Asked by: Alex Norris (Labour (Co-op) - Nottingham North)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what plans he has to monitor the effectiveness of the provisions of the Financial Guidance and Claims Act 2018 on the number of cold calls and text messages received for personal injury claims.
Answered by Margot James
We have included in the Financial Guidance and Claims Act 2018 provision to ban cold calls relating to claims management services except where the receiver has consented to such calls being made to them.
This measure will be implemented through the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulation (the framework underpinning electronic communications) and regulated by the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), who provide monthly statistics on its website (www.ico.org.uk) on the number of reported nuisance calls. DCMS will continue to work closely with the ICO to monitor the number of cold calls and text messages received for personal injury claims, in light of the new measure.
We have also recently published a consultation on providing the ICO with the powers it needs to hold company directors directly responsible for direct marketing breaches. If preferred, this measure would fine rogue directors up to £500,000, raising this national nuisance at boardroom level.
Asked by: Alex Norris (Labour (Co-op) - Nottingham North)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what assessment his Department has made of the effect on local communities of the ending of the Parks for People conservation grant scheme.
Answered by Michael Ellis
The Parks for People programme was a joint scheme between the Heritage Lottery Fund and Big Lottery Fund, and therefore such decisions are made independently of Government.
Asked by: Alex Norris (Labour (Co-op) - Nottingham North)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, whether he has made an assessment of the effect on the capacity at football stadia of the introduction of safe standing areas.
Answered by Tracey Crouch
Spectator safety at sports grounds remains the priority for Government. The Sports Grounds Safety Authority is the regulatory body responsible for overseeing and advising on safety at sports grounds. My officials meet and receive advice from the SGSA as part of the normal process of policy development.
The Government will continue to learn from the latest data, research, and advances in technology to improve the safety of spectators, but we have yet to see robust evidence of a safer approach to protecting spectators at football matches than the existing all-seater arrangements.
Asked by: Alex Norris (Labour (Co-op) - Nottingham North)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, if he has made an assessment of the risk to safety of football supporters standing during football matches.
Answered by Tracey Crouch
Spectator safety at sports grounds remains the priority for Government. The Sports Grounds Safety Authority is the regulatory body responsible for overseeing and advising on safety at sports grounds. My officials meet and receive advice from the SGSA as part of the normal process of policy development.
The Government will continue to learn from the latest data, research, and advances in technology to improve the safety of spectators, but we have yet to see robust evidence of a safer approach to protecting spectators at football matches than the existing all-seater arrangements.
Asked by: Alex Norris (Labour (Co-op) - Nottingham North)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, if he will make an assessment of the potential merits of the recommendations made by Marcus Keppel-Palmer in his Report, Stand up for seating: Why all-seated football stadia should be reconsidered.
Answered by Tracey Crouch
Spectator safety at sports grounds remains the priority for Government. The Sports Grounds Safety Authority is the regulatory body responsible for overseeing and advising on safety at sports grounds. My officials meet and receive advice from the SGSA as part of the normal process of policy development.
The Government will continue to learn from the latest data, research, and advances in technology to improve the safety of spectators, but we have yet to see robust evidence of a safer approach to protecting spectators at football matches than the existing all-seater arrangements.
Asked by: Alex Norris (Labour (Co-op) - Nottingham North)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, pursuant to the Answer of 19 December 2017 to Question 118752, on Sports: Children, how many children the (a) Families Fund and (b) Potentials Fund aims to support; and how many schools those children attend.
Answered by Tracey Crouch
The Families Fund and the Potential Fund are new investment approaches. Projects apply directly to Sport England for funding and are then assessed against a range of criteria. Both the Families Fund and Potentials Fund are still in the early stages of investment and Sport England will work with successful projects to understand their reach and impact as they are rolled out.
16 awards totalling over £2.1m have so far been made from the Potentials Fund. This was announced in November 2017.
Sport England is currently assessing applications to the Families Fund which will make available awards of between £50,000-£500,000. Final decisions on projects to be awarded funding will be made in March 2018.
Asked by: Alex Norris (Labour (Co-op) - Nottingham North)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, pursuant to the Answer of 7 December 2017 to Question 117380, what estimate he has made of the number of children who will take up organised sport as a result of that funding.
Answered by Tracey Crouch
Approximately 21,500 schools are engaged in the School Games programme, which is around 90% of schools in England. As of 30 September 2017 10,127 satellite clubs have been established and 579,246 participants engaged.
The Families Fund and the Potentials Fund are new investment streams, and information on their impact will be measured by Sport England during the course of the projects
Sport England have also developed the Active Lives: Children and Young People survey (ALC), which will provide a world-leading approach to gathering data on how children engage with sport and physical activity. The survey was launched in schools in September 2017 and results will be available from January 2019.
Asked by: Alex Norris (Labour (Co-op) - Nottingham North)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, whether powers to remove public funding from sports bodies due to non-compliance with the Sports Governance Code have been used to date; and if she will make a statement.
Answered by Tracey Crouch
The deadline for national governing bodies (NGBs) of sport to comply with the requirements of the Code for Sports Governance was 31 October 2017. Sport England and UK Sport have received evidence from NGBs to demonstrate how they are complying with the Code and both organisations are now working together to review this evidence. Sport England and UK Sport will make a formal statement on the compliance of NGBs shortly.
If NGBs are assessed to be non-compliant they will be given the opportunity to take remedial action. If these NGBs do not take appropriate steps to become compliant then Sport England and UK Sport will make decisions on required action, including removal of funding, from late January 2018 onwards.
Asked by: Alex Norris (Labour (Co-op) - Nottingham North)
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 increase the provision of organised sport for children outside schools.
Answered by Tracey Crouch
We are committed to ensuring that all children and young people, particularly those who are currently least active or from under-represented groups, have the best opportunities to engage in sport and physical activity. We are continuing to invest over £17 million annually in the School Games to ensure that children of all abilities are able to access high quality organised sport.
Sport England is planning to invest £28m into Satellite Clubs between 2017-2021 to provide children and young people with opportunities to take part in sport outside of curriculum time. And through its new Families Fund, Sport England will be investing up to £40m into projects, which offer new opportunities for families with children to get active and play sport together. Sport England will also invest up to £3 million of National Lottery money through its new Potentials Fund which will support projects for young people (from ages 10 to 20) involved in social action and volunteering using sport and physical activity. This campaign is match-funded by the #iwill fund.
Asked by: Alex Norris (Labour (Co-op) - Nottingham North)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what plans she has to encourage female and BAME involvement in organised sport.
Answered by Tracey Crouch
Government’s strategy ‘Sporting Future: A New Strategy for An Active Nation’ and Sport England’s strategy ‘Towards an Active Nation’ highlight the importance of focusing on groups that are particularly unlikely to take part in sport and physical activity, such as women and girls and some Black and Minority Ethnic (BAME) groups. It places a clear emphasis on putting the customer first and there are some innovative programmes to encourage female and BAME participation in sport, such as the This Girl Can Swim campaign.
But as the Government’s sport strategy makes clear, participation is not just about playing sport, and the "Sports Governance Code", launched in October 2016, seeks to ensure the very highest standards of governance across all sport bodies that receive public money, including in terms of diversity, and aims to help the sport sector to be more inclusive and welcoming to all. If sports bodies do not adhere to the code and cannot demonstrate full commitment to becoming compliant with its requirements they will not be eligible to receive public funding.