Asked by: Justin Tomlinson (Conservative - North Swindon)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, with reference to his Department's updated Departmental Plan, published on 29 January 2018, whether he intends to publish a consultation on reform of Society Lottery regulation.
Answered by Tracey Crouch
We are carefully considering the issues around society lotteries raised by the Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee. We will continue to take advice from the Gambling Commission as we consider policy options and next steps. We hope to conclude considerations and provide an update in due course.
Asked by: Justin Tomlinson (Conservative - North Swindon)
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 Sport England’s Wellness Hub initiative; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Tracey Crouch
The setting and environment in which sport and physical activity takes place has a big impact on the likelihood of people taking part, and continuing to take part, in the activity. As set out in government's Sporting Future strategy, government is committed to investing in facilities that are designed and built around customer need and that reflect people's preferences for how they want to engage with sport and physical activity. The strategy is clear that Sport England investment in major sports and physical activity facility projects should include a presumption in favour of co-locating sports and physical activity facilities with other types of community facilities to make it easier for people to get active.
Government has received representations on the Wellness Hub proposal from Sport England and ukactive and is working with both organisations to understand the implications of the proposal and how best to take this forward.
Asked by: Justin Tomlinson (Conservative - North Swindon)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, how often the Inter-Ministerial Group on Healthy Living plans to meet; and whether his Department plans to publish the minutes of those meetings.
Answered by Tracey Crouch
Sporting Future: A Strategy for an Active Nation, published in December 2015, made the commitment to a more joined-up approach to delivery and funding for sport and physical activity, putting in place the structures needed to make this happen including a cross government ministerial group which will meet regularly to drive implementation. Sporting Future - Second Annual Report published last month confirmed that government is establishing an Inter-Ministerial Group on Healthy Living, to be co-chaired by the Secretaries of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport and Health and Social Care. The Group will be meeting for the first time in early 2018.
Information relating to the proceedings of Inter-Ministerial Groups, including minutes of their proceedings, is not disclosed to encourage full and frank dialogue in such meetings.
Asked by: Justin Tomlinson (Conservative - North Swindon)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what steps his Department has taken to ensure that funding for superfast broadband solutions have public support.
Answered by Margot James
Publicly-funded superfast broadband projects under the Superfast Broadband Programme are subject to a competitive procurement process which is managed by the lead local authority. The successful supplier is selected by the local authority by determining which one has provided the most economically advantageous tender, using evaluation criteria which include cost and service quality parameters. The quality parameters can include consideration of the range of retail internet service providers who will offer retail services over the network. Broadband Delivery UK (BDUK) in DCMS provides assurance that the selected supplier’s solution meets EU state aid requirements and that there is no over-compensation of the supplier.
Asked by: Justin Tomlinson (Conservative - North Swindon)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what steps he is taking to support the arts sector to become self-funding and financially sustainable.
Answered by Michael Ellis
The Department has promoted a number of initiatives alongside our Arm’s Length Body, Arts Council England (ACE) to support the arts sector to become more self-funding and financially sustainable. For example, the recent Catalyst Fund supported organisations with a limited track record in fundraising to enable them to attract more private giving, while ACE's Building Resilience programme helped arts and culture organisations build their financial and business resilience.
'Boosting Resilience: Survival Skills for the New Normal' is currently one of four new flagship projects supported by ACE, which aims to enable senior staff from England-based arts and cultural organisations, music education hubs, museums and library services to develop new approaches to making the most of creative assets and intellectual property. In addition, the Arts Impact Fund encourages organisations to consider alternatives to grants for business development. The fund provides repayable finance to arts organisations with ambitions to grow, achieve great artistic quality and have a further positive impact on society.
Asked by: Justin Tomlinson (Conservative - North Swindon)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what estimate he has made of the number of people using public libraries in each of the last five years.
Answered by Michael Ellis
The detail requested is not collected by this Department. However, the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy (CIPFA) collect annually from the individual library authorities comprehensive information relating to library service provision in Great Britain. The following table outlines the number of physical library visits in each of the last five years in England.
| Visits (million) |
2012/13 | 238.9 |
2013/14 | 223.9 |
2014/15 | 224.6 |
2015/16 | 210.8 |
2016/17 | 204.3 |
The CIPFA library statistics can be accessed from the House library.
Asked by: Justin Tomlinson (Conservative - North Swindon)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what steps he is taking to assess the accuracy of rates of (a) access and (b) take-up for superfast broadband.
Answered by Margot James
Statistics on the availability of superfast broadband are available from a number of published sources including Ofcom’s Connected Nations Report and International Communications Market Report, and the Thinkbroadband website. The government also tracks coverage based on data reported by suppliers.
Coverage delivered through the government’s Superfast Broadband Programme is reported quarterly by suppliers at address level. For technologies such as Fibre to the Cabinet which do not provide fibre all the way to individual premises, the reported coverage data is based on modelled speeds, as the actual speeds that are attainable for a specific premises cannot be confirmed until an upgraded broadband service goes live. BT has undertaken three comparisons of actual against modelled speeds for its Fibre to the Cabinet coverage under the Superfast Broadband Programme, most recently with a dataset of 1.5 million lines, and the results show that in aggregate the number of premises that can obtain superfast speeds in practice is greater than the modelled figure.
Take-up rates are published by suppliers in their quarterly and annual reports. Rates of take-up in areas which have gained coverage as a result of the Superfast Broadband Programme are reported to Local Bodies. This is disaggregated to local levels to allow Local Bodies to identify where take-up is either lower or higher than the average, to support targeting of local demand stimulation activities. Take-up rates from projects in the Phase 1 Superfast Broadband Programme now average over 40%, significantly higher than the level expected by suppliers at the start of the programme.
Asked by: Justin Tomlinson (Conservative - North Swindon)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what discussions he has had with the BBC on the introduction of subscription for non-core services provided by that corporation.
Answered by Margot James
The government decided to retain the licence fee funding model for the duration of the current BBC Royal Charter. Alongside this the BBC has committed to consider and explore whether elements of subscription have a role to play alongside the core licence fee model in its future funding, to develop and test the scope for additional sources of commercial revenue.
Asked by: Justin Tomlinson (Conservative - North Swindon)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what recent assessment he has made of progress on the targets set out in Sporting Futures: a new strategy for an active nation, published in December 2015.
Answered by Tracey Crouch
In line with the action set out in Sporting Future, Government has been working with Sport England to develop targets for the increases in activity levels that it expects to see by 2020, with a view to setting subsequent targets for 2025 in due course.
Government will publish these targets in the second annual report to parliament on the Sporting Future strategy, which is due to be published in due course.
Asked by: Justin Tomlinson (Conservative - North Swindon)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, how many people aged (a) under 18 and (b) over 18 regularly participated in sport in each year since 2010.
Answered by Tracey Crouch
Sport England collects data on the number of people aged 16+ who engage in sport and physical activity in England through the Active Lives Survey. The latest data is available online (covering the period May 2016 to May 2017): https://www.sportengland.org/media/12458/active-lives-adult-may-16-17-report.pdf
The Active Lives Survey replaced the Active People Survey which collected data from the period of October 2005 to September 2016. Data is available online: https://www.sportengland.org/research/about-our-research/active-people-survey/. Owing to the different methodologies employed, the data sets from the two surveys are not directly comparable.
The Active Lives Survey does not currently capture data for children. Government’s Sporting Future strategy, published in 2015, extended the remit of Sport England to include children aged 5 years and up, outside of the school day. In line with this, Sport England has developed the Active Lives Children survey which is capturing data for children aged 5-15, both in and outside of school. The survey was launched in schools in September 2017 with the first set of results available in early 2019.