Letter Template to help you write about the Listed Places of Worship Grants Scheme

The Listed Places of Worship Grants Scheme is a lifeline for historic churches, saving them 20 per cent on repair costs. But the future of this important scheme is now uncertain, which is having a devastating impact across the country. We need your help. 

What can you do?

You can help us make the case for the future of the scheme by writing about it to your MP. If you have done so, please write again now that the Spending Review is in progress. The Review is where the UK Government will make decisions about what each department will fund and prioritise. The Department for Culture, Media and Sport will be making the decision on the future of The Listed Places of Worship Grants Scheme. Letters of support for the scheme will make a huge difference, so please write if you are able to.

Based in Scotland? You could make twice the impact by writing to your MSP as well as your MP. These letters can be very similar and you will just have to change references to MP to MSP, and add the address for the Scottish Parliament: Holyrood, Edinburgh, EH99 1SP.

Tips for writing or emailing your MP

• Please personalise the template as much as you can. You might want to mention your local church or others that are important to you and why. For example, you could mention the different ways you interact with different churches. Maybe you volunteer at one or plan your holidays around visiting churches. Or you might attend parent and toddler groups or other community activities there, drop off food for the food bank or attend worship or concert nights.
• For MPs, use their local constituency office address or: the House of Commons, London SW1A 2TT.
• Make sure to include your address as MPs will only read and respond to people in their constituency. 

Here is a letter template about the Listed Places of Worship Grants Scheme that you can send to your MP  

 

Dear [Name of your MP],

I am writing to you about the future of the Listed Places of Worship Grant Scheme (LPWGS), a scheme which allows listed places of worship (of all faiths) across the UK to reclaim the VAT that they pay on repairs.

This Scheme was introduced in its current form by Gordon Brown in 2004 because he was concerned about the impact of changes to VAT on the future of these buildings and what happens inside them. The cost of the Scheme is typically £25-40 million a year, which forms part of Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS)'s budget, but this is money that helps keep places of worship open, in use and helping local communities. 

As you know in January the budget for the scheme was reduced by almost half to £23 million and it will come to an end in March 2026. There was also a cap introduced, so that any place of worship could only claim back up to £25,000 - even if their VAT bill was higher. This has left churches across the country now facing a huge shortfall in their repair costs.

[Insert mention of your local church here and why it is an important local building ]

I very much hope that as my MP you can raise this issue with Lisa Nandy, the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, who is supportive of the Scheme.

Already uncertainty about the future of The Listed Places of Worship Grants Scheme is making it difficult for churches to plan and budget for future repairs. Churches now are effectively having to pay tax on repairs to listed churches, chapels, mosques, meeting houses, temples, and synagogues. In comparison, building a new place of worship is tax-exempt. 

This is making projects 20% more expensive—for local volunteers this is an enormous burden. These buildings are mostly funded by local people. The Listed Places of Worship Grants Scheme has been the only consistent form of funding for these buildings - and this is just a VAT reclaim scheme.

• The scale of the buildings maintained in this way is astonishing. There are about 38,500 Christian places of worship in the UK - and of course many more from other faiths. These buildings represent an extraordinary resource that reaches every community. By comparison the UK has just 3,600 public libraries and 7,900 GP surgeries.
• These buildings form by far the biggest base for voluntary activity in the UK. There is voluntary activity of just about every kind: youth groups, groups for parents and toddlers, for people who are elderly, lonely or vulnerable. The sheer scale of this activity, and its local nature, means it is regularly taken for granted, but there are many examples in your constituency.
• At the same time, these buildings account for nearly half of the UK's most important historic buildings (Grade I or equivalent), as well as by far the nation’s largest art collections (sculpture, stained glass, wall paintings, vernacular art etc). Around 20,000 places of worship are listed, and church buildings form a vital part of the identity of the UK's  landscape and townscape for tens of thousands of communities

The National Churches Trust The House of Good research shows that church buildings contribute £55 billion a year in social and economic good through the community activities and services hosted and ran in their buildings. There is no doubt that ending the scheme or by keeping the cap of £25,000 would tip many buildings over the edge. Many could fall into greater disrepair and close all together. Community activities would be stopped.

Evidence of this can be seen in the financial crisis that is already affecting church buildings: the Church of England alone has a backlog of repairs to parish churches estimated at over £1 billion, and large-scale closures are sweeping churches in Scotland and Wales.

I hope very much that you can make the case on my behalf to have the Listed Places of Worship Grant Scheme made permanent and have its cap removed. 

Yours Sincerely,
[Your name and address]