Asked by: Andrew Mitchell (Conservative - Sutton Coldfield)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what steps she is taking to help ensure that older people can engage in community sports in the West Midlands.
Answered by Stephanie Peacock - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Culture, Media and Sport)
The Government is committed to ensuring that everyone, including older people, should have access to and benefit from quality sport and physical activity opportunities.
Sport and physical activity play a vital role in driving positive public health outcomes by preventing, and helping to treat and manage, a wide range of health conditions as well as providing wider benefits, for example, in tackling loneliness.
Sport England, our Arm’s Length Body for community sport, are investing up to £250 million of National Lottery and Exchequer funding into more than 90 Place Partnerships across England, including Dudley, Sandwell, Walsall and Wolverhampton. The programme works in a targeted way with local areas to understand and overcome the specific barriers in their communities to getting people active. Birmingham and Solihull were part of the first local delivery pilot areas the scheme is based on.
Sport England also provides support for grassroots sport through the Movement Fund, which offers crowdfunding pledges, grants and resources to improve physical activity opportunities for the people and communities who need it the most, including older people.
Asked by: Andrew Mitchell (Conservative - Sutton Coldfield)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what assessment she has made of the adequacy of Birmingham City Council’s ability to provide a (a) comprehensive and (b) efficient library service in Sutton Coldfield constituency.
Answered by Chris Bryant - Minister of State (Department for Culture, Media and Sport)
Public libraries are funded by local authorities and each local authority is responsible for assessing the needs of their local communities and designing a library service to meet those needs within available resources.
The Public Libraries and Museums Act 1964 requires the Secretary of State to “superintend and promote the improvement of the public library service provided by local authorities in England”. To assist this function the department regularly engages with local authorities to discuss issues related to their respective library service.
The Department has met with Birmingham City Council officers regularly in the last 20 months, the most recent of which was 7 May, to discuss changes to their library service provision.
Asked by: Andrew Mitchell (Conservative - Sutton Coldfield)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what steps she is taking to improve access to arts and culture in the West Midlands.
Answered by Chris Bryant - Minister of State (Department for Culture, Media and Sport)
Arts Council England has provided over £357 million of funding in the West Midlands between 2021-2025. Sutton Coldfield has received over £1.5 million between 2021-2025.
For example, Selina Thompson Ltd is in receipt of £350,000 per annum as a new Arts Council England National Portfolio Organisation (NPO). This NPO makes theatre installations, workshops and radio work for performance spaces, pubs, clubs and shopping centres across England and internationally.
The Potteries Museum and Art Gallery has received £5m as part of the Cultural Development Fund to create a striking extended building and repurpose spaces to showcase Stoke-on-Trent’s world class museum collections and enhance the visitor experience. In February, the Secretary of State announced that museums in the West Midlands, including Tamworth and Wolverhampton, would receive Museum Estate and Development Fund awards of over £3.4 million.
The Department has also announced a new £270 million Arts Everywhere Fund on 20 February. This will include support to museums, arts and music venues across the country and is a critical step that this Government is taking to help create jobs, boost local economies, and expand access to arts and culture for communities.
Asked by: Andrew Mitchell (Conservative - Sutton Coldfield)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what recent steps her Department has taken to increase tourism in the West Midlands.
Answered by Chris Bryant - Minister of State (Department for Culture, Media and Sport)
The Government is delivering the largest reform of destination management in a generation. We now have a network of 41 Local Visitor Economy Partnerships (LVEPs) across England and two Regional Destination pilots in the North East and West Midlands. The programmes have been looking at how we make it easier for people to visit those regions and enjoy a range of things to do when they are there, including great places to eat, shop and stay.
In March 2025, during English Tourism Week, we announced that the government is now providing an extra £1.35 million of support so the pilots can operate for another year. The extension will provide an opportunity to keep testing how a regional approach to managing the visitor economy can help drive visitor numbers, increase spending and create jobs, and secure the West Midlands’ reputation as a world-class destination to visitors.
Asked by: Andrew Mitchell (Conservative - Sutton Coldfield)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what recent assessment she has made of the potential impact of the increase in employer National Insurance contributions on the cultural sector in the West Midlands.
Answered by Chris Bryant - Minister of State (Department for Culture, Media and Sport)
The Government highly values the cultural sector and its positive contribution across the country, including in the West Midlands.
Due to the difficult economic inheritance from the previous government, we had to take a number of difficult decisions on tax, welfare and spending to fix the public finances, fund public services, and restore economic stability. The Government has considered the implication of this policy change, and the impacts were published in the usual way by HMRC as part of the Autumn Budget process. The cultural sector also benefits from the expenditure on public services that the Budget has enabled.
A Tax Information and Impact Note (TIIN), which gives a clear explanation of the policy objective and an assessment of the impacts was published alongside the National Insurance Contributions (Secondary Class 1 Contributions) Bill on 13 November 2024.