Asked by: Harriett Baldwin (Conservative - West Worcestershire)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, whether she has made an assessment of the potential impact of the UK-US trade deal on the (a) culture, (b) media and (c) sport sectors.
Answered by Chris Bryant - Minister of State (Department for Business and Trade)
The deal does not have direct or immediate implications for the culture, media or sports sectors, but the UK and US have a long mutually beneficial relationship embracing our thriving cultural, media and sports sectors and we will continue to monitor the situation, and take action where needed to protect and promote these sectors' interests.
Asked by: Harriett Baldwin (Conservative - West Worcestershire)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, whether their Department offers its staff shared parental leave from their first working day.
Answered by Stephanie Peacock - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Culture, Media and Sport)
DCMS offers shared parental leave in line with legislation: to access statutory shared parental leave and pay, both parents must have worked for their employer for at least 26 weeks up to the 15th week before their baby is due. However, some staff could qualify for statutory shared parental leave on their first day of service with a particular department, because they already have service with another department.
To access our occupational shared parental leave pay, employees must have at least one year’s continuous service in the Civil Service.
As with any changes to employment legislation, internal policies and processes will be updated as appropriate in preparation for when the Employment Rights Bill 2024-25 comes into effect.
Asked by: Harriett Baldwin (Conservative - West Worcestershire)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what progress has been made on (a) West Worcestershire rural broadband projects numbers 50348, 47608 and 35185 and (b) vouchers requested but not issued to broadband projects in West Worcestershire.
Answered by Julia Lopez - Shadow Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology
The three specific projects referred to are associated with Openreach’s Community Fibre Partnership (CFP) Scheme which they operate all over the UK. Openreach use this scheme as an aggregation platform to gather initial contact details and ‘pledges’ (in their terminology) for communities who want to improve their broadband. Since the launch of the Gigabit Broadband Voucher Scheme (GBVS) in 2018, Openreach has encouraged communities in eligible areas to use the voucher funding provided by the Government to contribute towards the cost of installing the network to rural communities.
Openreach have provided proposals for these three projects to Building Digital UK (BDUK), who are working closely with Openreach to progress them as soon as possible. Upon receipt in each case, the details of the project, including the beneficiaries involved and funding information, are reviewed by BDUK to confirm these are all correct and the project is compliant. Once these checks have been satisfactorily completed the vouchers will be issued.
Asked by: Harriett Baldwin (Conservative - West Worcestershire)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what advice he received from the Chief Medical Office on preventing amateur choral singing in groups of more than six people under covid-19 restrictions; and what plans he has for that advice to be reviewed.
Answered by Caroline Dinenage
I know that the restrictions on singing are frustrating to large numbers of amateur choirs and performance groups across the country and that many people have made sacrifices in order to drive down infections and protect the NHS over the last year. I can assure you that everyone across the Government wants to ease these restrictions as soon as possible.
However, it is important that we take a cautious approach in easing restrictions. We have followed the views of public health experts on singing. We are aware, through the NERVTAG and PERFORM studies that singing can increase the risk of COVID-19 transmission through the spread of aerosol droplets. This was backed up by a consensus statement from SAGE, resulting in the suggested principles of safer singing being published.
We will continue to keep guidance and restrictions under review, in line with the changing situation. Further detail on step 4 will be set out as soon as possible.
Asked by: Harriett Baldwin (Conservative - West Worcestershire)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, with reference to the Answer of 7 October 2019 to Question 290901, on Malvern Hills Trust, what plans he has to amend the governance provisions of the Malvern Hills Trust to make that trust subject to the provisions of the Freedom of Information Act 2000.
Answered by Oliver Dowden
The Department has no plans to make the Malvern Hills Trust subject to the Freedom of Information Act 2000. The Malvern Hills Trust recently consulted publicly on proposals to amend its governance provisions and will set out its next steps in due course. The Department is in discussion with the Charity Commission and the charity on the most appropriate means of taking the changes forward and ensuring Parliamentary scrutiny.