Asked by: Jim Shannon (Democratic Unionist Party - Strangford)
Question
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what steps she is taking to help ensure that cultural attractions around the UK provide sufficient access for disabled people.
Answered by Julia Lopez - Minister of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
The Department for Culture, Media and Sport is committed to improving the accessibility of our cultural and heritage attractions across the UK for everyone, regardless of their background.
In June 2021 the Government Disability Unit launched an enhanced programme of Disability and Access Ambassadors. As part of this, David Stanley was appointed as the Arts and Culture Disability and Access Ambassador. The Department is working closely with him to improve accessibility to the sector for people with disabilities.
DCMS investment has enabled important accessibility upgrades in cultural venues across the country, including via the joint DCMS/Wolfson Museums and Galleries Improvement Fund, and via infrastructure grants to DCMS-sponsored cultural bodies. Examples include support for level access at the National Gallery, and new lifts, ramps, and signage at the People’s History Museum in Manchester, amongst other projects.
DCMS’s arm’s-length body The National Lottery Heritage Fund has a longstanding commitment actively to promote accessibility in heritage through its grant-making. The Heritage Fund invested £950,900 in the Curating for Change placement programme, led by and for disabled people, working with 16 national and local museums to deliver employment opportunities. In 2022 research was undertaken by ‘Vocal Eyes’ to improve digital access and information on cultural sites, to expand engagement with blind and visually impaired people.
Arts Councils across the UK are also working together with the British Film Institute to launch a free, UK-wide arts access scheme by early 2024. This scheme will operate across all arts and cultural venues, for seamless, barrier-free booking which is responsive to individual circumstances and needs.
Asked by: Rachael Maskell (Labour (Co-op) - York Central)
Question
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, whether her Department take steps to help ensure equality of access to the creative and cultural assets of a location, including from people from lower socioeconomic groups.
Answered by Julia Lopez - Minister of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
My Department is committed to broadening the accessibility of our cultural and heritage sites across the country to everyone regardless of their background, and Arts Council England’s recent announcement of the 2023-26 National Portfolio – which sees a record number of organisations being funded in more parts of the country than ever before – will significantly improve access to creative and cultural assets.
This Portfolio will support 990 organisations across the whole of England. This is more than ever before, and in more places than ever before, with 276 organisations set to join the portfolio from all over the country. For the first time, Arts Council England collected information about socio-economic background during the application process, and this information can be viewed on the Arts Council website.
The Arts Council is committed to the development of an arts and cultural sector that is representative of modern society and in which there are no barriers to participation. To this end, Arts Councils across the UK are working together with the British Film Institute to launch a free, UK-wide arts access card by early 2024. This scheme was also announced in the new National Disability Strategy.
Asked by: Dawn Butler (Labour - Brent Central)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether she is taking steps to increase opportunities for (a) exposure to and (b) engagement with the arts in secondary schools.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Government believes in a high quality education for all pupils and cultural education, including the wider arts, music, and creative subjects, is integral to this. All state funded schools are required to teach a broad and balanced curriculum. This includes promoting pupils' cultural development.
The Department published the Model Music Curriculum in 2021 and a refreshed National Plan for Music Education in 2022 to support teachers in delivering high quality music education. The Department will publish a Cultural Education Plan in 2023 to support arts and heritage, working with the Department for Culture, Media and Sport and Arts Council England. This will include how best to support young people who wish to pursue careers in the creative and cultural industries.
The Department will continue to spend around £115 million per annum in cultural education over three years, through music, arts, and heritage programmes.
With the real terms per pupil increases to core school funding and the nearly £5 billion that has been announced for education recovery, schools will continue to have the flexibility to deliver a broad and ambitious curriculum and enrichment activities, including in arts and creative subjects.
With the significant impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on children’s education, the Department’s priorities have been to focus on education recovery in the recent Spending Review. The Government remains committed to the ambitions for a Cultural Education Plan and will give consideration for a future arts premium in due course.
Asked by: Dawn Butler (Labour - Brent Central)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department plans to take to encourage the uptake of creative subjects at GCSE level.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Government believes in a high quality education for all pupils and cultural education, including the wider arts, music, and creative subjects, is integral to this. All state funded schools are required to teach a broad and balanced curriculum. This includes promoting pupils' cultural development.
The Department published the Model Music Curriculum in 2021 and a refreshed National Plan for Music Education in 2022 to support teachers in delivering high quality music education. The Department will publish a Cultural Education Plan in 2023 to support arts and heritage, working with the Department for Culture, Media and Sport and Arts Council England. This will include how best to support young people who wish to pursue careers in the creative and cultural industries.
The Department will continue to spend around £115 million per annum in cultural education over three years, through music, arts, and heritage programmes.
With the real terms per pupil increases to core school funding and the nearly £5 billion that has been announced for education recovery, schools will continue to have the flexibility to deliver a broad and ambitious curriculum and enrichment activities, including in arts and creative subjects.
With the significant impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on children’s education, the Department’s priorities have been to focus on education recovery in the recent Spending Review. The Government remains committed to the ambitions for a Cultural Education Plan and will give consideration for a future arts premium in due course.
Asked by: Dawn Butler (Labour - Brent Central)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will make an assessment of the potential merits of implementing an arts premium to encourage state schools to increase the (a) range and (b) quality of arts provision.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Government believes in a high quality education for all pupils and cultural education, including the wider arts, music, and creative subjects, is integral to this. All state funded schools are required to teach a broad and balanced curriculum. This includes promoting pupils' cultural development.
The Department published the Model Music Curriculum in 2021 and a refreshed National Plan for Music Education in 2022 to support teachers in delivering high quality music education. The Department will publish a Cultural Education Plan in 2023 to support arts and heritage, working with the Department for Culture, Media and Sport and Arts Council England. This will include how best to support young people who wish to pursue careers in the creative and cultural industries.
The Department will continue to spend around £115 million per annum in cultural education over three years, through music, arts, and heritage programmes.
With the real terms per pupil increases to core school funding and the nearly £5 billion that has been announced for education recovery, schools will continue to have the flexibility to deliver a broad and ambitious curriculum and enrichment activities, including in arts and creative subjects.
With the significant impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on children’s education, the Department’s priorities have been to focus on education recovery in the recent Spending Review. The Government remains committed to the ambitions for a Cultural Education Plan and will give consideration for a future arts premium in due course.
Asked by: Rachael Maskell (Labour (Co-op) - York Central)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, whether she has had recent discussions with (a) conservation and (b) other charities on (i) creating more volunteering opportunities for people with (A) dementia, (B) mental health challenges and (C) disabled people and (ii) the establishment of social prescribing programmes to help support people with health requirements volunteer.
Answered by Stuart Andrew - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Culture, Media and Sport)
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. We want to see as many people getting involved and taking action on the causes that mean the most to them.
DCMS is an active partner in the sector-led Vision for Volunteering, a ten-year initiative that aims to make volunteering more equitable, diverse and inclusive. We regularly engage with a range of charities and other volunteer-involving organisations to understand both the challenges and opportunities in relation to volunteering.
In addition, we are specifically investing to support people to overcome barriers to volunteering. In 2021, DCMS launched the Volunteering Futures Fund which provides over £7 million, including match funding, to improve the accessibility of volunteering. As a result, thousands of young people, people with disabilities, those experiencing loneliness and other barriers have the opportunity to volunteer and help others.
Social prescribing also has an important part to play in supporting people into volunteering. In 2021 and 2022, a number of DCMS arms length bodies, including Arts Council England, Historic England and Sport England, partnered with the National Academy for Social Prescribing to deliver the £1.8m Thriving Communities Programme, which supported 37 projects across England. Projects used the power of culture and heritage alongside nature, sport, health and financial support to benefit the wellbeing of communities most affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Asked by: Duncan Baker (Conservative - North Norfolk)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, if she will make an assessment with Cabinet colleagues of the contribution of heritage and arts sites to wellbeing and mental health.
Answered by Stuart Andrew - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Culture, Media and Sport)
Heritage and the arts have an important role to play in boosting people’s health and wellbeing – a point which has been underlined by our experience during, and since, the COVID-19 pandemic. DCMS and our arm’s-length bodies, including Arts Council England and Historic England, play an important role in the Government’s work to improve health and wellbeing.
Arts Council England’s ‘Creative Health and Wellbeing Plan’ sets out its ongoing commitment to help people live happier, healthier lives, while Historic England’s ‘Wellbeing and Heritage Strategy’ aims to ensure that everyone can experience the wellbeing benefits of heritage. Both organisations work with the NHS and partner with the National Academy of Social Prescribing.
The Government’s schools White Paper, published in March 2022, said that all children should be entitled to take part in sport, music and cultural opportunities, noting that “These opportunities are an essential part of a broad and ambitious curriculum, and support children’s health, wellbeing and wider development, particularly as we recover from the pandemic.” The Government published updated plans to support sport and music education in 2022, and will publish a cultural education plan in 2023, which DCMS is working with the Department for Education and our arm’s-length bodies in developing.
Asked by: Mark Pritchard (Conservative - The Wrekin)
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 further steps to promote STEM subjects through (a) permanent and (b) temporary exhibitions at (i) the Royal Air Force Museum Midlands and (ii) other museums.
Answered by Stuart Andrew - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Culture, Media and Sport)
The Royal Air Force Museum is sponsored by the Ministry of Defence. It welcomes around 900,000 visitors a year to its sites in London and the West Midlands, inspiring everyone with the Royal Air Force story through its unique national collection. Around 64,000 of its visitors are young people participating in formal learning sessions, including STEM subjects, history, and literacy.
In December 2022 the Royal Air Force Museum was awarded investment from The National Lottery Heritage Lottery Fund for its ‘Inspiring Everyone: Royal Air Force Museum Midlands Development Programme’. This will include a new Learning Centre linked to an innovative exhibition focusing on the critical national role played by the Royal Air Force over the past four decades in particular.
More widely, the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport supports museum programming, including education, through Arts Council England. Arts Council England has awarded National Portfolio Organisation status to 82 museums and museum sector organisations in its forthcoming 2023–26 investment round. Museums are also eligible for National Lottery Project grants.
Asked by: Stephen Morgan (Labour - Portsmouth South)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to encourage more take up of (a) creative and (b) technical subjects (i) at and (ii) above key stage three.
Answered by Nick Gibb
Cultural education, including music, arts, and creative subjects are integral to a high quality education for all pupils.
Art and design, design and technology, and music are compulsory in all maintained schools from age 5 to age 14. Post 14, all pupils in maintained schools must be offered the opportunity to study at least one subject in the arts. Computing is compulsory for Local Authority maintained schools. Free schools and academies may choose to use the National Curriculum as an exemplar.
The Department will continue to concentrate funding of around £115 million per annum in cultural education over the next three years through the music, arts and heritage programmes. This includes music education hubs, the Music and Dance Scheme, and a set of cultural education programmes such as Art&Design Saturday Clubs, the National Youth Dance Company, and the British Film Institute’s Film Academy programme. The Department published the Model Music Curriculum, which supports teachers in delivering high quality music education.
To encourage computing education and equip pupils to use computational thinking, the Department launched a National Centre for Computing Education (NCCE), backed by over £80 million of funding. This is to improve the quality of computing teaching through continuous professional development and resources. The Key Stage 3 curriculum resources developed by the NCCE include lessons on mobile app development and on how pupils can develop their creativity using information and communication technology.
Asked by: Kate Kniveton (Conservative - Burton)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, whether her Department is taking steps to support (a) the Staffordshire Council of Voluntary Youth Services and (b) other voluntary organisations with providing (i) training and (ii) other development opportunities for young people.
Answered by Stuart Andrew - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Culture, Media and Sport)
Local Authorities have a statutory duty to allocate funding to youth services in line with local need. This is funded from the Local Government settlement, which was over £12 billion last year. DCMS officials are currently reviewing the statutory duty and its associated guidance to assess its effectiveness after a call for responses from key youth stakeholders. We will publish the outcomes of the review in due course.
The Government recognises the vital role that youth services and activities, including of the type supported by the Staffordshire Council of Voluntary Youth Services, play in improving the life chances and wellbeing of young people. The Government has committed to a National Youth Guarantee: that by 2025 every young person will have access to regular clubs and activities, adventures away from home and volunteering opportunities. This is supported by a three year £560 million investment in youth services, reflecting young people's priorities and addressing the inconsistencies in regional youth spending, with a firm focus on levelling up, including the £368 million Youth Investment Fund, for which over 20 wards in Staffordshire are eligible to apply.
To support the youth sector workforce, DCMS funds the National Youth Agency to set professional standards, qualifications and a curriculum for youth work, including a new youth work apprenticeship and free-to-access training, all of which are available to young people. DCMS has delivered a Youth Worker Bursary Fund with the NYA since 2019, distributing approximately £1.9 million facilitating over 1,700 individuals who would otherwise be unable to afford it to undertake training in Level 2 and 3 Youth Work qualifications. A further £1 million has been committed for FY 22/23.
Additionally, through the £7.4 million Volunteering Futures Fund, DCMS has created thousands more volunteering opportunities to improve accessibility of volunteering in the arts, culture, sports, civil society, youth and heritage sectors. The fund is helping a diverse range of people to access the benefits volunteering can bring. There is a strong focus on young people, those experiencing loneliness, those with disabilities and those from ethnic minority backgrounds.
From 2023 onwards, the reformed NCS programme will offer a year-round choice of opportunities to young people, with a focus on skill development and volunteering. NCS will work with and fund a range of partners, including grassroots volunteering organisations, to deliver the programme across the country.