Asked by: Lee Anderson (Reform UK - Ashfield)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, whether their Department has run any (a) recruitment and (b) internship schemes aimed to increase the number of people from underrepresented groups in the workforce in the last year.
Answered by Ian Murray - Minister of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
As set out in the Civil Service People Plan 2024 - 2027, we are committed to ensuring we attract, develop and retain talented people from a diverse range of backgrounds to create a modern Civil Service, now and for the future.
Civil Service recruitment must follow the rules set out in legislation within the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act (CRaGA) 2010 which outlines the requirements to ensure that civil servants are recruited on merit, via fair and open competition.
Going Forward into Employment (GFiE) accredits life chance recruitment pathways across government. GFiE pathways recruit people from a wide range of backgrounds into the Civil Service, including people from low socio- economic backgrounds, prison leavers, veterans, carers and care leavers. People recruited by GFiE develop skills, gain experience and build a career, contributing to the Opportunity Mission and to the wider economy.
In the last year, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport participated in the Care Leavers Internship Pathway.
In relation to internships in the last year, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport participated in the Civil Service Summer Internship Programme and the Autism Exchange Internship Programme.
Asked by: Lee Anderson (Reform UK - Ashfield)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what criteria her Department uses to choose sites for the tentative list for nominative UK sites to become UNESCO World Heritage Sites.
Answered by Ian Murray - Minister of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
DCMS carried out a review of the UK’s Tentative List in 2022/23 under the previous government. The process and application forms are available online, outlining the information required for assessment and the need to demonstrate the potential for Outstanding Universal Value.
UNESCO encourages Tentative Lists to be reviewed and updated every ten years. We do not expect the next review of the UK’s Tentative List to take place until 2033 at the earliest.
Asked by: Lee Anderson (Reform UK - Ashfield)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, if her Department will take steps to increase the number of venues offering curling rinks in England.
Answered by Stephanie Peacock - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Culture, Media and Sport)
The Government is committed to ensuring that everyone, regardless of background, should have access to and benefit from quality sport and physical activity opportunities. High-quality, inclusive facilities, including curling rinks, help people get active.
In June, we committed another £400 million to transform facilities across the whole of the UK over the next four years. This funding will be invested in new and upgraded grassroots sport facilities that promote health and wellbeing and remove the barriers to physical activity for under-represented groups. We are now working closely with sporting bodies and local leaders to establish what communities need, before setting out further plans on how future funding will be allocated across the UK.
Asked by: Lee Anderson (Reform UK - Ashfield)
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 crime on inbound tourism to the UK.
Answered by Stephanie Peacock - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Culture, Media and Sport)
While DCMS has not made a specific assessment of the impact of crime on inbound tourism, we work closely with the Home Office, police and local partners to ensure that visitors to the UK have a safe and enjoyable experience.
Through our Neighbourhood Policing Guarantee, we will place thousands of additional police officers and police community support officers in neighbourhood policing roles. This will provide a more visible and effective service to the public, with each neighbourhood having a named, contactable officer dealing with local issues, including robbery and theft from the person.
The Government recognises the serious impact that crime has on public safety, both in terms of the harm caused to victims and the wider implications for tourism.
Asked by: Lee Anderson (Reform UK - Ashfield)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what steps her Department is taking to support public libraries.
Answered by Ian Murray - Minister of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
Public libraries are funded by local authorities and each local authority is responsible for assessing the needs of their local communities and designing a library service to meet those needs within available resources. The government is committed to getting local government back on its feet. The final Local Government Finance Settlement for 2025-26 makes available over £69 billion for local government, which is a 6.8% cash terms increase in councils' Core Spending Power on 2024-25.
For Libraries specifically, the Secretary of State announced in February 2025 a further £5.5 million of the Libraries Improvement Fund for 2025-26 to enable library services across England to invest in a range of projects to upgrade buildings and technology. Nottinghamshire County Council has previously received £399,086 from this fund to support projects in a number of their libraries.
The Public Libraries and Museums Act 1964 requires the Secretary of State to “superintend and promote the improvement of the public library service provided by local authorities in England”. To assist this function the department regularly monitors and reviews changes to local authority library service provision, and engages with local authorities to discuss their respective library service.
Asked by: Lee Anderson (Reform UK - Ashfield)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, for what purposes their Department has used artificial intelligence in the last year.
Answered by Ian Murray - Minister of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
DCMS follows the UK Government’s AI Playbook principles on safe, effective and responsible adoption of AI, and works closely with DSIT as the “Digital centre of government”.
Any use of third party AI tooling is subject to multidisciplinary assurance prior to any use, including Cyber security, Data Protection, Knowledge and Information Management, and Technology assurance.
DCMS is in its early days in terms of AI usage and measuring benefits to productivity. In the past year the Department has used AI for the following:
Summarising large documents and emails
Analysis of large documents, drawing out key information and drafting reports
Drafting meeting notes
Generating draft content
Enhancing our departmental data science capability
Proof of concept of using AI large language models (LLMs) to analyse free text responses to a public consultation
AI produced data or drafts are manually reviewed. No decisions are made by the Department based on AI outputs, without manual checks and manual intervention.
Asked by: Lee Anderson (Reform UK - Ashfield)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what information they hold on the number of workdays that were completed remotely in their Department in (a) 2024 and (b) 2025 to date.
Answered by Ian Murray - Minister of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
We do not collect data on the number of workdays that were completed remotely.
Our London headquarters office occupancy is monitored via anonymised entry pass swipe data and is published on gov.uk on a monthly basis starting October 2024, and to date is as follows:
Oct-24 | Nov-24 | Dec-24 | Jan-25 | Feb-25 | Mar-25 | Apr-25 | May-25 | Jun-25 |
73% | 71% | 59% | 76% | 78% | 71% | 69% | 72% | 62% |
Asked by: Lee Anderson (Reform UK - Ashfield)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what steps the Government is taking to support regional tourism boards.
Answered by Ian Murray - Minister of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
Since 2022, DCMS has delivered significant reform of destination management devolving accountability to a regional and local level to promote regional growth. We now have a network of 40 tourism boards or Local Visitor Economy Partnerships (LVEPs) across England - including the Nottinghamshire LVEP, which received accreditation last year - and two Regional Destination pilots in the North East and West Midlands. In March, we announced a £1.35 million funding boost to help the Destination pilots attract even more tourists and investment to the UK over this financial year.
Asked by: Lee Anderson (Reform UK - Ashfield)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, how much their Department has spent on translating documents into languages other than (a) English and (b) other native UK languages in each year since 2023; and what these languages were.
Answered by Stephanie Peacock - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Culture, Media and Sport)
DCMS does not hold information to the level of detail requested within its finance system or procurement system.
Language service needs and spend are assessed to ensure these services offer good value for money for taxpayers while maintaining high standards of service delivery.
Asked by: Lee Anderson (Reform UK - Ashfield)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what funding her Department has allocated to grassroots sports clubs in Ashfield constituency in the last 12 months.
Answered by Stephanie Peacock - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Culture, Media and Sport)
The Government is committed to ensuring that everyone, regardless of background, has access to and benefits from high-quality sport facilities, which offer the chance to be physically active.
The Government provides the majority of funding for grassroots sports and health club facilities through our Arm’s Length Body, Sport England, which annually invests over £250 million in Exchequer and Lottery funding in areas of greatest need to tackle inactivity levels through community-led solutions. Details of the funded projects are available on Sport England’s website here.
The constituency of Ashfield also received a total of £1,849,232 of investment via the Multi-Sport Grassroots Facilities Programme in 2024/25. Details of the funded projects are available on Gov.uk here.