Oral Answers to Questions
David Simmonds Excerpts(1 year, 4 months ago)
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David Simmonds (Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner) (Con)
The Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (Michelle Donelan)
Next week, the Online Safety Bill will return to the House. I have made a number of changes to the legislation to strengthen the protections for children and offer a triple shield of protection for adults, while also safeguarding free speech and consumer choice.
In the meantime, I am sure that colleagues across the House will join me in congratulating England on their win on Tuesday night and, of course, show their support for the decision of the Sports Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for Pudsey (Stuart Andrew), to wear the OneLove armband while representing the Government out in Qatar. I am proud of my right hon. Friend for standing up in solidarity with the LGBT community.
David Simmonds
Northwood youth club in my constituency has served generations of young people, with access to activities including cooking, sports, arts and many other things, but it now needs investment. Can my right hon. Friend update me on the progress that the Government are making on the distribution of the youth investment fund?
Michelle Donelan
The Government know the importance of local youth services; that is why we launched the national youth guarantee. The youth investment fund is a £368 million investment to build up or refurbish 300 youth facilities in levelling-up priority areas. The fund opened for applications on 1 August, building on the £12 million that we distributed for minor capital projects earlier, and we expect to announce the first awards early in the new year.
Oral Answers to Questions
David Simmonds Excerpts(1 year, 9 months ago)
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David Simmonds (Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner) (Con)
The Hillingdon outdoor activities centre at Harefield in my constituency has given generations of children the opportunity to experience new sports. What plans does my right hon. Friend have to ensure that more children can benefit from such opportunities in future?
Ms Dorries
The Government encourage everyone, no matter their age, to be as active as they can be. We recognise that outdoor activities centres provide opportunities for all members of society to be active. Outdoor activities centres were supported through the pandemic by Government assistance, such as the furlough scheme, and there is a range of programmes, including the National Citizen Service and the £80 million green recovery challenge, with delivery partners that include outdoor activities centres.
Oral Answers to Questions
David Simmonds Excerpts(2 years, 1 month ago)
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Chris Philp
The hon. Gentleman raises a good question. Matters concerning identifying potential suspects are, generally speaking, dealt with under the Investigatory Powers Act 2016, which I know the Home Office is considering taking a look at. He is right to say that it is important for the police to be able to identify perpetrators where allegations are made, and the Government, particularly the Home Office and the Security Minister, are looking into that question carefully.
David Simmonds (Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner) (Con)
On Saturday, on a visit to Northwood football club in my constituency, Ian Barry and the directors showed me a site where there is bowls, football, cricket, tennis and a number of other activities. What opportunities does the Minister see to join up the grant funding streams across different sports so that we can create enhanced, multi-sport facilities at community level?
Nigel Huddleston
That is a very important point. Through the Football Foundation in particular, we work closely with local authorities and clubs to help them work collaboratively. That includes working with multiple clubs to share facilities, because that makes sense. We are also investing £205 million to build or transform up to 8,000 multi-use sports facilities and £21 million to refurbish park tennis courts.
BBC Funding
David Simmonds Excerpts(2 years, 3 months ago)
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Ms Dorries
I did not hear the second part of the hon. Gentleman’s question, but what I would say is: what is wrong with playing “God Save the Queen”? [Hon. Members: “Hear, hear!”] What is wrong with it? He asked the question as though that was a dirty word or something that should not be said. What is wrong with playing “God Save the Queen”?
David Simmonds (Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner) (Con)
Like many of my constituents who are also the parents of young children, I have a daily battle to guide my children away from some of the content on some channels and towards the relative nourishment they will find on the BBC. As we look to the future of the BBC, and in addition to the scrutiny that is rightly placed upon the financing model, what objectives or processes might my right hon. Friend have in mind to ensure that the quality of the output, where the BBC is world-leading in so many areas, is maintained for the long-term?
Ms Dorries
That is the point of discussion. I have said again and again that this is about how we protect the BBC and how we ensure that, under the present agreement and settlement, it can continue to meet its mission and its purpose. How do we protect the BBC going forward? How do we ensure that we have good quality content made in the UK that stays in the UK and that we can sell from the UK? And how do we, in this changing, shifting, rapidly moving landscape, have a BBC that is funded for the future in order to protect it?
Oral Answers to Questions
David Simmonds Excerpts(2 years, 3 months ago)
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Ms Dorries
As I have said before, all our interview processes are undertaken in full compliance with the governance code and the principles given by the Commissioner for Public Appointments. We asked Martin Thomas at interview whether he had anything to declare, which he said he did not. He has rightly apologised for his error of judgment during the application process. I have accepted his resignation. The Select Committee will examine this matter and the error of judgment, but of course he also passed through the cross-party Joint Committee process. We are reviewing our processes; we review them constantly. I am afraid there is not much more I can say about this.
David Simmonds (Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner) (Con)
On Monday I visited Harefield United football club in my constituency, which told me, as many other grassroots football clubs do, of its frustration at being unable to access excellent facilities in local schools. What discussions have taken place between the Department and the Department for Education about opening up those brilliant facilities to a wider range of grassroots sports clubs?
Nigel Huddleston
My hon. Friend makes a really important point. We have to open up school facilities for more sporting activities. I have already had several conversations with DFE Ministers about opening up school facilities. We are also working together on the school sport and activity action plan, and in the spending review additional money was allocated to support the opening up of school facilities and the teaching of PE in primary schools. My hon. Friend is raising a really important point; more action will be taken.
Oral Answers to Questions
David Simmonds Excerpts(2 years, 10 months ago)
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Oliver Dowden
Nightclubs actually fall within the responsibility of the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, but I am very happy to answer the question. The key thing is to get them to reopen. We are making very good progress towards doing that on 19 July. Many of the existing schemes—certainly the culture recovery fund—will continue to pay out for the coming weeks and months. Indeed, we have said that claims can be made in respect of the culture recovery fund until the end of this year, so a wide range of support remains available for our cultural institutions.
David Simmonds (Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner) (Con) [V]
Matt Warman
The youth investment fund aims to level up access to youth provision over the course of this Parliament, but £30 million has already been committed as capital funding in 2021-22. That will provide investment in new and refurbished safe spaces for young people so that they can access support from youth workers and enjoy beneficial activities, including sport and culture. We know how valuable these facilities are, and details of the bidding process for the next rounds will be announced in due course.
Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport
David Simmonds Excerpts(3 years, 1 month ago)
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David Simmonds (Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner) (Con) [V]
I commence my remarks by praising the work that the BBC has done to support families and ensure that children have access to good-quality, advertising-free content during covid. All Members who are parents of young children will have appreciated the value of that, and many of us will have heard from our constituents that, at a time when access to good-quality learning, either online or through the television, radio and other forms of media, has sometimes been hard to come by, the BBC has done an absolutely fantastic job. At a time when there is often controversy about the BBC’s political news coverage, we need to recognise that benefit; a vast part of the corporation’s work is enormously valuable in supporting children and families, and it will be incredibly important not just during lockdown and covid but as we move towards education catch-up.
The second big positive is the investment that has ensured that local arts can continue to thrive. I have the privilege of representing Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner, an outer London constituency, which, as well as having access to the west end—a national asset—has a number of thriving local arts centres, including Harrow Arts Centre, which benefited from direct funding, and the Compass theatre and Winston Churchill theatre and hall, which have benefited from the support of the local authority. The ability of these local arts venues not only to nurture talent, to be part of what is a great British economic success story, but to give people access to culture and the arts on their doorstep is incredibly important. The support that has been put in place by the Minister and the Department has been enormously valued by constituents. As we look towards recovery and opening up again, many artistes and organisations are delighted at the prospect of throwing their doors open again, putting on shows and exhibitions that have had to be deferred, and welcoming my constituents once more.
I will finish with a comment about youth work. The Department currently holds responsibility for the youth investment fund. Having spent many of my years as the councillor responsible for children and young people in the London borough of Hillingdon, which serves about two thirds of my constituency, I am very aware of the enrichment of young people’s lives that has been brought about by youth centres, the youth workers that local authorities employ, and those who come from organisations such as churches, charities and the uniformed sector, including the Scouts and the Guides. This creates amazing opportunities for young people that contribute to their later employability and enrich their lives and raise aspiration and opportunity. When we talk about levelling up, those things will be incredibly important.
As we look forward in this estimates day debate, I encourage the Minister to consider how we will ensure that those resources are properly applied. I ask that we give appropriate consideration to how we use the resources contained in that fund to support excellent frontline youth work, to enable local authorities to do the job that they do extremely well in supporting and engaging young people, and that we make sure that those resources are deployed in the light of local circumstances, so that those who know their communities best can ensure that they add the maximum value to the lives of young people in our areas.
Professional and Amateur Sport: Government Support
David Simmonds Excerpts(3 years, 7 months ago)
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Nigel Huddleston
Of course I join the hon. Lady in her congratulations. In terms of the support package, we want to help absolutely as many clubs as we can. As I have said, our focus is on those that have particularly suffered from the 1 October cancellation and the inability to get fans into stadiums. There is a whole host of other global financial issues and considerations for football; our focus at present is on the return of fans and the issues the delay in that has caused, but the hon. Lady raises the point that many other clubs across the country are struggling for a whole variety of other reasons as well.
David Simmonds (Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner) (Con)
I would like to associate myself with the remarks about Wealdstone FC from my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman); it has many fans in my constituency also. Does my hon. Friend the Minister share my disappointment in the lack of leadership shown by the Mayor of London in getting Londoners back to sport—in particular, football—and does he welcome the efforts by many community organisations and local authorities in ensuring that sport, especially children’s sport, is being reopened, so people have the best opportunities to access that as we recover from covid?
Nigel Huddleston
My hon. Friend raises a couple of important points. First, on children’s sport, I agree absolutely, and I had a good conversation with the Education Minister with responsibility for school sport the other day. We are absolutely committed to get school sport up and running, and leisure centres and grassroots sport play a vital role in getting our children active, so I agree exactly with his comments on that. Also, when people are not showing that they are sports fans, I, like him, am disappointed in their comments.