Asked by: Ian Lavery (Labour - Blyth and Ashington)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what assessment he has made of the level of support needed by community sports groups and clubs during the covid-19 pandemic.
Answered by Nigel Huddleston - Shadow Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport
I am having regular discussions with sector and industry bodies to understand the impact of COVID-19 on sport and how we can provide support. This includes chairing a fortnightly meeting with over 25 sporting organisations.
The Chancellor has already announced a host of measures to help businesses, with £330 billion worth of government backed and guaranteed loans to support businesses across the UK. In addition, Sport England, has also announced £210 million of funding to help sport and physical activity organisations deal with the short and long term effects of the pandemic.
Asked by: Ian Lavery (Labour - Blyth and Ashington)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Minister of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, which arts organisations in the North East of England his Department plans to allocate funding to in 2020.
Answered by Helen Whately - Shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions
The list outlines Arts organisations and practitioners across the North East that have been allocated funding from Arts Council England for 2020. This list is not exhaustive as ACE expects further funding applications from practitioners and organisations based in the North East of England throughout the year.
Organisation Name
Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums
North Music Trust
North Music Trust
Durham & Darlington Music Education Hub
Tees Valley Music Service
Sunderland Music Education Hub
Music Partnership North
North Tyneside Music Education Hub
Gateshead and South Tyneside Music Education Hub
New Writing North
Redcar & Cleveland Borough Council
Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums
November Club
North Music Trust
Ballet Lorent Limited
The Forge
National Youth Choirs of Great Britain
Dance City
Northern Stage (Theatrical Productions) Ltd
TIN Arts
The Maltings Berwick Trust Limited
Helix Arts Ltd
Baltic Flour Mills Visual Arts Trust
Middlesbrough Town Hall
Association for Cultural Enterprises
Stockton International Riverside Festival
Gem Arts
Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums
North East Theatre Trust Ltd
The Customs House
Bloodaxe Books Ltd
Theatre Hullabaloo
Woodhorn Charitable Trust
The Lawnmowers Independent Theatre Company
Generator North East
Amber Film & Photography Collective
Seven Stories, The National Centre for Children's Books
Vane Contemporary Art Limited
a-n The Artists Information Company
Durham County Council
Queen's Hall Arts
Sunderland Culture
Unfolding Theatre
The NewBridge Project
Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums
Workplace Foundation
Inpress Ltd
Stockton Borough Council Tees Valley Museum Group
Arts&Heritage
Beamish Museum
Teesside University
Northern Print
Tyneside Cinema
Berwick Film & Media Arts Festival
Open Clasp Theatre Company
Stockton Arts Centre Ltd
The Bowes Museum
Umar Butt
Jamie Tansley
The Auxiliary Project Space
DJAZZ - Durham City Jazz Festival
Southpaw Dance Company
Lisette Rebecca Auton
Nadia Iftkhar
Kris Johnson
David Lisser
Vivien Wood
Lydia Brickland
Michael John Heatley
Jade Byrne
National Youth Choirs of Great Britain
Festival of Thrift
South Tyneside Council
New Prospects Association Limited
Hartlepool Borough Council
Michael Evans
Curious Arts Ltd
Katie Doherty
Middlesbrough Council
Little Cog
Make & Mend Company
North Tyneside Council
Sunderland MAC Trust
Primate Productions Ltd
Patrick Ngabonziza
Amy Lord
Rachael Walsh
Little Inventors Worldwide Ltd
Sophie Buxton
Benedict Wellstood
MBC Arts Wellbeing
Kate Hunter
Gillie Kleiman
Tracks
Southpaw Dance Company
Rosa Postlethwaite
Amanda Ogden
Rebecca Glendenning-Laycock
Elizabeth Jane Klotz
Changing Relations
Beacon Films CIC
Middlesbrough Mela Association
Harambee Pasadia CIC
Katherina Radeva
Christopher Folwell
Tatwood Puppets
Billingham International Folklore Festival of World Dance
Alistair McDonald
Newcastle Asian Arts and Music
Hannah Thompson
Dora Frankel
Laura Harrington
Action for Children
The Middlesbrough Art Weekender
Let's Circus
Hannah Murphy
The Empty Space
Paul Miller
Durham County Council Arts Programmes Team
Eliot Smith Company
Alphabetti Theatre
Two Destination Language
Wesley Stephenson
Pineapple Black
Sheila Graber
COMMON
Regeneration NE CIC
Martin Hylton
Workie Ticket Theatre CIC
Norfolk Street Arts Community Interest Company
Aidan Moesby
Stellar Projects
Thoughtful Planet 3
William Steele
Cameron John Sharp
Teesside University
Zoe Murtagh
Miranda Tufnell
Ushaw College
Christina Castling
Newcastle City Council Culture
Tony Hopkins Entertainments Ltd
NTC Touring Theatre Company Ltd
Lindsay Duncanson
Northumbria University
Julian Germain
Mortal Fools
Opera Sunderland
Durham University
Jake Jarratt
Elizabeth Jane Klotz
fanSHEN
Lydia Brickland
Scott Turnbull
Tusk Music
Mad Alice Theatre Company
Payal Ramchandani
Chris Hornsby
Sunderland City Council
Tim Shaw
Becci Sharrock
North Music Trust
Charlie Bramley
Creative Spaces North East C.I.C.
COMMON
Elysium Theatre Company
The Creative Seed CIC
Curious Monkey Ltd
Abdulrahman Abu - Zayd
DAVE GRAY
Allan Hughes
Debra Carey
Izaak Gledhill
Hexham Book Festival
Moving Art Management
Cap-a-Pie
Alys North
blimey!
Juliana Mensah
Harriet Ghost
Transitions17
Sabina Sallis
Conversations in Painting
Faye MacCalman
Caroline Collinge
Robert Graham
Henry Amos
christopher fallow
Michelle Bayly
Leah Millar
Nell Catchpole
Melanie Rashbrooke
Slugtown
Hartlepool Wintertide Festival
Emma Dunn
Greyscale Theatre Company
D6 Culture Ltd
North East Theatre Trust Ltd
Michael Mulvihill
Teesside University
Cat Robey
Catherine Bertola
South Tyneside Council
Head of Steam - Darlington Railway Museum
Matt Jamie
Bethan Kitchen
Woodhorn Charitable Trust
South Tyneside Council
Faculty of Arts, Design and Creative Industries
Jazz North East Ltd
Simon West
Eliot Smith Company
Chalk
Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums
Durham University
Vindolanda Trust
Mortal Fools
Middlesbrough Council Cultural Services
Gary Wilkinson
Newcastle Gateshead Initiative
Dominic Nelson-Ashley
Martha Wheatley
Skimstone Arts
Luca Rutherford
Surface Area Dance Theatre CIC
Kerrin Tatman
Hannah Thompson
Gateway Studios
Liberdade community development trust
Nexus
Mathieu Geffré
identity on tyne
Shane Wreford-Sinnott
Michaela Wetherell
Steve Byron
Mi Viejo Fruta Ltd
Independent Sunderland
New Writing North
Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums
November Club
North Music Trust
Ballet Lorent Limited
The Forge
National Youth Choirs of Great Britain
Dance City
Northern Stage (Theatrical Productions) Ltd
TIN Arts
The Maltings Berwick Trust Limited
Helix Arts Ltd
Baltic Flour Mills Visual Arts Trust
Middlesbrough Town Hall
Association for Cultural Enterprises
Stockton International Riverside Festival
Gem Arts
Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums
North East Theatre Trust Ltd
The Customs House
Bloodaxe Books Ltd
Theatre Hullabaloo
Woodhorn Charitable Trust
The Lawnmowers Independent Theatre Company
Generator North East
Amber Film & Photography Collective
Seven Stories, The National Centre for Children's Books
Vane Contemporary Art Limited
a-n The Artists Information Company
Durham County Council
Queen's Hall Arts
Sunderland Culture
Unfolding Theatre
The NewBridge Project
Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums
Workplace Foundation
Inpress Ltd
Stockton Borough Council Tees Valley Museum Group
Arts&Heritage
Beamish Museum
Teesside University
Northern Print
Tyneside Cinema
Berwick Film & Media Arts Festival
Open Clasp Theatre Company
Stockton Arts Centre Ltd
The Bowes Museum
Asked by: Ian Lavery (Labour - Blyth and Ashington)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, whether there is a minimum limit above which charitable organisations must bid in applying for funding from the tampon tax fund.
Answered by Tracey Crouch
Applications to the Tampon Tax Fund should be for £1million or more and be from organisations that can deliver impact across their chosen category and across multiple regions in one or more of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
Applications are welcomed from individual organisations or consortia with an identified lead organisation. We are particularly interested in receiving applications from organisations whose projects include making onward grants to other charitable organisations, as a way of utilising existing expertise in the sector, increasing geographical reach, and improving impact.
Asked by: Ian Lavery (Labour - Blyth and Ashington)
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 ensure appropriate age restrictions are applied to video games and other digital content; and what steps her Department is taking to ensure such age restrictions are enforced.
Answered by Matt Hancock
The Video Recordings Act 1984 requires that all video games for sale in the UK and classified as unsuitable for children carry a European Pan European Games Information (PEGI) age rating. Enforcement is monitored by Trading Standards and any retailer convicted of supplying a PEGI 12, 16 or 18 product to someone not meeting the specific age requirement faces a possible jail term and/or a fine. It is also an offence for companies distributing or retailing games without the appropriate age ratings on them. In the online space, we welcome initiatives such as the International Age Rating Coalition which ensures that games and apps available through many online and mobile storefronts feature PEGI age ratings.
With regards to other digital content, through the Digital Economy Act 2017, we have created the requirement for commercial providers of online pornography to have robust age verification controls to prevent under 18s accessing this material. We will shortly seek Parliamentary approval of the designation of the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) as the age verification regulator. The BBFC will monitor and take enforcement action against non compliant sites.
Asked by: Ian Lavery (Labour - Blyth and Ashington)
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 assessment of the trends in the level of gambling content in video games played by children; and if she will make a statement.
Answered by Tracey Crouch
Protecting children and the vulnerable from being harmed or exploited by gambling is a core objective of the regulation of gambling in Great Britain, and a priority for the government.
The statutory regulator, the Gambling Commission, monitors the participation of children in gambling through a range of data sources including complaints, academic research, and the annual Young People and Gambling Survey, which in 2017 included specific questions in relation to video gaming. The results of the survey are due to be published soon. The Gambling Commission has also asked its expert advisors, the Responsible Gambling Strategy Board, to examine the wider relationship between children and gambling.
The Gambling Commission is engaging with the video games industry and with a wide variety of stakeholders, including child protection groups, to highlight the risks of gambling linked to video games to parents, consumers and the wider public. The government’s Internet Safety Strategy published on 11 October considers options for working with the online video games industry to improve video gaming safety
The government recognises the risks that come from increasing convergence between gambling and video games. The Gambling Commission is keeping this matter under review and will continue to monitor developments in the market.
Asked by: Ian Lavery (Labour - Blyth and Ashington)
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 effectiveness of the regulation of the video games industry.
Answered by Matt Hancock
We are committed to protecting children from inappropriate content in video games. The supply of video games on physical media in the UK is regulated under the Video Recordings Act 1984. In 2012 the Government strengthened this law so that any such games must be referred to the VSC Rating Board for a Pegi age rating if they are unsuitable for children. A retailer convicted of supplying a game to someone not meeting the Pegi 12, 16 or 18 age requirement risks a fine or jail sentence. The Pegi ratings are also voluntarily applied by industry to many games and apps made available online.
On 11 October 2017 we published our Internet Safety Strategy Green Paper, setting out our plans to make the UK the safest place in the world to be online. This includes how we will work with online platforms, game publishers and game developers and with agencies such as the VSC Rating Board to continue to improve online safety in games.
Asked by: Ian Lavery (Labour - Blyth and Ashington)
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 support the film industry in (a) the North East and (b) Northumberland.
Answered by Matt Hancock
Between 2012 and March 2017, the British Film Institute, as the Government's lead agency for film, invested approximately £4.16 million of public funding across the whole of the North East. This investment included £171,000 of public funding for festivals, skills development, audience development and filmmaking in Northumberland. The extracurricular club 'Into Film' reaches nearly 150,000 children of school age across the North East, nurturing the next generation of talent and audiences.
Asked by: Ian Lavery (Labour - Blyth and Ashington)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what representations she has made to the BBC on its gender pay gap.
Answered by Matt Hancock
Ministers have regular discussions with the Director General on a range of topics including BBC presenter’s salaries.