Asked by: Charlotte Nichols (Labour - Warrington North)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, with reference to her letter to the hon. Member for Warrington North dated 5 March 2024, reference INT2024/01623/DC, what funding her Department has invested in grassroots sport facilities in each parliamentary constituency since 2021.
Answered by Stuart Andrew - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Culture, Media and Sport)
We are committed to ensuring that every child, no matter their background or ability, has the opportunity to play sport and be active.
Between 2021 and 2025, the UK Government is delivering a historic level of direct investment of over £400 million to build or upgrade thousands of grassroots facilities across the UK.
This includes £327 million across the whole of the UK between 2021 and 2025, including £25 million for the Lionesses Futures Fund. All projects are publicly available and can be found by financial year here.
We are also investing £21.9 million to renovate over 3,000 tennis courts across Scotland, England and Wales between 2022 and 2024. Completed projects are publicly available to see here.
In England, we have provided £60 million via the Swimming Pool Support Fund in 2023/24 to support public swimming pool providers with immediate cost pressures, and investment to make facilities sustainable in the longer-term. Phase one projects can be viewed here, with phase two projects to be announced in due course.
The Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport also wrote to all MPs in early March, detailing the amount of funding and the different projects supported by the Multi-Sport Grassroots Facilities Programme, the Park Tennis Court Renovation Programme, and the Swimming Pool Support Fund, in their constituency.
Asked by: Charlotte Nichols (Labour - Warrington North)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, if she will make it her policy to ban ticket touting.
Answered by John Whittingdale
HM Government is committed to supporting fair and transparent ticket pricing and tackling unacceptable behaviour in this market.
We have strengthened the law in relation to ticketing information requirements and have introduced a criminal offence of using automated software to buy more tickets online than is allowed. We also support the work of enforcement agencies in this area, such as the Competition and Markets Authority, National Trading Standards, and the advertising industry's own regulator the Advertising Standards Authority.
We believe there is a role for a responsible secondary ticketing market, and ultimately, ticket pricing strategies are a matter for event organisers and ticketing platforms, providing they comply with relevant legislation, particularly regarding transparency to customers on how tickets are priced, in order to help consumers make a fair and informed decision.
Policy on secondary ticketing is jointly owned within Government by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) and the Department for Business & Trade (DBT). DBT has lead responsibility for policy on consumer protection and its enforcement, in partnership with National Trading Standards and the Competition and Markets Authority, whilst DCMS leads on the specific area of secondary ticketing for DCMS-related events (sport, live music, theatre, etc.).
Our joint overarching policy aim has been to address abuses in the ticketing market and improve consumers’ opportunities to buy tickets for recreational, sporting, and cultural events, whilst ensuring there are no unintentional consequences for the operations of the events sector and primary and secondary ticketing market.
Our policy aims are delivered through a mixture of targeted legislation (primarily the Consumer Rights Act 2015), backed up by robust action by enforcement agencies, and encouraging industry-led approaches, largely through the exploitation of technological developments (e.g. use of blockchain and ‘ticketless tickets’ on mobiles). Our approach is underpinned by the findings of an independent review of consumer protection measures in the market, undertaken by Professor Michael Waterson, published in May 2016.
Professor Waterson specifically considered the idea of banning the secondary ticketing market entirely. His conclusions, with which we agreed in our response to the review, are that:
i) a ban would not lead to the absence of secondary ticketing, but would simply drive it underground/offshore, with implications for raised levels of fraud;
ii) several primary operators have chosen to link up with secondary agencies suggesting their implicit approval of such activities;
iii) a significant proportion of tickets on secondary sites are priced below face value, offering a useful service to consumers and allowing more people to attend the event.
Asked by: Charlotte Nichols (Labour - Warrington North)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, if she will make it her policy to require all Scotland association football matches to be shown for free on television.
Answered by John Whittingdale
The government believes that certain sporting events of national interest should be shown on free-to-air television rather than behind a paywall, so that they can be enjoyed by as wide an audience as possible. That is why we have the listed events regime.
In determining what events form part of this regime, a balance between accessibility and the ability of sporting organisations to generate revenues from commercial broadcast arrangements to invest in the development of their sports from the grassroots up. The Government believes that the current list strikes an appropriate balance, and has no current plans to undertake a full review of the events on the list.
In this instance, it would be for the Scottish Government to consider whether this balance is struck, and the UK Government would then take those considerations into account.
Asked by: Charlotte Nichols (Labour - Warrington North)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what discussions she has had with Ofcom on the Vodafone-Three merger.
Answered by John Whittingdale
Matters related to telecoms are the responsibility of the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) following the machinery of government changes announced on 7 February 2023. I refer the honourable Member to the answer I gave on 22 June 2023, in my capacity as a DSIT Minister, to Question UIN 190472.
Asked by: Charlotte Nichols (Labour - Warrington North)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, if she will make it her policy to ban all gambling sponsorships in association football.
Answered by Stuart Andrew - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Culture, Media and Sport)
On 27 April we published our white paper setting out our conclusions and next steps on gambling advertising and sponsorship, as well as other issues in the broad scope of our Gambling Act Review.
The Gambling Commission requires all marketing activities by gambling operators, including sport sponsorships, to be undertaken in a socially responsible fashion. To ensure high standards for gambling sponsorship across the sport sector, the government will continue to support the sector’s efforts to implement standards for social responsibility through a cross-sport Code of Conduct.
We also welcome the Premier League’s recent announcement that it will ban gambling sponsors from the front of shirts, bringing sponsorship in line with recent rule changes from the Advertising Standards Authority preventing Premier League players from appearing in gambling adverts.
Asked by: Charlotte Nichols (Labour - Warrington North)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what steps she is taking to help reduce the carbon emissions caused by large-scale sporting events in the UK.
Answered by Paul Scully
Major sporting events bring a wide range of benefits to this country and the Government remains committed to maintaining its world-leading track record in this area. As part of the Government’s ‘net zero’ pledge, we work closely with domestic event organisers and international federations to ensure they are delivered as sustainably as possible.
We demonstrated this, for example, through our delivery of the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games. The Games had a bold ambition to be the most sustainable Games to date and set out a clear action plan which successfully reduced the environmental impact of the Games and has helped create a lasting legacy.
For future events, the Gold Framework guidance on UK-level support available when bidding for and staging major sporting events includes guidance for organisers to focus on the sustainability of their event, and any associated legacy or social impact programme. This document is being refreshed with the intention of publishing an update in the coming months.
Asked by: Charlotte Nichols (Labour - Warrington 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 help ensure that social media companies prevent misinformation on their platforms.
Answered by Paul Scully
Under the Online Safety Bill, all social media companies subject to the safety duties will be forced to take measures to remove illegal content online that is in scope of the Bill, including illegal misinformation and disinformation once they become aware of it. In addition, if a social media platform is likely to be accessed by children, they will have to protect them from a wide range of harmful content including misinformation and disinformation.
We are already working closely with the major social media platforms to encourage them to cooperate at speed to swiftly remove disinformation and coordinated inauthentic or manipulated behaviour, as per their Terms of Service.
Asked by: Charlotte Nichols (Labour - Warrington 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 will take to help prevent leisure centres closing due to energy price rises during winter 2022-23.
Answered by Stuart Andrew - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Culture, Media and Sport)
The Government recognises the impact rising energy prices will have on organisations of all sizes, including on providers of indoor leisure facilities. In September the government announced the Energy Bill Relief Scheme, under which businesses and other non-domestic energy users (including leisure facilities) are being supported.
After an initial 6 months of the scheme, the government will provide focused support for vulnerable industries. A review is currently underway to determine where this should be targeted to make sure those most in need get support.
The Government invested £100 million in the National Leisure Recovery Fund, which supported the reopening of local authority leisure centres and facilities throughout the country after the pandemic.
Asked by: Charlotte Nichols (Labour - Warrington North)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, if she will make an estimate of how many leisure centres may close (a) temporarily and (b) permanently due to rising costs in winter 2022-23.
Answered by Stuart Andrew - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Culture, Media and Sport)
The Government recognises the impact rising energy prices will have on organisations of all sizes, including on providers of indoor leisure facilities. In September the government announced the Energy Bill Relief Scheme, under which businesses and other non-domestic energy users (including leisure facilities) will be offered support. We are working with Sport England and sector partners including ukactive to closely monitor the impact of this on public leisure centres.
The Government invested £100 million in the National Leisure Recovery Fund, which supported the reopening of local authority leisure centres and facilities throughout the country after the pandemic.
Asked by: Charlotte Nichols (Labour - Warrington North)
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 with Cabinet colleagues of the potential impact of charging for Twitter verification on (a) child safeguarding, (b) fraud and cyber-crime and (c) other online harms; and if she will make a statement.
Answered by Paul Scully
While the government cannot comment on the policies of individual companies, the Online Safety Bill will introduce new duties on search services and user-to-user services, including social media platforms, to protect their users. Companies will have flexibility in how they comply with their new duties, but they will need to meet standards set by Ofcom, the regulator, with regard to child safe-guarding and tackling illegal activity, including fraud.
Companies will be able to fulfil their duties by taking the recommended measures in the codes of practice that Ofcom will issue or by taking alternative action provided the outcome is as good or better.