Written Statements
Council of Reserve Forces' and Cadets' Associations Annual Report and Accounts 2019-2020
(3 years ago)
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The Minister for the Armed Forces (James Heappey)
Today I am placing the Council of Reserve Forces’ and Cadets’ Associations (CRFCA) annual report and accounts 2019-20 in the Library of the House, in accordance with the RFCA Regulations 2014.
I am also replacing the RFCA review 2019 report in the Library of the House with an appropriately security marked copy. The content of the report itself is unchanged.
[HCWS377]
Licensed Standing in Seated Areas: Early Adopters Programme
(3 years ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (Nigel Huddleston)
On 22 September, the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport and the Sports Grounds Safety Authority announced an early adopters programme for licensed standing in seated areas at football stadia. The programme will be implemented in the second half of this football season between 1 January 2022 and 31 July 2022. I can confirm today that the football clubs that will act as early adopters are Cardiff City, Chelsea, Manchester City, Manchester United and Tottenham Hotspur.
The early adopters programme represents a significant step towards fulfilling the Government’s manifesto commitment to work with fans and clubs towards introducing licensed standing in seated areas at football grounds. It will enable the Government to evaluate how successful licensed standing areas could be as a strategy to manage persistent standing across five different football grounds with varying challenges, before it considers making any substantive policy changes or wider implementation. It will be subject to a formal independent evaluation.
I have today laid a statutory instrument which directs the SGSA to amend the “all-seater condition”, which requires stadia to provide all-seated accommodation, in any licence to admit spectators issued to these five football clubs under the Football Spectators Act 1989 by the SGSA. This will allow the five specified clubs to admit spectators to their home grounds to watch designated football matches from a standing position, provided certain conditions are satisfied. This means doing so in areas of the ground where the seating accommodation has been adapted so there are seats incorporating a barrier or seats with an independent barrier. The SGSA has produced supplementary guidance (SG01) providing further information about the standards-requirements which must be met. This guidance is available online. These modern—non-terraced—stands or areas with seats therefore still allocate one person to one seat.
The selection of these clubs followed an expression of interest process which was conducted by the SGSA between 22 September and 6 October 2021. The SGSA invited applications from football clubs in the top two tiers of professional football in England and Wales currently subject to the all-seater policy to become early adopters of licensed standing in seated areas. The SGSA analysed the applications against the published early adopter criteria, which are available online, before providing written recommendations to DCMS. This advice was carefully considered before receiving final ministerial approval.
In addition, prior to their publication, the early adopter criteria and licence conditions for standing in seated areas were subject to a six-week consultation—28 July-6 September 2021—with key stakeholders. This included safety committee members—the Premier League, English Football League, Football Association, UK Football Policing Unit, Football Supporters’ Association, Football Safety Officers’ Association, Safety Advisory Group Regional Chairs Lead and the National Counter-Terrorism Security Office—local authorities, football governing bodies and licensed football clubs. DCMS worked closely with the SGSA to ensure that consultation responses were used to inform the final criteria clubs were required to meet to become early adopters, which are available online.
The Government’s approach is driven by safety considerations. Given the wider context and background to the current all-seater policy, it is right that we carefully consider any wider change in policy, looking at all the evidence and assessing the potential safety impacts of any change. The Government are not complacent about spectator safety, nor are we complacent about the safety policies that have served spectators well for many years. We will continue to work closely with the SGSA, football clubs, the football governing bodies and local authorities to ensure that spectator safety remains paramount.
[HCWS376]
Premier League Domestic Broadcasting Agreements: Exclusion Order
(3 years ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (Nigel Huddleston)
Following my written ministerial statement of 8 September, I would like to further update the House on the making of an Exclusion Order under the Competition Act 1998 regarding the Premier League’s domestic broadcasting agreements.
In that statement I confirmed that the Secretary of State for the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) (Kwasi Kwarteng), had concluded that there were exceptional and compelling reasons of public policy to make the proposed Exclusion Order.
The statutory instrument was laid on 14 October 2021 and came into force yesterday, 7 November 2021. This will allow the Premier League to renew its current UK broadcast agreements with relevant broadcast rights holders for a three-year period, on substantially the same terms, without carrying out the normal tender process. This is a temporary measure undertaken in response to the financial strain placed on the sector by the pandemic, and will secure the release of over £1.6 billion of funding for the entire football pyramid, including grassroots, women’s and lower league football.
As part of the agreement to make an Exclusion Order, the Premier League has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to formalise their financial commitments to the football pyramid with the Government. The MoU has been published on www.gov.uk alongside this statement. The Premier League has also passed a shareholder resolution confirming the funding as below, and is contractually obliged to deliver many of these agreements. The MoU gives the Government further assurances on the agreed financial commitments as set out below:
guarantee existing levels of financial support for the football pyramid for four years from 2021-22 to the end of the 2024-25 season. This includes solidarity payments, parachute payments, youth development funding and funding for grassroots football at existing levels, worth over £1.5 billion over the three-year rights cycle;
maintain at least this level of funding even if its international broadcast rights decrease in value when they are re-tendered individually over the next year into 2022, and to increase the level of funding if its international broadcast rights exceed their current value;
and provide a further minimum £100 million in solidarity and good causes funding to the end of the 2024-25 season. This will include: additional solidarity payments to National League and English Football League—League One and League Two-clubs; investment into the professional and grassroots women’s game; funding for grassroots community facilities; investment into youth players’ pathways; and funding for projects to improve equality, diversity and inclusion, and combat discrimination within the game. This investment will make a significant difference to the whole football pyramid and community.
The Premier League will update the Government and the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee annually on progress against these financial agreements and the impact this funding has had on the pyramid.
This Exclusion Order is an exceptional and temporary measure in response to the pandemic. The normal tendering process is expected to be followed for subsequent broadcast rights agreements. The Exclusion Order will expire, at the latest, after the end of the 2024-25 Premier League football season or on 31 July 2025—whichever is earlier. It does not apply to broadcasting rights beyond that season and the normal tendering process is expected to be followed for subsequent broadcast rights agreements.
[HCWS378]
Lorry Parking
(3 years ago)
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The Secretary of State for Transport (Grant Shapps)
I wish to update the House on the joint initiative between the Department for Transport and Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities on planning reforms for lorry parking, and to emphasise the critical importance of the freight and logistics sector to shops, households, assembly lines, hospitals and other public services across the country.
The infrastructure that supports our hauliers is essential to the effective and resilient supply chains we need. This Government are committed to addressing the strategic national need for more lorry parking and better services in lorry parks in England and we must act now.
To support our hauliers’ access to parking and services in the near term we are working with our partners to identify and deliver a number of temporary sites where short-term modular facilities can be installed to address some of our immediate need. We are encouraging National Highways to consider how their land holdings can be used to provide additional parking spaces nationwide, to give priority to the provision of lorry parking across the strategic road network and assist local authorities in identifying areas of lorry parking need.
This Government are also determined that the planning system should play its part in meeting the needs of hauliers and addressing current deficiencies. Planning plays a critical part in the allocation of land for lorry parking.
The national planning policy framework sets out that local planning policies and decisions should recognise the importance of providing adequate overnight lorry parking facilities, taking into account any local shortages, to reduce the risk of parking in locations that lack proper facilities or could cause a nuisance.
In addition, the Government policy is clear that development proposals for new or expanded goods distribution centres should make provision for sufficient lorry parking to cater for their anticipated use. In preparing local plans and deciding planning applications, the specific locational requirements of different industrial sectors should be recognised and addressed. This should include making provision for storage and distribution operations at a variety of scales, and in suitably accessible locations.
We have also published planning practice guidance setting out how local planning authorities can assess the need for and allocate land to logistics site uses and are accelerating work recommended by the National Infrastructure Commission to consider the appropriateness of current planning practice guidance. This includes taking forward a review of how the freight sector is currently represented in guidance.
To ensure future decision making supports the needs of the sector, we are updating highways circular 02/2013 “The Strategic Road Network and the Delivery of Sustainable Development” fully to reflect the importance of providing logistics and freight, and are updating the national lorry parking survey to ensure strong evidence is available on the national picture in future. A programme of longer-term measures is under development supported by the £32.5 million in roadside facilities for hauliers announced in last week’s Budget, and we will publish a future of freight plan, a long-term strategic plan for the sector, in the coming months.
The need for a reliable and efficient supply chain has recently come into sharp focus. It is therefore essential that we put in place mechanisms that deliver a supply chain network that is secure, reliable, efficient, and resilient, with no link in the chain overlooked.
Taken together our planning policies and wider measures will support our logistics and freight sectors and the people that work in them. Working with industry and local authorities we will continue to monitor the situation closely and take further action when it is needed.
[HCWS379]