Asked by: Bell Ribeiro-Addy (Labour - Streatham)
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 with Cabinet colleagues to tackle discrimination against black (a) players and (b) ex-players in football.
Answered by Stuart Andrew - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Culture, Media and Sport)
There is no place for discrimination in sport, or in wider society. I am committed to ensuring sport does all it can to tackle racism and all forms of discrimination both domestically and internationally.
Fans can be charged with a Football Banning Order and fined if found to use racist slurs towards players at football games. Sentences can be more severe if it has been recorded as a hate crime.
The Government has also amended legislation to extend the use of Football Banning Orders, so that online abusers can be banned from stadiums for up to 10 years in the same way violent individuals are barred from grounds.
I would be happy to meet the Black Footballers Association to discuss black representation in football.
Asked by: Bell Ribeiro-Addy (Labour - Streatham)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, if her Department will meet the Black Footballers Partnership to discuss black representation in football.
Answered by Stuart Andrew - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Culture, Media and Sport)
There is no place for discrimination in sport, or in wider society. I am committed to ensuring sport does all it can to tackle racism and all forms of discrimination both domestically and internationally.
Fans can be charged with a Football Banning Order and fined if found to use racist slurs towards players at football games. Sentences can be more severe if it has been recorded as a hate crime.
The Government has also amended legislation to extend the use of Football Banning Orders, so that online abusers can be banned from stadiums for up to 10 years in the same way violent individuals are barred from grounds.
I would be happy to meet the Black Footballers Association to discuss black representation in football.
Asked by: Bell Ribeiro-Addy (Labour - Streatham)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, whether her Department has made a recent assessment of the potential merits of introducing a tobacco-style advertising ban on high carbon products.
Answered by John Whittingdale
The Government has no plans to ban new categories of advertising, including on high carbon products.
Asked by: Bell Ribeiro-Addy (Labour - Streatham)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, if her Department will take steps to ensure no jobs are lost at the English National Opera following changes to the funding it receives from Arts Council England.
Answered by Julia Lopez - Minister of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
Arts Council England (ACE) has set a provisional budget of up to £24 million investment to support the English National Opera (ENO), subject to successful application, for 2024-2026. This is in addition to the £11.46 million of funding already awarded to the ENO for April 2023 to March 2024 while it develops its future plans.
ENO received £12.3 million per year in the 2018-22 National Portfolio Investment Programme. Even though it will not be part of the new 2023-26 Investment Programme, ACE has set a provisional budget of up to £12 million per year for 2024/25 and 2025/26 to support the ENO make a phased transition to a new artistic and business model.
The Department is pleased that the Arts Council England and English National Opera are working together on possibilities for the future of the organisation.
Asked by: Bell Ribeiro-Addy (Labour - Streatham)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, how many (a) desktops, (b) laptops, (c) mobile phones and (d) other devices are discarded by her Department in each of the last four years.
Answered by Julia Lopez - Minister of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
| 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 |
Desktops | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Laptops | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Mobile Devices * | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
‘Other’ devices** | 0 | 0 | 0 | 159*** |
*Mobile Devices’ includes mobile handsets and tablet devices
**Other’ devices includes monitors and or display screens
***159 ‘other’ devices reference end of life monitors upgraded as part of a technology refresh.
Asked by: Bell Ribeiro-Addy (Labour - Streatham)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what assessment she has made of the number of youth centres at risk of closure in 2021; and what plans she has to increase the availability of youth work.
Answered by Nigel Huddleston - Financial Secretary (HM Treasury)
Our priority in the pandemic has been to stabilise youth charities and help them through the impact of this, so that they are in a position to deliver the outcomes envisaged for young people through the Youth Investment Fund (YIF). We have achieved this through our unprecedented charity sector package, from which £100 million has gone to organisations supporting children and young people during the pandemic, including £15.6 million through the Youth Covid Support Fund which provided emergency funding specifically for youth services.
Following the 2021 Spending Review, we are investing £560 million in youth services in England, including the Youth Investment Fund and ongoing support for the National Citizen Service.
Access to youth facilities is not felt equally, with young people in many parts of the country struggling to gain access to them. The YIF will seek to remedy this, creating and expanding youth facilities to level up opportunity in left behind places, giving young people access to support from youth workers and enabling them to engage in beneficial activities. Full details of the YIF's eligibility criteria will be announced in due course.
Government funding for the National Youth Agency has led to an increase in qualified youth workers and sustained professional standards within the youth work sector. Over the past two years we have worked with the National Youth Agency to help more than 900 youth workers gain qualifications and institute a new youth work apprenticeship. Through these joint endeavours we have supported the renewal of a range of national standards, qualifications and training programmes for youth work.
Asked by: Bell Ribeiro-Addy (Labour - Streatham)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, for what reason funding from the Youth Investment Fund has yet to be released; and what her plans are for the release of that funding.
Answered by Nigel Huddleston - Financial Secretary (HM Treasury)
Our priority in the pandemic has been to stabilise youth charities and help them through the impact of this, so that they are in a position to deliver the outcomes envisaged for young people through the Youth Investment Fund (YIF). We have achieved this through our unprecedented charity sector package, from which £100 million has gone to organisations supporting children and young people during the pandemic, including £15.6 million through the Youth Covid Support Fund which provided emergency funding specifically for youth services.
Following the 2021 Spending Review, we are investing £560 million in youth services in England, including the Youth Investment Fund and ongoing support for the National Citizen Service.
Access to youth facilities is not felt equally, with young people in many parts of the country struggling to gain access to them. The YIF will seek to remedy this, creating and expanding youth facilities to level up opportunity in left behind places, giving young people access to support from youth workers and enabling them to engage in beneficial activities. Full details of the YIF's eligibility criteria will be announced in due course.
Government funding for the National Youth Agency has led to an increase in qualified youth workers and sustained professional standards within the youth work sector. Over the past two years we have worked with the National Youth Agency to help more than 900 youth workers gain qualifications and institute a new youth work apprenticeship. Through these joint endeavours we have supported the renewal of a range of national standards, qualifications and training programmes for youth work.
Asked by: Bell Ribeiro-Addy (Labour - Streatham)
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 adding touring artists to the list of jobs that qualify for covid-19 travel exemptions.
Answered by Caroline Dinenage
The Government is committed to supporting our world-leading creative industries and to help them to recover from the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic. The Covid-19 travel exemptions are kept under review and any changes are driven by the public health risks.
Asked by: Bell Ribeiro-Addy (Labour - Streatham)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sports, what steps his Department is taking to support businesses in the events industry who have had to cancel events at short notice in response to new covid-19 lockdown restrictions.
Answered by Nigel Huddleston - Financial Secretary (HM Treasury)
We are aware that the events industry has been severely impacted by Government measures to control the spread of Covid-19. Events businesses and individuals can seek support in the form of various government-backed loans, business grants and the extended furlough and self-employed support schemes.
In light of the national restrictions announced on 4 January, the Chancellor has 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. He also announced that a £594 million discretionary fund will be made available to support other impacted businesses. This comes on top of the existing Additional Restrictions Grant discretionary funding and the Local Restrictions Support Grants.
The Culture Recovery Fund has already supported a wide range of cultural organisations, including venues, festivals and theatres. The £1 billion already committed has supported 3000 organisations and more than 75,000 jobs. £300 million in grants and £100 million in loans is available to support cultural organisations including businesses in the events industry.
We continue to engage with stakeholders, including through the Tourism Industry Council and the Events Industry Senior Leaders Advisory Panel, to monitor the situation facing the sector.
Asked by: Bell Ribeiro-Addy (Labour - Streatham)
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 in response to BT Group's reported plans to make 10,000 British workers redundant in the next five years.
Answered by Matt Warman
BT Group announced a modernisation programme in its 2019/20 results, which it says will enable the organisation to re-engineer old and out of date processes, switch off legacy services and make substantial cost savings over a 5-year period. Any redundancies as part of this process are a commercial decision for BT Group. However, we understand BT’s approach is to minimise redundancies through natural attrition and to provide opportunities to reskill and redeploy workers whenever possible.
More generally, the Government is committed to delivering nationwide gigabit connectivity as soon as possible, and is investing £5bn to deliver gigabit-capable services to the hardest to reach parts of the UK. Nationwide gigabit rollout will create thousands of high-quality jobs in the UK and help the country build back better from the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Chancellor also announced the ‘Plan for Jobs’ during his Summer Economic Update, through which the Government is making available up to £30 billion to create, protect, and support jobs, and to spur the UK’s recovery following COVID-19.