Asked by: Kate Osborne (Labour - Jarrow and Gateshead East)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, whether her Department has made an assessment of the potential impact of LGBTQ+ sport teams on tackling inequality in sports.
Answered by Stephanie Peacock - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Culture, Media and Sport)
The government is committed to promoting diversity and inclusion in sport at all levels. We will continue to work with the sport sector to help it be inclusive and welcoming to its spectators, participants and workforce, including LGBTQ+ people.
Sport England’s ten year strategy, Uniting the Movement, reinforces their commitment to tackling inequalities faced in sport by underrepresented groups, including LGBTQ+. Sport England is investing £120 million to increase participation in sport and boost diversity at the grassroots level to give more and better opportunities to all.
Additionally, the updated Code for Sports Governance requires sports that receive substantial public funding from either UK Sport or Sport England, including Rugby Union, to have detailed and ambitious diversity and inclusion action plans in place, which are published and updated annually.
Asked by: Kate Osborne (Labour - Jarrow and Gateshead East)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, whether her Department is taking steps to support LGBTQ+ rugby union teams.
Answered by Stephanie Peacock - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Culture, Media and Sport)
The government is committed to promoting diversity and inclusion in sport at all levels. We will continue to work with the sport sector to help it be inclusive and welcoming to its spectators, participants and workforce, including LGBTQ+ people.
Sport England’s ten year strategy, Uniting the Movement, reinforces their commitment to tackling inequalities faced in sport by underrepresented groups, including LGBTQ+. Sport England is investing £120 million to increase participation in sport and boost diversity at the grassroots level to give more and better opportunities to all.
Additionally, the updated Code for Sports Governance requires sports that receive substantial public funding from either UK Sport or Sport England, including Rugby Union, to have detailed and ambitious diversity and inclusion action plans in place, which are published and updated annually.
Asked by: Kate Osborne (Labour - Jarrow and Gateshead East)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what support her Department provides to grass roots LGBTQ+ sports teams.
Answered by Stephanie Peacock - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Culture, Media and Sport)
The government is committed to promoting diversity and inclusion in sport at all levels. We will continue to work with the sport sector to help it be inclusive and welcoming to its spectators, participants and workforce, including LGBTQ+ people.
Sport England’s ten year strategy, Uniting the Movement, reinforces their commitment to tackling inequalities faced in sport by underrepresented groups, including LGBTQ+. Sport England is investing £120 million to increase participation in sport and boost diversity at the grassroots level to give more and better opportunities to all.
Additionally, the updated Code for Sports Governance requires sports that receive substantial public funding from either UK Sport or Sport England, including Rugby Union, to have detailed and ambitious diversity and inclusion action plans in place, which are published and updated annually.
Asked by: Kate Osborne (Labour - Jarrow and Gateshead East)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, if she will take steps to ensure that BT (a) refunds in full late payment charges incurred by customers because of delays caused by postal strikes in full and (b) issues an apology to such customers.
Answered by Julia Lopez - Shadow Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology
BT customers who have incurred late payment charges should contact BT customer service to discuss and resolve any issues that the postal strikes may have caused.
Ofcom, the independent telecoms regulator, requires all communication providers to be members of an approved independent Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) scheme, which can assist in settling complaints. BT has signed up to the Communications Ombudsman service, which is free for consumers: https://www.ombudsman-services.org/sectors/communications
Asked by: Kate Osborne (Labour - Jarrow and Gateshead East)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what plans his Department for funding (a) the building of new and (b) refurbishing of existing swimming pools in the upcoming Budget and Spending Review.
Answered by Nigel Huddleston - Shadow Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport
We recognise the importance of ensuring public access to indoor and outdoor pools and that swimming is a great way for people of all ages to stay fit and healthy.
Government has provided a range of support for swimming pools during the pandemic. The £100 million National Leisure Recovery Fund supported the reopening of local authority swimming pools throughout the country. In addition, Sport England have made 127 Covid support awards to the Swimming & Diving community (totalling £1,100,560), and a further 20 awards to multi-sport projects (totalling £211,171) where swimming and diving are expected to benefit.
Beyond Covid, Sport England have awarded £8,529,154 to swimming and diving projects since April 2017, and have provided £16,123,002 of funding to Swim England in the same period.
Asked by: Kate Osborne (Labour - Jarrow and Gateshead East)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what support he plans to provide to bingo clubs for their reopening on 17 May 2021 to help those clubs deal with the financial pressure they have faced during the covid-19 outbreak.
Answered by John Whittingdale
The government recognises that the ongoing impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic continue to be extremely challenging for businesses, including in the Bingo sector. In recognition of the impact of requiring some businesses to remain closed for a longer period, we have introduced an enhanced package of support, including Restart Grants of up to £18,000 per premises, specifically for those which have been required to remain closed beyond Step 2. The package also includes extensions to the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme and Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme, with further discretionary funding for Local Authorities.
Bingo clubs have accessed £44m of government support via the Coronavirus Jobs Retention Scheme (£26.8m), Eat Out to Help Out (£600k), Business Rates Relief (£15.9m) and Grant funding (£1.6m). We are continuing to work with organisations in the land-based gambling sector to understand the impacts and how we may be able to support them.