Asked by: Julie Elliott (Labour - Sunderland Central)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, pursuant to the Answer of 26 February 2024 to Question 14282 on Football: Regulation, what her planned timescales are for establishing an independent regulator for football.
Answered by Stuart Andrew - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Culture, Media and Sport)
The Government is working at pace to establish a new independent regulator on a statutory footing as soon as parliamentary time allows. We are on the side of football fans and the local communities that football clubs serve. We have a clear plan to deliver a sustainable future for football, with fans at its heart.
Asked by: Julie Elliott (Labour - Sunderland Central)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, if she will make an assessment of the potential impact of Multi-Sports Grassroots Facilities programme projects 2023-24 on the (a) engagement and (b) participation of women and girls in sport.
Answered by Stuart Andrew - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Culture, Media and Sport)
Sport and physical activity are incredibly important for our physical and mental health and this government is committed to ensuring that everyone is able to play sport and be active, including women and girls.
As part of our more than £300 million investment in multi-sport grassroots facilities, our delivery partners assess all potential projects against their ability to deliver increased participation of under-represented groups - including women and girls, ethnic minority communities and people from lower socio-economic backgrounds. Any project receiving over £25,000 in England must also have an equal access women and girls plan in place.
The Government also recently announced £25 million for the Lionesses Futures Fund - topped up with £5 million additional investment from the FA - specifically to deliver up to 30 state of the art 3G artificial pitches across the country with gold-standard provision for women and girls. Reserved peak-time slots, women and girls only evenings and priority booking for women and girls’ teams will be used to drive up opportunities to get into sport. There will also be dedicated women’s changing rooms and shower facilities and accessible toilets.
We are conducting a programme wide impact evaluation. This will measure the extent to which the programme has delivered increases in participation among women and girls so that these interventions can be applied more widely if successful.
Asked by: Julie Elliott (Labour - Sunderland Central)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, pursuant to the Answer of 22 January 2024 to Question 10161 on Future of Women's Football Review, whether she plans to chair all further meetings of the implementation group.
Answered by Stuart Andrew - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Culture, Media and Sport)
The Secretary of State will chair the first meeting of the implementation group in March and future meetings will be chaired by either the Secretary of State or Minister for Sport.
The implementation group will include key decision-makers from the organisations with responsibility for taking forward the Review recommendations. These organisations are the FA, NewCo, Football Foundation, Sport England, the Sports Ground Safety Authority, the EFL, the Department for Education and the Premier League. The Secretary of State will be writing to senior representatives to formally invite them to the first meeting in March.
As set out in the Review, these representatives will be required to provide updates at the implementation group. DCMS will convene the group and will provide a secretariat function to make sure stakeholders are progressing with the recommendations, and we will monitor this accordingly.
We remain committed to hosting the initial implementation group meetings in March and July 2024. We will work collaboratively with stakeholders to assess the frequency of the future implementation group meetings.
We will continue to keep Ministers, Parliament and the Culture, Media and Sports Select Committee updated on progress.
Asked by: Julie Elliott (Labour - Sunderland Central)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, pursuant to the Answer of 22 January 2024 to Question 10161 on Future of Women's Football Review, what assessment she has made of the adequacy of the (a) transparency and (b) accountability arrangements for the implementation group in the context of its reporting to (i) Ministers, (ii) Parliament and (iii) the Culture Media and Sports Select Committee.
Answered by Stuart Andrew - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Culture, Media and Sport)
The Secretary of State will chair the first meeting of the implementation group in March and future meetings will be chaired by either the Secretary of State or Minister for Sport.
The implementation group will include key decision-makers from the organisations with responsibility for taking forward the Review recommendations. These organisations are the FA, NewCo, Football Foundation, Sport England, the Sports Ground Safety Authority, the EFL, the Department for Education and the Premier League. The Secretary of State will be writing to senior representatives to formally invite them to the first meeting in March.
As set out in the Review, these representatives will be required to provide updates at the implementation group. DCMS will convene the group and will provide a secretariat function to make sure stakeholders are progressing with the recommendations, and we will monitor this accordingly.
We remain committed to hosting the initial implementation group meetings in March and July 2024. We will work collaboratively with stakeholders to assess the frequency of the future implementation group meetings.
We will continue to keep Ministers, Parliament and the Culture, Media and Sports Select Committee updated on progress.
Asked by: Julie Elliott (Labour - Sunderland Central)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, pursuant to the Answer of 22 January 2024 to Question 10161 on Future of Women's Football Review, if she will list who has (a) been invited and (b) accepted invitations to join the implementation group.
Answered by Stuart Andrew - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Culture, Media and Sport)
The Secretary of State will chair the first meeting of the implementation group in March and future meetings will be chaired by either the Secretary of State or Minister for Sport.
The implementation group will include key decision-makers from the organisations with responsibility for taking forward the Review recommendations. These organisations are the FA, NewCo, Football Foundation, Sport England, the Sports Ground Safety Authority, the EFL, the Department for Education and the Premier League. The Secretary of State will be writing to senior representatives to formally invite them to the first meeting in March.
As set out in the Review, these representatives will be required to provide updates at the implementation group. DCMS will convene the group and will provide a secretariat function to make sure stakeholders are progressing with the recommendations, and we will monitor this accordingly.
We remain committed to hosting the initial implementation group meetings in March and July 2024. We will work collaboratively with stakeholders to assess the frequency of the future implementation group meetings.
We will continue to keep Ministers, Parliament and the Culture, Media and Sports Select Committee updated on progress.
Asked by: Julie Elliott (Labour - Sunderland Central)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, pursuant to the Answer of 22 January 2024 to Question 10161 on Future of Women's Football Review, if she will list all future meeting dates of the implementation group.
Answered by Stuart Andrew - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Culture, Media and Sport)
The Secretary of State will chair the first meeting of the implementation group in March and future meetings will be chaired by either the Secretary of State or Minister for Sport.
The implementation group will include key decision-makers from the organisations with responsibility for taking forward the Review recommendations. These organisations are the FA, NewCo, Football Foundation, Sport England, the Sports Ground Safety Authority, the EFL, the Department for Education and the Premier League. The Secretary of State will be writing to senior representatives to formally invite them to the first meeting in March.
As set out in the Review, these representatives will be required to provide updates at the implementation group. DCMS will convene the group and will provide a secretariat function to make sure stakeholders are progressing with the recommendations, and we will monitor this accordingly.
We remain committed to hosting the initial implementation group meetings in March and July 2024. We will work collaboratively with stakeholders to assess the frequency of the future implementation group meetings.
We will continue to keep Ministers, Parliament and the Culture, Media and Sports Select Committee updated on progress.
Asked by: Julie Elliott (Labour - Sunderland Central)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, which listed places of worship in (a) the North East and (b) Sunderland received funding since 2019; and how much each received.
Answered by Julia Lopez - Minister of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
The Listed Places of Worship Grant Scheme was established to provide grants towards VAT paid on repairs and maintenance to the nation's listed places or worship. Through this grant scheme, 829 awards have been issued to places of worship in the North East of England since 2019, amounting to a total of £3,532,709. In Sunderland, 39 awards have been issued to places of worship since 2019, amounting to a total of £663,885.
A dataset showing a full list of grant scheme recipients since August 2022 is available here on gov.uk: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/nearly-5000-churches-across-the-united-kingdom-benefit-from-42-million-conservation-fund.
Asked by: Julie Elliott (Labour - Sunderland Central)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, with reference to the Government response to independent review: reframing the opportunity in women’s football, published on 4 December 2023, what powers the implementation group of stakeholders announced in the Government’s response to the Carney Review will have to hold (a) the FA, (b) NewCo and (c) the Government to account; and how the implementation group will publish its findings.
Answered by Stuart Andrew - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Culture, Media and Sport)
The Government supports the recommendations set out in the Review of Women's Football, and believes that these must be acted on as a priority to ensure that we build on the unprecedented successes of recent years, and maximise the potential of the women’s game.
The implementation group will include key decision-makers from organisations with responsibility for taking forward the recommendations set out in the Review. Implementation group members will be mutually accountable for delivery of the recommendations, with members providing updates on how they are addressing the recommendations.
Asked by: Julie Elliott (Labour - Sunderland Central)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what her Department's policy is on how the independent regulator of football will interact with the newly formed women’s elite football NewCo.
Answered by Stuart Andrew - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Culture, Media and Sport)
Karen Carney’s independent review into women’s football recommended that the women’s game should be given the opportunity to self-regulate rather than moving immediately to independent statutory regulation. The Government agrees with that recommendation, as set out in our response to the Review.
The independent regulator for English football will be focused on the top five tiers of the men’s game. Where appropriate, it will cooperate, coordinate and share information with the relevant industry bodies in the women’s game to help deliver the shared goal of a successful, sustainable English game.
Asked by: Julie Elliott (Labour - Sunderland Central)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, with reference to the Government response to independent review: reframing the opportunity in women’s football, published on 4 December 2023, if she will list the names of the people who have (a) been invited to join (b) accepted a place on the implementation group.
Answered by Stuart Andrew - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Culture, Media and Sport)
The implementation group will include key-decision makers across industry with responsibility for taking forward the Reviews recommendations. We are working at pace with industry to confirm who will sit on the implementation group.