Asked by: Ben Bradshaw (Labour - Exeter)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what steps her Department is taking to ensure that Exeter has access to high-speed broadband.
Answered by Matt Hancock
Exeter has a strong competitive superfast broadband market from suppliers including BT/Openreach, Virgin Media, and Torbay Telecoms. Third party verification from Think Broadband puts superfast coverage above 97.5%.
Phase 1 of the Devon and Somerset superfast project (Connecting Devon and Somerset) has now covered over 300,000 premises with superfast broadband and further procurements are in train to extend coverage further.
The Universal Service Obligation, which we have enabling powers for in the Digital Economy Bill, will help ensure that everyone can access high speed broadband.
Asked by: Ben Bradshaw (Labour - Exeter)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what proportion of the £1.7 billion funding for the Superfast Broadband Programme is from (a) central government (b) local government and (c) the EU.
Answered by Lord Vaizey of Didcot
From the £1.7 billion funding for the Superfast Broadband programme around £780 million is from central government, £740 million is from local government and £200 million is from the EU.
Asked by: Ben Bradshaw (Labour - Exeter)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, if he will work with the Department for Education to take further steps to open schools sports facilities to the wider community.
Answered by Helen Grant - Shadow Solicitor General
We are very keen that we get the most out of Government investment in school sports facilities and will continue to seek to increase opportunities. Sport England works with schools, local authorities and the Education Funding Agency to improve community access to such facilities. It has made available £400,000 per year to provide focused support for a number of schools in strategically important areas. It is investing £1 million in the Priority School Building Programme in 2015 to safeguard school sports facilities at schools that have been identified as being in urgent need of repair. Sport England will also shortly be launching an online resource to help more schools open up their facilities for community use.
Asked by: Ben Bradshaw (Labour - Exeter)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what assessment he has made of which of his Department's policies has been most successful in achieving greater (a) sporting and (b) physical activity amongst women and girls since May 2010.
Answered by Helen Grant - Shadow Solicitor General
This Government has prioritised increasing women's participation in sport and Sport England has invested in a number of initiatives to this end. Each of these are evaluated both during and on completion of the project, in order to build knowledge and insight of behaviour change in this area. According to Sport England’s Active People Survey the number of women playing sport has increased by 423,600 since 2010.
Asked by: Ben Bradshaw (Labour - Exeter)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what steps he is taking to ensure there are enough spaces for 16 to 19 year olds to play sport.
Answered by Helen Grant - Shadow Solicitor General
Since 2010 Sport England has invested over £12 million in 125 sports facilities projects in schools and colleges that 16 to 19 year-olds will directly benefit from.
Sport England also invests in local community sports facilities outside schools and colleges, which many students and young people also use regularly.
Its Inspired Facilities funding programme has invested £100 million in over 1,800 local sports facilities.
Sport England’s Protecting Playing Fields funding programme has invested £22 million in 400 projects to protect and improve over 1,000 pitches
Asked by: Ben Bradshaw (Labour - Exeter)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what steps he is taking to increase numbers of post-16 college students taking part in physical and sporting activity.
Answered by Helen Grant - Shadow Solicitor General
Sport England is focused on getting more young people playing sport regularly, and is investing in a wide range of projects at further education and sixth form colleges to help achieve this.
Sport England’s £8 million Further Education Activation Fund has already invested £6 million in 100 colleges. The latest round of funding made awards to 63 projects which will reach 72 institutions across England, helping 59,000 more students start playing more sport.
It has also invested £17 million to recruit and support 153 College Sport Makers whose job is to get more students playing sport in colleges.
Sport England is investing £1.3 million over three years in the Association of Colleges Sport - a new organisation that is working with the national governing bodies of sport and appropriate national agencies to increase participation and competition in colleges.
Asked by: Ben Bradshaw (Labour - Exeter)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what steps his Department has taken to improve female participation in sport at (a) player and (b) manager level.
Answered by Helen Grant - Shadow Solicitor General
This Government is taking a number of steps to improve female participation in sport at both player and manager level.
Sport England's This Girl Can campaign was launched as a response to women's low participation in sport. It is based on a wealth of insight which highlighted the fear of judgement as a unifying factor putting women off sport. The campaign aims to eliminate this fear and change perceptions of what sport is and who it's for.
We are also taking steps to ensure women are participating in sport in leadership positions. SportCoachUK is running Project 500 to increase the number of women coaches, and has supported over 400 women through scholarships to start coaching and progress in coaching. At the very top, there is an expectation that women will comprise at least 25% of the Boards of National Governing Bodies by 2017. We are hosting a Women on Sports' Boards event this week to help sports bodies reach this goal.