Asked by: Tahir Ali (Labour - Birmingham, Hall Green)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps his Department is taking to ensure that there are an adequate number of firefighters with (a) adequate and (b) reliable equipment to tackle fires in cities in England.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Government is committed to ensuring Fire and Rescue Services (FRSs) have the resources they need to do their important work. Overall, Fire and Rescue Authorities (FRAs) will receive around £2.87 billion in 2024/25. Standalone FRAs will see an increase in core spending power of £95.4m in 2024/25. This is an increase of 5.6 per cent in cash terms compared to 2023/24.
Decisions on how FRSs are run, and how their resources are allocated, including crewing numbers and the procurement of equipment, are for the local Chief Fire Officers and their democratically elected FRA. They are responsible for ensuring the needs and demands of their local community are met and are able to direct their resources where they are needed most.
All FRAs have a statutory duty to produce a Community Risk Management Plan (CRMP) in which they set out the key challenges and risks facing their communities and how they intend to meet and reduce them. This is in line with the Fire and Rescue National Framework, which is the document by which the Home Office sets strategic requirements for the FRA.
Asked by: Fleur Anderson (Labour - Putney)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what recent steps his Department has taken to help increase the affordability of bus travel.
Answered by Guy Opperman - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
In the National Bus Strategy, the Government set out a bold vision to transform bus services around the country; a key part of this vision was making bus services more affordable. We therefore introduced a £2 cap on single bus fares in England outside London on 1 January 2023 to help passengers save on their regular travel costs. The Government is investing nearly £600 million to deliver the scheme, including additional funding redirected from HS2 to keep the cap in place until the end of 2024. There are currently over 140 bus operators and more than 5,000 routes in the scheme.
The Department’s statistics show that following the introduction of the £2 fare cap in January 2023, bus fares in England outside London dropped by 6.2% between September 2022 and September 2023, whereas in Scotland, Wales and London, where buses are devolved and not included in the £2 fare cap, fares increased by 9.8%, 6.2% and 6.0%, respectively.
In October 2023, the Prime Minister also announced that a further £1 billion would be redirected from HS2 to deliver better bus services in the North and the Midlands. This funding is in addition to the more than £1.2 billion the Government is already providing to Local Transport Authorities (LTAs) to deliver their Bus Service Improvement Plans (BSIPs). BSIP funding is intended to be used by LTAs to support the aims of the National Bus Strategy to make buses more frequent, more reliable, easier to understand and use, better co-ordinated and more affordable. It sets out the changes we want to see on fares, including for low flat fares (or maximum fares and daily price caps) to be the norm within cities and towns. Each LTAs BSIP sets out how they will achieve these objectives, including plans and costs for implementing new fares and ticketing policies, in addition to the Government’s £2 fare cap, to reduce costs for passengers.
Asked by: Navendu Mishra (Labour - Stockport)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, whether his Department is taking steps to encourage cultural exchange between the UK and India.
Answered by Anne-Marie Trevelyan - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
Culture features prominently in the India-UK 2030 Roadmap. A key Roadmap deliverable was the recently concluded and hugely successful India-UK Together Season of Culture. This programme saw 51 partners employing nearly two thousand artists, reached an audience of over fourteen million people and welcomed visitors to 21 cities across both countries. This has set the stage for further collaboration and exchange. Furthermore, the Arts and Heritage Minister, Lord Parkinson, recently visited India to attend the G20 culture track and meet his Indian counterparts and key culture sector stakeholders. DCMS (Department of Culture, Media & Sport), the lead UK Department, is committed to facilitating ongoing bilateral collaboration.
Asked by: Julian Knight (Independent - Solihull)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, whether she has made an assessment of the financial impact on Birmingham of hosting the 2026 European Athletics Championships.
Answered by Stuart Andrew - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Culture, Media and Sport)
Major sporting events contribute a wide range of benefits for host cities and the entire UK. Sport is estimated to be worth over £38 billion a year to the UK’s economy, and major sporting events play a significant role in delivering continued growth across many key sectors.
The 2022 Commonwealth Games, hosted in Birmingham, were a huge success, coming in under budget and delivering at least £870 million gross value add (GVA) for the economy. Over half of this was generated in the West Midlands specifically.
Following the Section 114 notice on 5th September, Birmingham City Council is developing a financial management plan on future spending, including the 2026 European Athletics Championships.
Asked by: Lord Storey (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask His Majesty's Government how many new trees have been planted as part of the Northern Forest project in each of the last three years.
Answered by Lord Benyon - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
The Northern Forest is an ambitious landscape scale partnership that aims to establish at least 50 million new trees by 2043 in and around the cities of Liverpool, Chester, Manchester, Leeds, Sheffield and Hull. The government supports the Northern Forest as a contributor to levelling up by supporting new and existing jobs, rural economies, fighting climate change, facilitating nature recovery, and encouraging greater private investment in trees and woodlands. So far, the core partnership of the Woodland Trust, Mersey Forest, Manchester City of Trees, White Rose Forest and Humber Forest have established over 5 million new trees since 2018.
The Forestry Commission publishes information on new tree planting annually, including in the Northern Forest. These figures can be obtained from its Headline Key Performance Indicators reports, available at https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/forestry-commission-corporate-plan-performance-indicators. The most recent published provisional statistics are shown below (and is attached):
Year | Hectares Planted | Equivalent in number of trees |
21/22 | 150 | 168,000 |
20/21 | 69 | 159,000 |
Asked by: Paul Girvan (Democratic Unionist Party - South Antrim)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will take steps to ensure that all Key Stage 3 and 4 pupils are taught about the culture, politics and geography of each of the UK nations as part of the national curriculum.
Answered by Nick Gibb
Education is a devolved matter, and the response outlines the information for England only.
All schools in England must offer a curriculum that is balanced and broad, which prepares pupils for the opportunities, responsibilities and experiences of later life.
The National Curriculum is a framework setting out the content of what the Department expects schools to cover in each subject. The National Curriculum does not set out how curriculum subjects, or topics within the subjects, should be taught. There is plenty of scope to teach pupils about the culture, politics and geography of each of the UK nations within the National Curriculum across a range of subjects, including citizenship, geography and where else teachers and schools feel it is appropriate.
Within citizenship, pupils in secondary maintained schools in England will learn about the diverse national, regional, religious and ethnic identities in the United Kingdom and the need for mutual respect and understanding. Pupils should also be taught about parliamentary democracy and the key elements of the constitution of the United Kingdom.
Within geography, pupils should be taught to name and locate counties and cities of the United Kingdom, geographical regions and their identifying human and physical characteristics, key topographical features and land-use patterns, and understand how some of these aspects have changed over time.
The Department has published Political Impartiality in Schools guidance to support teachers in tackling sensitive issues in the classroom in a politically impartial way. This guidance is available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/political-impartiality-in-schools.
Asked by: Bridget Phillipson (Labour - Houghton and Sunderland South)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, pursuant to the Answer of 20 July 2022 to Question 37614 on Schools: Buildings, which schools in Cities of London and Westminster constituency had at least one construction element in (a) condition grade C, and (b) condition grade D, when that data was collated; and which of those schools (i) have already received funding from the School Rebuilding Programme and (ii) are expected to receive funding from the School Rebuilding Programme in the next two years.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Condition Data Collection (CDC) is one of the largest and most comprehensive data collection programmes in the UK’s public sector. It collected data on the building condition of government funded schools in England. It provides a robust evidence base to enable the Department to target capital funding for maintaining and rebuilding school buildings.
The key, high level findings of the CDC programme were published in May 2021 in the ‘Condition of School Buildings Survey: Key Findings’ report. This is available at: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/989912/Condition_of_School_Buildings_Survey_CDC1_-_key_findings_report.pdf.
Individual CDC reports have been shared with every school and their responsible body to use alongside their existing condition surveys to plan maintenance schedules and investment plans. The Department plans to publish detailed school level CDC data. The Department is still preparing the data and will publish it as soon as possible.
Well maintained, safe school buildings are a priority for the Department. Our funding is directed both to maintaining the condition of the school estate and rebuilding schools. The Department has allocated over £13 billion for improving the condition of schools since 2015, including £1.8 billion committed this financial year.
The ten year School Rebuilding Programme (SRP) is condition led. 400 of the 500 available places on the programme have been provisionally allocated. A list of these schools and the methodology used to select them is available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/school-rebuilding-programme-schools-in-the-programme.
The following table shows the constituencies specified that have schools or colleges selected for the SRP:
Parliamentary constituency | Schools selected for SRP |
Houghton and Sunderland South | Farringdon Community Academy (announced February 2021) |
Basingstoke | Cranbourne (announced December 2022) |
Birmingham, Northfield | Green Meadow Primary School (announced December 2022), King Edward VI Balaam Wood Academy (announced December 2022) |
Chingford and Woodford Green | Burnside Secondary PRU (announced July 2021), Highams Park School (announced July 2021), Chingford Foundation School (announced July 2022) |
Croydon South | Thomas More Catholic School (announced July 2022), The Minster Junior School (announced December 2022), The Minster Nursery and Infants Church of England Academy (announced December 2022) |
Darlington | Polam Hall School (announced July 2022) |
Derby North | Becket Primary School (announced July 2022), Mickleover Primary School (announced December 2022), Saint Benedict, A Catholic Voluntary Academy (announced December 2022) |
The 239 schools announced in December 2022 will enter delivery at a rate of approximately 50 per year, over a five year period from 2023. The Department is currently undertaking due diligence on these schools prior to scheduling them, with schools prioritised according to the condition of their buildings, readiness to proceed, and efficiency of delivery. The scope and funding for each project will be confirmed following detailed feasibility studies and condition surveys of buildings.
Where a school identifies significant safety issues with a building, that cannot be managed within local resources, the Department considers additional support on a case-by-case basis. This includes applications for Urgent Capital Support (UCS) from eligible institutions. Schools eligible for Condition Improvement Fund (CIF) can apply for UCS where there are urgent health and safety issues that threaten school closure and cannot wait until the next CIF bidding round.
Asked by: Ruth Cadbury (Labour - Brentford and Isleworth)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, whether she is taking steps to support business events organisers based in (a) Europe and (b) other countries who wish to engage with the UK business events sector.
Answered by Stuart Andrew - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Culture, Media and Sport)
The Government is taking a number of steps to promote the UK’s strong business events offer to the international market. VisitBritain supports organisations in hosting international business events in the UK through their Business Events Growth Programme, which has awarded over £1.5m in grants since 2016. VisitEngland also facilitates meetings between English cities and key international markets throughout the year at international trade shows such as IMEX Frankfurt and IBTM World in Barcelona.
Business events are hugely valuable to our economy, contributing over £31 billion a year in spend and supporting hundreds of thousands of jobs. They promote our leading growth sectors to the world while attracting international visitors to all corners of the UK.
We continue to engage with the sector, including through the Tourism Industry Council and the Events Industry Board Working Group, to assess how we can further strengthen the UK’s reputation as a leading business events destination.
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, if she will take steps to ensure that every community has (a) arts and (b) music venues.
Answered by Julia Lopez - Minister of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
In March 2022 we were delighted to announce the recipients of the £48 million first round of funding from the Cultural Investment Fund. This round of funding will go to more than 60 organisations, including those whose focus is on arts and music. The Cultural Investment Fund will invest up to £128.4 million of further capital in innovative cultural and creative projects, libraries, and museums across the country over the Spending Review period (2022/23–2024/25). Alongside this, the Cultural Development Fund represents the Department's largest existing ring-fenced funding explicitly for culture-led regeneration projects outside London, in line with our Levelling Up work. The successful applicants to the £30.2 million third round of the Cultural Development Fund will be announced in spring 2023, and will help to unlock economic growth in towns and cities across England through investment in cultural and creative activities, using creativity as a catalyst to make places more attractive to live, work and visit.
In addition, Arts Council England recently announced the outcome of its 2023-2026 Investment Programme, which will be investing £446 million each year in arts and culture across England. This funding will support a record 990 organisations across the whole of England and will give people across the country more opportunities to access high-quality arts and culture on their doorstep.
Arts Council England has also extended the Supporting Grassroots Live Music ‘time-limited priority’ until 31 March 2023, with a ring-fenced fund of £1.5 million. The fund is designed to support organisations across the country – including venues and promoters – with little or no prior experience of public funding applications.
In June 2022, the Department for Education and the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport co-published a refreshed National Plan for Music Education, which sets out our vision to enable all children and young people across the country to learn to sing, play an instrument and create music, and have the opportunity to progress their musical interests and talents. As part of the plan, the Government announced a new investment of £25 million of capital funding to enable the purchase of musical instruments and technology, including adaptive instruments. The Department for Education also confirmed they will continue to invest £79 million per year for the Music Hubs programme over three years up to and including 2024/25, so that music hubs can continue to provide vital support to local schools.
This Government’s investment in arts and culture remains a key part of its levelling up work.
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, what steps she is taking ensure funding for (a) arts and (b) music is evenly distributed across the country.
Answered by Julia Lopez - Minister of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
In March 2022 we were delighted to announce the recipients of the £48 million first round of funding from the Cultural Investment Fund. This round of funding will go to more than 60 organisations, including those whose focus is on arts and music. The Cultural Investment Fund will invest up to £128.4 million of further capital in innovative cultural and creative projects, libraries, and museums across the country over the Spending Review period (2022/23–2024/25). Alongside this, the Cultural Development Fund represents the Department's largest existing ring-fenced funding explicitly for culture-led regeneration projects outside London, in line with our Levelling Up work. The successful applicants to the £30.2 million third round of the Cultural Development Fund will be announced in spring 2023, and will help to unlock economic growth in towns and cities across England through investment in cultural and creative activities, using creativity as a catalyst to make places more attractive to live, work and visit.
In addition, Arts Council England recently announced the outcome of its 2023-2026 Investment Programme, which will be investing £446 million each year in arts and culture across England. This funding will support a record 990 organisations across the whole of England and will give people across the country more opportunities to access high-quality arts and culture on their doorstep.
Arts Council England has also extended the Supporting Grassroots Live Music ‘time-limited priority’ until 31 March 2023, with a ring-fenced fund of £1.5 million. The fund is designed to support organisations across the country – including venues and promoters – with little or no prior experience of public funding applications.
In June 2022, the Department for Education and the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport co-published a refreshed National Plan for Music Education, which sets out our vision to enable all children and young people across the country to learn to sing, play an instrument and create music, and have the opportunity to progress their musical interests and talents. As part of the plan, the Government announced a new investment of £25 million of capital funding to enable the purchase of musical instruments and technology, including adaptive instruments. The Department for Education also confirmed they will continue to invest £79 million per year for the Music Hubs programme over three years up to and including 2024/25, so that music hubs can continue to provide vital support to local schools.
This Government’s investment in arts and culture remains a key part of its levelling up work.