Asked by: Matt Vickers (Conservative - Stockton West)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what recent assessment her Department has made of the potential economic impact of (a) cultural and (b) creative industries on regional growth, including in the North East.
Answered by Ian Murray - Minister of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
There are thriving creative businesses and cultural organisations across the UK and they play a key role in regional growth. Unleashing the full potential of our city regions and clusters across the UK is a core objective of our Creative Industries Sector Plan. The Sector Plan includes a universal offer to drive growth in the creative industries in any place in the UK, outlining new measures to break down barriers such as access to finance, supply of skills, and new support to kickstart innovation.
Asked by: Matt Vickers (Conservative - Stockton West)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what plans the Department has to expand opportunities for schools to access cultural and creative learning programmes.
Answered by Ian Murray - Minister of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
In addition to the cultural and creative learning programmes set out in response to your question at UIN93270, DCMS, in strategic partnership with DfE, will invest £22.5 million across 3 years to support up to 400 schools to provide a better youth-voice led, tailored enrichment offer. This will give pupils access to high-quality out of school enrichment opportunities—including arts, cultural activities and sport— with a particular focus on disadvantaged and underserved pupils. This will align with the benchmarks and support wellbeing, personal development, and essential life skills around the school day, as set out in Enrichment Framework.
Asked by: Matt Vickers (Conservative - Stockton West)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what steps the Department is taking to ensure a safe and sustainable future for live music venues.
Answered by Ian Murray - Minister of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
Live music venues are vital to the UK’s music culture, offering emerging artists a platform, supporting local economies and creative jobs, and giving thousands the joy of live music up close. That is why we are committed to working with the sector to support the sustainability of the entire live music ecosystem.
The Government’s Creative Industries Sector Plan, published in June, announced our Music Growth Package of up to £30m over three years from 2026, which more than doubles previous funding. This package will strengthen grassroots infrastructure (including grassroots music venues), support emerging artists and music professionals, and boost exports, breaking down barriers to success at home and abroad.
In advance of this, the Government is also providing £2.5m of funding for the Arts Council England’s (ACE) Supporting Grassroots Music Fund for 2025/26. This enables grassroots music venues, recording studios, promoters and festivals to apply for grants of up to £40,000 to develop new revenue streams, make repairs and improvements, and enhance the live music experience for fans.
To further support grassroots music venues, the Government and the live music industry are working together to drive progress on an industry-led levy on tickets for stadium and arena shows. We welcome commitments by artists and the wider industry to implement the ticket levy, and steps taken by industry to set up a charitable trust to distribute funds from the levy.
The Government is transforming the business rates system to create a fairer system, co-designed with stakeholders from the creative sectors. To support these industries, we are introducing permanently lower business rates multipliers for Retail, Hospitality, and Leisure (RHL) premises with rateable values under £500k, starting in 2026/27. As a bridge to this permanent change, we have extended the 40% RHL business rates relief for 2025-26.
Asked by: Matt Vickers (Conservative - Stockton West)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what plans her Department has to encourage young people to pursue careers in the creative and digital sectors.
Answered by Ian Murray - Minister of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
High-quality careers guidance helps young people make informed choices about their futures, so they can develop their interests and potential, and follow the path that is right for them to progress into work.
Making creative careers accessible for everyone is a key priority for the Government. Last month was ‘Discover! Creative Careers Month’ as part of our Creative Careers Programme which seeks to increase awareness, consideration and uptake of creative careers among young people aged 13-17 years old, as well as their parents and carers. The month provided 70,000 young people aged 11-18 years old with employer-led experiences and opportunities, including experiences related to digital careers, such as video games and VFX.
In our Creative Industries Sector Plan, published in June, we committed to refreshing the £9 million Creative Careers Programme as a UK-wide programme. We will partner with industry to equip the next generation of young people with the ambition and knowledge to work in the creative industries, including the createch sector, and the refreshed programme will launch in the next financial year.
Building on the Creative Careers Programme, the government announced in November that we were investing £500,000 to expand Creative Futures, delivered through The King’s Trust. The programme is designed to break down barriers to jobs in the creative industries for young people across the country who are not in education, employment or training (NEET), or at risk of being so – particularly those facing significant barriers and currently underrepresented in the creative industries.
Asked by: Matt Vickers (Conservative - Stockton West)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what discussions the Department has had with streaming platforms on ensuring adequate remuneration for artists and creators.
Answered by Ian Murray - Minister of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
Ensuring that music creators are fairly compensated for their work is crucial to the ongoing success of our world-class music industry, as this is what allows them to invest their time, effort, and money into creating music.
We have worked with key stakeholders from across the music industry on this matter through the Creator Remuneration Working Group, including senior representatives from music streaming platforms such as Spotify, Amazon Music and YouTube. We were delighted to welcome the new label-led principles as an output of these discussions, as well as the individual commitments made by the UK’s major labels, to deliver real benefits for UK creators. We will evaluate the outcomes of this work after one year.
DCMS officials maintain regular engagement with music streaming platforms and their trade body, the Entertainment Retailers Association (ERA), meeting frequently to address a broad spectrum of music industry matters. Ministers have also met with music streaming platforms to discuss the emerging challenges and implications of AI-generated content on their platforms, and the impact this could have on creator remuneration.
Asked by: Jim McMahon (Labour (Co-op) - Oldham West, Chadderton and Royton)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what support has government provided to grass roots rugby in encouraging the participation of young people.
Answered by Stephanie Peacock - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Culture, Media and Sport)
The Government is committed to ensuring that everyone, including children and young people, should have access to and benefit from quality sport and physical activity opportunities.
The Government provides the majority of funding for grassroots sport through our Arm’s Length Body, Sport England, which invests over £250 million in Exchequer and Lottery funding each year. Sport England’s work focuses on increasing participation in grassroots sport, including rugby, providing more opportunities for young people to be active.
Sport England provides long term investment to the Rugby Football Union (£13.9 million from 2022-27) and Rugby Football League (£11.9 million from 2022-25), the National Governing Bodies for rugby to support grassroots participation.
Since last summer, the Government has also provided £6.7 million into the Women’s Rugby World Cup Legacy Programme Impact 25 which has benefited 850 clubs across the country. These clubs have received investment which goes towards supporting girls of all ages to get involved in rugby.
Asked by: Jim Shannon (Democratic Unionist Party - Strangford)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what steps she is taking to support the provision of cricket clubs across local communities.
Answered by Stephanie Peacock - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Culture, Media and Sport)
The Government has demonstrated its ongoing commitment to supporting grassroots cricket through its recent announcement of funding for the England and Wales Cricket Board to build two new indoor cricket domes in Farington and Luton.
This funding for cricket domes is in addition to the £400 million to transform facilities across the whole of the nation which was announced following the spending review. As part of this funding, 40% of projects across the UK will be required to benefit a sport other than football, including cricket, basketball and rugby league. We are now working closely with sporting bodies and local leaders to establish what each community needs and then set out further plans.
The Government provides the majority of support for grassroots sport through Sport England, which annually invests over £250 million in Exchequer and Lottery Funding. This includes long term investment to the ECB, which receives up to £11.6 million for five years to invest in community cricket initiatives.
Asked by: Matt Vickers (Conservative - Stockton West)
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 increase participation in grassroots sports, including in communities with lower activity levels.
Answered by Stephanie Peacock - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Culture, Media and Sport)
The Government is committed to ensuring that everyone should have access to, and benefit from, quality sport and physical activity opportunities.
In England, the Government provides the majority of funding for grassroots sports 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.
The Government is also investing £98 million in grassroots sports facilities to support increased participation across the UK via the Multi-Sport Grassroots Facilities Programme in 2025/26. Projects funded through the programme include new artificial grass pitches, changing rooms and pavilions, and floodlights. The Programme has a specific objective to target at least 50% of investment into the 30% most deprived areas, based on a combination of deprivation and inactivity levels.
The Government has announced £400 million will be invested in grassroots sports facilities across the UK over the next four years to ensure we can continue to deliver high-quality grass, artificial grass pitches and other multi-sport facilities in the areas that require them, in order to increase participation and allow people to be active.
Following this announcement, we are working in collaboration with the sport sector and local leaders to establish what communities need, before setting out plans on how future funding will be allocated.
Asked by: Matt Vickers (Conservative - Stockton West)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what assessment has been made of the potential impact of the Women’s World Cup and other major events on participation rates among girls and young women.
Answered by Stephanie Peacock - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Culture, Media and Sport)
Major events have the power to transform communities and increase participation. The recent Women’s Rugby World Cup and associated legacy programme has contributed to a 35% increase in female age grade registrations in England rising from 17,700 places in 2022 to 23,900 in 2025.
Hosting the 2035 FIFA Women’s World Cup has the potential to be a transformational opportunity for women’s football, and for women’s sport in the UK more generally. Following the UEFA Women’s EURO 2022, we saw a 140% increase in participation among women and girls, with over 519,000 new grassroots opportunities created specifically for women and girls across England. Should the UK-wide bid to host the tournament be successful, we will work with partners to maximise its impact for the whole nation.
Asked by: Helen Hayes (Labour - Dulwich and West Norwood)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what cross party work is taking place on the development of Young Futures Hubs.
Answered by Stephanie Peacock - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Culture, Media and Sport)
I regularly engage with Parliamentary colleagues to drive the youth agenda, including Young Futures Hubs.
Young Futures Hubs will leverage local understanding of services in each area to improve support for young people at community level, increasing opportunities, improving mental health and wellbeing, and reducing crime. 50 Young Futures Hub across the country will be supported by the end of this Parliament.