Asked by: Stuart Anderson (Conservative - Wolverhampton South West)
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 is taking to help support grassroot sports initiatives in (a) Wolverhampton and (b) the West Midlands.
Answered by Nigel Huddleston - Financial Secretary (HM Treasury)
Sport and physical activity are incredibly important for our physical and mental health and this government is committed to ensuring that everyone, regardless of background, should have access to and benefit from quality sport and physical activity opportunities.
The significant core public investment of £778 million for the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games has accelerated investment and regeneration in Birmingham and the West Midlands. This includes infrastructure developments like the Alexander Stadium renovations and the new Sandwell Aquatics Centre that will be a legacy for the community to use long after the Games is over. Sport England is also investing £35 million for physical activity legacy, which will cover both targeted interventions in the West Midlands region as well as national investments to open up sporting opportunities to all.
Since 2018, the department has also invested £333,674 into a wide range of grassroots sport projects across Wolverhampton through Sport England, such as to the Finchfield Hockey Club and Ormiston New Academy. This is part of the £23.2 million invested in the West Midlands during the same period.
The Government also invests £18 million each year in community sport facilities via the Football Foundation. In partnership with the Football Association and Premier League, this results in £70 million being invested into community sport facilities every year. The Football Foundation has granted over £4.7 million to the West Midlands to develop football and multi-use grassroots sports facilities in 2021/22.
Asked by: Stuart Anderson (Conservative - Wolverhampton South West)
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 tackle potential barriers to volunteering; and whether she plans to make funding available to tackle those barriers.
Answered by Nigel Huddleston - Financial Secretary (HM Treasury)
The Government recognises that volunteering is critical to a vibrant and resilient civil society; it benefits volunteers and the organisations involving them and has transformational impacts on beneficiaries and their communities.
As a department, we are focused on simplifying routes into volunteering and seeking to make volunteering more inclusive.
Through the £7.4 million Volunteering Futures Fund, volunteering opportunities are being created to remove barriers to volunteering in arts, culture, sports, civil society, youth and heritage sectors. Young people, people with disabilities and those experiencing loneliness will be given the opportunity to volunteer and help others. DCMS is investing £6.25 million in the fund, together with £1.17 million provided by matched funders.
Our delivery partners for this programme are the Arts Council England, NHS Charities Together and Pears Foundation. The 19 Arts Council England funded projects will work with over 160 partners across heritage, arts, libraries, festival, community and sport organisations to increase accessibility to volunteering.
We are also supporting the development of the sector-led Vision for Volunteering, through which an ambitious ten year action plan is being developed to improve the volunteer experience. One of the five themes of the Vision is ‘Equity and Inclusion’, in recognition of the barriers that some people face to participating in volunteering.
Asked by: Stuart Anderson (Conservative - Wolverhampton South West)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what steps she is taking to help ensure the long-term sustainability of the community radio sector.
Answered by Julia Lopez - Minister of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
The Government has for a number of years provided financial support to the community radio sector by way of the Community Radio Fund (CRF), which distributes £400,000 on an annual basis to help fund the core costs of running licensed community radio stations and enable the sector to move towards self-sustainability. Furthermore, in the last two financial years, we have supported the CRF to go beyond this core funding, with significant uplifts targeted on tackling loneliness and to reflect the sector’s important contribution to the government’s ambitions on levelling up.
We have also recently commissioned a full external evaluation of the CRF, the report of which will be published shortly. We will be working closely with Ofcom, as the administrators of the Fund, on potential improvements to the running of the Fund in the light of the findings of that evaluation, to ensure that it works as efficiently and effectively as possible.
In addition, we have in recent years worked to support the growth of small-scale Digital Audio Broadcasting (DAB), both through passing the necessary legislation and in working with sector stakeholders to support the rollout of licences. Small-scale DAB represents a low-cost route to broadcasting on a terrestrial digital platform, and we envisage it enabling a significant number of new community services to launch as well as allowing existing stations to move onto digital over the coming months and years.
Asked by: Stuart Anderson (Conservative - Wolverhampton South West)
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 that under-represented communities in the West Midlands are involved in the work of the Public Broadcasting Review.
Answered by Julia Lopez - Minister of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
The Government’s strategic review of public service broadcasting (PSB) is about ensuring that viewers across the whole of the UK continue to benefit from a modern PSB system capable of meeting their needs now and in the future. To do so, the government and Ofcom have both engaged with stakeholders up and down the UK, including the West Midlands.
As part of their ‘Small Screen: Big Debate’ review of PSB, which the government’s strategic review draws on, Ofcom conducted research groups and stakeholder engagement meetings across the UK, including in the West Midlands. The Campaign for Regional Broadcasting Midlands also responded to Ofcom’s accompanying call for evidence on the independent production sector. These responses helped inform Ofcom’s final recommendations to the government which were published in July last year.
Asked by: Stuart Anderson (Conservative - Wolverhampton South West)
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 promote English Tourism Week from 18 to 27 March 2022.
Answered by Nigel Huddleston - Financial Secretary (HM Treasury)
English Tourism Week will be an excellent opportunity to showcase some of the best tourist attractions and destinations around the country. The ‘Be Our Guest’ campaign will highlight the opportunities of domestic tourism for inbound visitors as well as our domestic population.
Our arms-length body, VisitEngland, has launched the next phase of its domestic marketing campaign, Escape the Everyday. The campaign will focus on cities as they are impacted by lower numbers of international visitors and it will target a ‘pre-nester’ audience (18-34 year olds), encouraging them to book a short city-break.
The National Lottery Days Out Scheme will still be running during English Tourism week, therefore there will be opportunities for National Lottery Players to visit attractions by claiming a £25 voucher.
I also plan to visit some of England’s fantastic tourist destinations and attractions during the week. The Government is committed to the sector’s recovery post-pandemic and English Tourism Week will be an opportunity to celebrate the resilience of the sector and demonstrate our world-class offer.
Asked by: Stuart Anderson (Conservative - Wolverhampton South West)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, if she will commit to bringing forward legislative proposals to reform football governance in the next Queen's Speech.
Answered by Nigel Huddleston - Financial Secretary (HM Treasury)
The Government welcomes the Independent Fan Led Review of Football Governance and has endorsed in principle the primary recommendation of the review, that football requires a strong, independent regulator to secure the future of our national game.
The Government will continue to engage with stakeholders as we work towards issuing a full response to the report in the Spring. We will, of course, consider the requirement for legislation in due course.
Asked by: Stuart Anderson (Conservative - Wolverhampton South West)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what steps she is taking to help increase internet connectivity in the West Midlands.
Answered by Julia Lopez - Minister of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
It is the government's view that the best way to achieve nationwide gigabit coverage is to create a competition-friendly environment in areas where deployment is commercially viable, while focussing government funds on the 20% of the country where commercial deployment is unlikely. As a result of this approach, over 65% of premises in the UK can access gigabit-capable networks, up from just one in ten in November 2019. By 2025 the government is targeting a minimum of 85% gigabit-capable coverage.
Based on data from www.thinkbroadband.com, almost 74% of premises in the West Midlands currently have access to gigabit broadband, while 98% have superfast broadband availability. Delivery of superfast and gigabit broadband continues in a number of areas within the West Midlands including Herefordshire, Shropshire and Warwickshire through projects under the Superfast Broadband Programme. Warwickshire, Wolverhampton and Stoke-on-Trent have also benefitted from the government’s Local Full Fibre Networks (LFFN) programme, which provides public funding to support the installation of full-fibre broadband infrastructure.
The Government is now investing £5 billion through Project Gigabit to support gigabit broadband coverage in areas not covered by commercial roll-out. The latest Project Gigabit Quarterly Publication, published in October 2021, provides an update on the delivery plan and target timeline for the regional supplier procurements for the West Midlands counties of Warwickshire (Lot 11), Staffordshire (Lot 19), Shropshire (Lot 25), Worcestershire (Lot 24) and Herefordshire (Lot 15). Further Regional Supplier procurements for areas including Birmingham and the Black Country (Lot 35), where very extensive commercial delivery continues, are also being considered, and further information will be provided in future quarterly updates.
As part of Project Gigabit, the government is also investing up to £210m in the Gigabit Broadband Voucher Scheme (GBVS) to support rural communities with the cost of installing new gigabit-capable connections. The GBVS provides a micro-grant of up to £1,500 for residents and up to £3,500 for businesses towards the cost of installing gigabit-capable broadband. Home and business owners can check the eligibility of their addresses at the GBVS website.
Asked by: Stuart Anderson (Conservative - Wolverhampton South West)
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 disability sports sector.
Answered by Nigel Huddleston - Financial Secretary (HM Treasury)
The Government’s sport strategy, 'Sporting Future'', stresses the importance of helping under-represented groups and isolated communities, including disabled people, to take part in sport and physical activity.
Sport England, DCMS's arm’s length body for grassroots sport in England, launched their ten year strategy earlier this year, ‘Uniting the Movement’. The strategy reinforces their commitment to tackle inequalities in sport and physical activity, and provide opportunities to people that have traditionally been left behind, including disabled people. Sport England have also ensured that each of their programmes impact directly on disabled people, along with specific initiatives like the 'We Are Undefeatable' campaign, the Tackling Inequalities Fund and partnerships with groups such as Disability Rights UK, Activity Alliance, Aspire, Sense, International Mixed Ability Sport.
In addition, we are committed to championing disability sport at the highest levels, with continued support for Paralympic sports through UK Sport funding. We support the hosting of major sporting events in the UK such as the Rugby League World Cup in 2022, which will, for the first time in the event’s history, concurrently host the Men’s, Women’s and Wheelchair tournaments. We are also hosting the 2022 Commonwealth Games in Birmingham which will be the most inclusive Games ever, featuring the largest ever integrated para sport programme and which builds on the Games’ ambition of being the ‘Games for everyone’. We have also ensured the continued visibility of the Paralympics by adding the games to the list of protected sporting events that must be available to free-to-air broadcasters.
Asked by: Stuart Anderson (Conservative - Wolverhampton South West)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what steps she is taking to embed physical activity over the course of people's lives.
Answered by Nigel Huddleston - Financial Secretary (HM Treasury)
Sports and physical activity are crucial for our mental and physical health. The Chief Medical Officer is clear that being physically active is important to long-term health and crucial for keeping people healthy. That is why we made sure that people could exercise throughout the national restrictions and provided an unprecedented £1 billion of financial support to sport and leisure organisations during the pandemic.
The government launched its sports strategy, Sporting Future in 2015 and we’ve achieved a huge amount since then. Sport England has allocated over £1.5 billion to nearly 5,000 organisations across the UK. Sport England has also published its new ten year strategy which focuses on driving up activity levels and helping to improve physical and mental health. We want to see physical activity embedded in people’s lives, with children doing at least 60 minutes of physical activity a day, and adults 2.5 hours a week.
At the recent Spending Review, £205 million was announced to build or transform up to 8,000 state-of-the-art community football pitches and multi-use sports facilities across the UK. Earlier this month, we announced £30 million for PE teacher training and to open up school facilities to provide access to the wider community. This was in addition to, £30 million package to renovate 4,500 park tennis courts across the country.
The government believes these steps will help ensure that everyone can keep active throughout their lives.
Asked by: Stuart Anderson (Conservative - Wolverhampton South West)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what financial support is available to help museums and other historic sites undertake upgrades or expansion projects.
Answered by Caroline Dinenage
Historic England, funded by DCMS, is the government's statutory advisor on heritage and tasked with protecting the historical environment of England by preserving and listing historic buildings, ancient monuments and advising central and local government. Historic England currently offers c. £11 million per year for capital works to heritage sites across the country, through their Repair Grants for heritage at risk.
The National Lottery Heritage Fund is an arms length body of DCMS and distributes both Lottery player funding and government funding. The National Lottery Heritage Fund has a range of grants open to both museum and heritage organisations from £3,000 - £5M, which includes grants for maintenance and capital projects.
National Lottery Heritage Fund and Historic England also offer support by distributing grants via the government funded Culture Recovery Fund which includes a significant allocation for capital funding to cultural and heritage sites. In 2021/22 £33.6 million is available through the Grants for Programmes of Major Works and Additional Repair Grants for Heritage at Risk schemes.
Investment is also being made in vital infrastructure, repair and maintenance work for museums.
The Museum Estate and Development Fund (MEND) will provide £18.8m in capital funding grants of between £50k-£5m for infrastructure, repair and maintenance work in regional accredited museums.
In addition, over the past three years, government has distributed £131m capital funding among DCMS-Sponsored bodies, including the national museums and galleries, to enable them to carry out essential estates maintenance and improvement works.