Asked by: Nadia Whittome (Labour - Nottingham East)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what proportion of her Department's annual funding for youth programmes is provided to the National Citizen Service Trust.
Answered by Nigel Huddleston - Financial Secretary (HM Treasury)
The National Citizen Service will receive £171 million over the next three years to support the newly announced National Youth Guarantee and provide hundreds of thousands young people from all backgrounds with opportunities to become ‘work-ready and world-ready’.
This represents approximately 30% of this Department’s £560 million investment into youth programmes over the next three years.
Asked by: Nadia Whittome (Labour - Nottingham East)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what steps her Department is taking to ensure equal access to National Citizen Service programmes for disadvantaged young people.
Answered by Nigel Huddleston - Financial Secretary (HM Treasury)
I refer to an answer given to a recent parliamentary question 127585.
The National Citizen Service (NCS) is a universal programme that is available to all 15-17 year olds, and maintains a policy that no young person is prevented from taking part.
NCS is able to engage a diverse group of young people, over-indexing in participation rates compared to the national population for certain priority groups. In 2019, 23% of participants were on free school meals, 16.3% were living in Opportunity Areas, 29% were from BAME communities, and 6.2% had special educational needs or disabilities.
NCS ensures that disadvantaged young people can access the programme through various measures:
Bursary schemes, which cover 80% of the participant contribution, reducing it to £10 or, in some cases, entirely. In Summer 2021, over 10,000 young people accessed a bursary.
The NCS Inclusion Fund, which enables NCS’s network of providers to remove barriers to taking part in the programme, supporting young people with transport, food, and kit. In 2021, almost 300 young people benefited from the fund.
A dedicated community engagement team focused on increasing accessibility by considering differing levels of deprivation and connecting with local youth organisations and Local Authorities.
NCS remains committed to removing these access barriers and continues to develop approaches to overcoming them.
Asked by: Nadia Whittome (Labour - Nottingham East)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what steps her Department is taking to help ensure children and young people from low income families are able to access opportunities with the National Citizen Service.
Answered by Nigel Huddleston - Financial Secretary (HM Treasury)
The National Citizen Service (NCS) is a universal programme that is available to all 15-17 year olds, and maintains a policy that no young person is prevented from taking part because of cost.
NCS is able to engage a diverse group of young people, over-indexing in participation rates compared to the national population for certain priority groups. In 2019, 23% of participants were on free school meals (compared to 14% nationally) and 16.3% were living in Opportunity Areas (compared to 14.4% nationally).
NCS ensures that young people from low income families can access the programme through various measures:
Bursary schemes, which cover 80% of the participant contribution, reducing it to £10 or, in some cases, entirely. In Summer 2021, over 10,000 young people accessed a bursary.
The NCS Inclusion Fund, which enables NCS’s network of providers to remove barriers to taking part in the programme, supporting young people with transport, food, and kit. In 2021, almost 300 young people benefited from the fund.
A dedicated community engagement team focused on increasing accessibility by considering differing levels of deprivation and connecting with local youth organisations and Local Authorities.
Nonetheless, there is a perceived barrier for some. 2021 survey results from 1,640 young people show that for those not interested in participating in NCS, 7% cited cost as the reason. This is significantly lower than other reasons including wanting to spend time doing other things and concerns about coronavirus. NCS remains committed to removing these perceived barriers and continues to develop approaches to overcoming them.
Asked by: Nadia Whittome (Labour - Nottingham East)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what estimate she has made of the number of children who are unable to take part in National Citizen Service due to the cost of attending.
Answered by Nigel Huddleston - Financial Secretary (HM Treasury)
The National Citizen Service (NCS) is a universal programme that is available to all 15-17 year olds, and maintains a policy that no young person is prevented from taking part because of cost.
NCS is able to engage a diverse group of young people, over-indexing in participation rates compared to the national population for certain priority groups. In 2019, 23% of participants were on free school meals (compared to 14% nationally) and 16.3% were living in Opportunity Areas (compared to 14.4% nationally).
NCS ensures that young people from low income families can access the programme through various measures:
Bursary schemes, which cover 80% of the participant contribution, reducing it to £10 or, in some cases, entirely. In Summer 2021, over 10,000 young people accessed a bursary.
The NCS Inclusion Fund, which enables NCS’s network of providers to remove barriers to taking part in the programme, supporting young people with transport, food, and kit. In 2021, almost 300 young people benefited from the fund.
A dedicated community engagement team focused on increasing accessibility by considering differing levels of deprivation and connecting with local youth organisations and Local Authorities.
Nonetheless, there is a perceived barrier for some. 2021 survey results from 1,640 young people show that for those not interested in participating in NCS, 7% cited cost as the reason. This is significantly lower than other reasons including wanting to spend time doing other things and concerns about coronavirus. NCS remains committed to removing these perceived barriers and continues to develop approaches to overcoming them.
Asked by: Nadia Whittome (Labour - Nottingham East)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what progress she has been made on bringing streaming services such as Netflix under the regulation of Ofcom.
Answered by Julia Lopez - Minister of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
Video-on-demand services like Amazon Prime Video and Disney+ are not regulated in the UK to the same extent as linear TV channels, some services, like Netflix, are not regulated in the UK at all. On-demand services are not subject to Ofcom’s Broadcasting Code which sets out appropriate standards for content including harmful or offensive material, accuracy, fairness and privacy.
The Government launched a consultation in August 2021 to level the playing field between traditional broadcasters and video-on-demand streaming services, to provide a fair competitive framework and ensure UK viewers are better protected from harmful material. We are now considering the response to the consultation and will publish next steps in due course.
Asked by: Nadia Whittome (Labour - Nottingham East)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what steps her Department is taking to tackle digital exclusion in the context of the Plan B restrictions announced by the Government on 8 December 2021.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Government’s 10 Tech Priorities include building a tech-savvy nation where no-one is left behind by the digital revolution. For this reason, the government is working to ensure that everyone has digital access to further their training and improve employment prospects.
The pandemic and the ongoing measures, including those implemented under Plan B, continue to highlight the importance of supporting digitally excluded people. Throughout the pandemic, DCMS has supported initiatives that help address digital exclusion. These include the Digital Lifeline fund, which provided tablets, data and free digital support to over 5,000 people with learning disabilities who would otherwise find it difficult to get online.
Additionally, in September 2021, the Inclusive Economy Partnership (IEP), partnered with industry leaders to launch the Digital Inclusion Impact Group focused on tackling digital exclusion. One of the pilot programmes is Dell Donate to Educate, which will support children across England with the right access to technology at school and at home.
Asked by: Nadia Whittome (Labour - Nottingham East)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what steps her Department is taking to help tackle scams on online dating sites; and what support is available to victims of such scams.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Online Safety Bill will increase people's protection from scams facilitated via dating sites. Dating sites will have to assess the risk of fraud arising from user-generated content on their service and then take steps to mitigate and tackle that risk. This is just one part of the government’s plan, led by the Home Office, to tackle fraud in all its forms.
Victims of fraud must feel they can come forward to report these crimes and receive the support they need. The government is working to improve the victim support system to make sure that everyone receives the advice and care they need to move beyond the impact of this crime.
Asked by: Nadia Whittome (Labour - Nottingham East)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what steps the Government has taken to support theatres during the covid-19 outbreak.
Answered by Caroline Dinenage
Theatres have been eligible to access Government COVID-19 support throughout the duration of the COVID-19 outbreak. This includes various government-backed loans, business grants, reduction in VAT and the extended furlough and self-employed support schemes. Theatres were also able to access the discretionary Local Restrictions Support Grant and Additional Restrictions Grant which provided Local Authorities with funds to support businesses who met the eligibility criteria. And, earlier this year the Chancellor announced one-off top up grants for retail, hospitality and leisure businesses worth up to £9,000 per property to help businesses through to the Spring.
Theatres have also benefited from the Cultural Recovery Fund. To date, over £1.2 billion has been allocated from this fund, reaching over 5000 individual organisations and sites. Of this funding, awards with a value of over £183m were made to applicants whose main artform is ‘theatre’ in Round 1 recovery grant funding, and in Round 2 almost £60 million was awarded to help theatres plan for reopening in every corner of the country from the West End’s Criterion Theatre to the Wolverhampton Grand Theatre.
In the 2021 Budget, the Chancellor announced an additional £300 million to support theatres, museums and other cultural organisations in England through the Culture Recovery Fund. This extra funding, together with other cultural support such as funding for our national museums, means that our total support package for culture during the pandemic is now approaching £2bn. These are unprecedented sums.
Asked by: Nadia Whittome (Labour - Nottingham East)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what assessment he has made of the safety of re-commencing private music lessons for adults during the covid-19 lockdown.
Answered by Caroline Dinenage
On 22 February the Prime Minister set out the roadmap gradually ending the current lockdown for England.
At step 3 of the roadmap, no earlier than 17 May, the restrictions on social mixing indoors will be eased and individuals will be able to meet socially distanced in a group of 6 or with 1 other household. Non-professional activities, such as private music lessons for adults, will be able to resume from this time.
The timings outlined in the roadmap are indicative, and the Government will be led by data, rather than fixed dates. Before taking each step, the Government will review the latest data and will only ease restrictions further if it is safe to do so. The indicative, ‘no earlier than’ dates in the roadmap are all contingent on the data and subject to change.
Asked by: Nadia Whittome (Labour - Nottingham East)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what assessment he has made of the potential merits of providing support to the events sector to encourage event attendance when it is safe to do so.
Answered by Caroline Dinenage
The Government acknowledges the significance of the events sector to the UK economy and that it has been significantly affected by the impacts of Covid-19.
We recognise the importance of giving the events sector clarity for when events will be permitted to resume with fuller audiences. However we have always been clear that the activity permitted would be in line with the latest public health context.
No assessment is currently available regarding the potential merits of providing support to the sector to encourage event attendance at this time.
We are committed to continue working with the live events sector to understand the challenges they face and to work towards reopening events with fuller audiences. Furthermore, the business events pilots we carried out in September will help to ensure that the correct advice and guidance is put in place to help larger events reopen when it is safe to do so.