Asked by: Andrew Griffith (Conservative - Arundel and South Downs)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, how much funding from the Culture Recovery Fund for Independent Cinemas has been allocated to cinemas in (a) Sussex and (b) Arundel and South Downs constituency.
Answered by Caroline Dinenage
The government recognises the significant cultural and economic value of cinemas, and has supported them through both sector-specific and economy-wide measures. In the first round of the £1.57bn Culture Recovery Fund, more than 200 independent cinemas have so far received funding from a £30m pot. This funding was administered by the BFI on behalf of the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, as part of the biggest ever single investment in this country’s cultural sectors.
£1,037,554 from the Culture Recovery Fund for Independent Cinemas has so far been allocated to cinemas across Sussex, with £643,083 in West Sussex and £394,471 in East Sussex. There have been no applications received from cinemas in the Arundel and South Downs constituency, West Sussex. Further to this funding, we announced in December that cinemas will be able to apply for another £14 million in grants as part of the second round of the Culture Recovery Fund in 2021. This will support cinemas as they transition back to a viable and sustainable way of operating in the months ahead.
In addition to the Culture Recovery Fund, most cinemas will have benefited from economy-wide measures including the VAT cut on tickets and concessions, a business rates holiday, access to Bounce Back Loans, the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme and Local Restrictions Support Grants.
Asked by: Andrew Griffith (Conservative - Arundel and South Downs)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what financial support his Department is providing to (a) GTR Southern Rail and (b) the rail industry more widely during the covid-19 outbreak.
Answered by Chris Heaton-Harris - Secretary of State for Northern Ireland
The total payments made to all train operators under franchise contracts with Department (including those in public ownership) from 1 March to 20 September 2020 was £4.07billion. Of this, £636million relates to the Thameslink, Southern and Great Northern franchise (i.e. GTR). Full payment data for this period has been published on www.gov.uk and we will continue to release periodic updates there in future.
Asked by: Andrew Griffith (Conservative - Arundel and South Downs)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, pursuant to the Answer of 6 November 2020 to Question 109771 on roads: death, how many of the accidents in Sussex were found to involve anti-social driving.
Answered by Rachel Maclean
Data on fatal road accidents is collected via the STATS19 reporting system. It is not possible to directly identify accidents involving anti-social driving.
As part of the STATS19 collection, police officers attending an accident are able to assign contributory factors, which are grouped into nine categories, including ‘injudicious action’. The injudicious action category includes factors related to speed, following too close or disobeying road signs or markings.
Of the 224 fatal reported personal injury road accidents in the Sussex police force between 2015 and 2019 where a police officer attended the scene and at least one contributory factor was assigned, 40 had at least one ‘injudicious action’ factor assigned.
The number of contributory factors assigned in each category is shown in the table.
Contributory factors assigned to fatal reported personal injury road accidents: Sussex police force 2015-20191
| Number | Percentage |
Road environment contributed | 17 | 8% |
Vehicle defects | 3 | 1% |
Injudicious action | 40 | 18% |
Driver/Rider error or reaction | 140 | 63% |
Impairment or distraction | 77 | 34% |
Behaviour or inexperience | 72 | 32% |
Vision affected by external factors | 5 | 2% |
Pedestrian only (casualty or uninjured) | 36 | 16% |
Special codes | 10 | 4% |
Any contributory factor | 224 | 100% |
1 Accidents where a police officer attended the scene and at least one contributory factor was assigned. Factors can be assigned in more than one category for an accident.
Asked by: Andrew Griffith (Conservative - Arundel and South Downs)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what recent progress Network Rail has made on its assessment of the West Sussex Connectivity Study; and when decisions are planned to be announced on West Sussex's development options as part of the Rail Network Enhancements Pipeline process.
Answered by Chris Heaton-Harris - Secretary of State for Northern Ireland
The key recommendations from the West Sussex Connectivity Study included better spacing of services and increasing capacity on services into Brighton in the morning peak.
Work is ongoing between the Department and Network Rail to develop these proposals further and make the case for them to enter the Rail Network Enhancement Pipeline so that initial assessment and development can occur.
Asked by: Andrew Griffith (Conservative - Arundel and South Downs)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, when he plans to publish the provisional allocations of the annual government finance settlement for local authorities in Sussex.
Answered by Luke Hall - Minister of State (Education)
Provisional local government finance settlement allocations for local authorities in England in 2021-22 were published on 17 December. The provisional allocations for local authorities in Sussex can be found at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/core-spending-power-provisional-local-government-finance-settlement-2021-to-2022.
I intend to bring forward a final settlement for debate and a vote in the House shortly.
Asked by: Andrew Griffith (Conservative - Arundel and South Downs)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what steps his Department is taking to support local newspapers.
Answered by John Whittingdale
The government is committed to supporting local and regional newspapers as vital pillars of communities and local democracy. Local newspapers have benefited from a number of recent interventions, including the extension of business rates relief for local newspapers in England for an additional five years; the investment of £2 million in the Future News Fund; and the zero-rating of VAT on e-newspapers.
During the pandemic, many newspapers have also benefited from a unique and unprecedented government advertising partnership, designed to deliver important messages to UK citizens. Newspapers received up to £35 million additional government advertising revenue as part of the first phase of our coronavirus communications campaign. The campaign has subsequently been extended with at least 60% funding going to smaller regional and local titles.
Looking ahead, the government announced in November 2020 that it will establish a new pro-competition regime for digital markets. At the heart of this will be a mandatory code of conduct to govern the relationships between dominant firms and those that rely on their services, including news publishers. The code will be a significant intervention in the government’s effort to support the sustainability of the news publishing industry, helping to rebalance the relationship between publishers and the online platforms on which they increasingly rely.
We will continue to consider all possible options in the interests of promoting and sustaining high-quality news journalism at a local level.
Asked by: Andrew Griffith (Conservative - Arundel and South Downs)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps his Department is taking to support (a) Gatwick airport and (b) the aviation sector more widely following the closure of travel corridors until 15 February 2021.
Answered by Robert Courts - Solicitor General (Attorney General's Office)
The Government recognises the challenging times facing the aviation sector due to Covid-19. The sector is crucial to the UK’s economy and businesses across the sector can draw on the unprecedented package of economic measures that have been put in place during this time. This includes a Bank of England scheme for firms to raise capital (CCFF), business interruption loan guarantee schemes, Time to Pay flexibilities with tax bills, and financial support for employees (the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme). Overall, we estimate that the air transport sector will have received around £2.5 to £3bn of support through the CCFF and Job Retention Scheme by the end of March 2021.
The Government also recently announced the Airports and Ground Operators’ Support Scheme (AGOSS) and the Test to Release scheme, both of which will benefit the sector. AGOSS will provide support for eligible businesses, up to the equivalent of their business rates liabilities in the 2020/21 financial year, subject to certain conditions and a cap per claimant of £8m.
Finally, if businesses across the sector find themselves in severe and urgent financial difficulties as a result of Covid-19, even following the Government’s cross-economy interventions, then the Government remains open to discussions about bespoke financial support but only as a last resort.
Asked by: Andrew Griffith (Conservative - Arundel and South Downs)
Question to the Department for International Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Trade, what steps her Department has taken to promote English wine exports.
Answered by Graham Stuart
I refer my Hon. Friend for Arundel and South Downs to the answer I gave him on 19 October 2020, UIN: 101331. My Department continues to work hard to negotiate free trade and continuity deals across the world, which will benefit sectors such as English and Welsh wine and are widely supported by industry including the Wine & Spirit Trade Association and WineGB. Going forward, we plan to support wineries at major international events in the US, Germany and Japan and will connect wineries with international influencers and buyers.
Asked by: Andrew Griffith (Conservative - Arundel and South Downs)
Question to the Department for International Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Trade, what assessment her Department has made of the value to the UK of space sector exports.
Answered by Graham Stuart
The UK Space Agency’s most recent estimates are that between 2016 and 2017, the UK Space sector’s exports amounted to £5.5 billion. In 2016/17, the industry directly contributed £5.7 billion of GVA (in current prices) to UK economic output – equivalent to 38% of space industry income and 0.29% of total UK GDP.
Looking ahead, the Department for International Trade is leading the development of a support plan in coordination with other government departments to enable more small and medium-sized space enterprises to export, and the sector to build back better from the impacts of Covid-19.
Asked by: Andrew Griffith (Conservative - Arundel and South Downs)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what steps he is taking with Cabinet colleagues to support (a) high street businesses and (b) community stores during the covid-19 lockdown announced in January 2021.
Answered by Luke Hall - Minister of State (Education)
This Government is fully committed to supporting the businesses and communities that make our high streets and town centres successful as the nation responds to the impacts of the Covid-19 outbreak.
Government has provided a comprehensive package of support of £200 billion to help businesses that have been affected by Covid-19. This package includes the small business grants, the coronavirus loan schemes, the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme, as well as deferral of income tax payments.
We are also delivering the £50 million Reopening High Streets Safely Fund to support local authorities with rolling out extra measures to support their business communities and have introduced measures protecting commercial tenants from eviction if they are unable to pay their rent.
The High Street Task Force is also playing a vital role in supporting the recovery of our local economies, through providing intelligence and evidence to support government in its response to the Covid-19 outbreak through the creation of monthly reports, a series of webinars to help support local recovery frameworks, and Covid-specific resources in the High Street Task Force’s online resource library.