regular permanent funding for repairs to all church buildings. State aid for historic churches was introduced in 1977 and ringfenced grants in various forms was ended in 2017.

3. Funding uncertainty:  The Listed Places of Worship Grants Scheme is a temporary measure only available to listed churches who can claim back the VAT they have paid on repairs. It is an important source of funding which around one in ten churches, roughly 4,000, take up each year. However, as the scheme is not permanent, it adds to a sense of uncertainty and insecurity.

4. Proposals

This is our key proposal: Government should recognise its leadership role and the interest of Parliament. It should work cross-party, with the principal denominations and with civil society to develop a plan of action for the future of our church buildings.

2. How effective are the current funding and finance models for built heritage? 

What should long-term public funding for the sector look like? 

1. A funding model should be: Consistent, Sufficient, and Enabling.

2. The current model is:
1. Inconsistent rather than consistent. It is reliant on the strength of the local congregation and volunteers. The Listed Places of Worship Grants Scheme is currently temporary and does not cover all places of worship.
2. Insufficient rather than sufficient: State support, valued at today’s prices at £50m a year, was introduced in 1977 and continued until 2017. We welcome the recent changes by the National Lottery Heritage Fund, but more needed. The backlog of repairs is well in excess of £1bn and £150m a year. The new cap on the Listed Places of Worship Grants Scheme will exclude many projects a year, particularly those most in need.
3. Enabling rather than disabling: The impact of the Heritage Stimulus Fund and the collaborative partnership approach used to distribute grants showed the ability of state funding on church buildings to have a widespread and positive impact on heritage, a sense of place and community support.

3. Proposals

We recognise that the financial situation the Government is operating in and so we have set out a below a series of long-term aspirations for consideration when finances allow.

1. Approach: The nation’s heritage would benefit from a sustained, long-term, collaborative, and multi-pronged approach to funding. The success of the HSF shows that partnerships are effective and that grants to church buildings have significant and multilayered benefits.

2. Consistency: Until progress can be made toward a zero VAT regime for repair and maintenance, the Listed Places of Worship Grant Scheme should be made permanent, and return to being fully funded without a cap.

3. Sufficient: We propose a new capital funding scheme for listed buildings of all faiths and denominations, establishing a recurring fund of at least £50 million per year, with proportionate funding provided for the devolved administrations. The majority of the cost should be covered by the taxpayer with contributions from other partners and should be administered in collaboration with relevant organisations in the faith buildings and heritage sector.

4. Enabling: Establish a national matched funding scheme would help incentivise charitable donations. There is also an opportunity to generate more private donations through tax relief or other financial incentives. A way to increase private giving to church buildings could include a state matched funding scheme, with the value of donations doubled. A previous match funding scheme was introduced for Universities by the Government and was very successful. Heritage would benefit from a similar level of support to encourage philanthropic support.

3. What role does built heritage play in the regeneration of local areas and in contributing to economic growth and community identity? 

1. The role of church buildings:

1. The social and economic value provided to the UK by church buildings is at least £55bn a year.
2. The UK’s churches also provide health-related support services that would cost the NHS at least £8.4bn a year to deliver.
3. The 2023 Bloom report found that 22 community activities occur in places of worship.
4. With millions of visitors each year, churches are drivers of domestic and international tourism 78% of people selected ‘exploring history and heritage’ as an important driver in selecting any international destination for a break or holiday.
5. There is a church in every community and they are at the heart of that community. Churches are a place where people come together in times of crisis and celebration.
6. Repairs and funding of church buildings can be a driver for regenerating a town centre or a deprived area.

2. Proposals

1. The Faith Covenant, an initiative of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Faith and Society provides a good framework to promote open, practical working between the public and faith sectors and its use is growing. More local authorities should adopt the covenant to support regeneration, economic growth & community identity.
2. A new national strategy is needed to boost visitors to historic churches – world class heritage in every corner of the country that is free to enter. The DCMS, working with the Visitor Economy Advisory Council, should commission a national study into how to make more of the unrivalled heritage of the UK’s churches.

3. What are the financial, regulatory and practical barriers to preserving built heritage? 

1. Barriers: There is a complex landscape of different denominational structures across the UK, and a lack of data on church buildings. There is also sometimes a reticence from the state and local authorities to engage with church buildings as they can incorrectly see it as the synonymous with exclusively supporting the Christian faith.
2. Proposals: We recommend a long-term collaborative approach to the sector and the need for Government, denominations, civil society both national and local to all come together. Funding is clearly an issue, but leadership and commitment to the sector are as important. An established, well-known, and effective delivery partner (such as the National Churches Trust, now in its 207th year) is essential in this complex sector.

4. What policies would ensure the UK workforce has the right skills to maintain our heritage assets? 

1. Proposal: The best way to ensure the UK workforce has the right skills is to provide opportunities for the skills to be used. Regular funding for repairs would lead the need for more skilled workers and to the creation of jobs. The demand will help to stimulate the supply chain of skilled workers.