Oral Answers to Questions
Baroness Keeley Excerpts(13 years, 4 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Barbara Keeley (Worsley and Eccles South) (Lab)
7. What plans her Department has for a gender audit of public spending on sport.
The Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport (Maria Miller)
The Department measures sport participation by gender via the Taking Part survey. In addition, Sport England’s Active People survey provides more detailed data on sport participation. Together, those provide a good understanding of the gender implications of public spending on sport. The Department has no plans to undertake a specific gender audit.
Barbara Keeley
I thank the Secretary of State for that answer. The Active People survey shows that more than 2 million fewer girls and women than men take part in sport, at both weekly and monthly intervals, but 12 million say that they want to take part in sport. Is not it time we had a full audit of public spending on sport to find out what it is spent on and why so many fewer women than men take part?
Maria Miller
The hon. Lady puts her finger on it. We know that there are participation issues, so rather than simply continuing to audit it, we are taking action. We already have our £1 billion youth and community sports strategy, which is looking at ways of ensuring that girls take part in sport, and the Active Women programme, a £10 million lottery programme aimed at getting women into sport. Of course, the most important audit of all was the Olympic games this summer, in which the very first gold medal was won by a woman, as indeed was the last. That is evidence that things are moving in the right direction, but clearly there is still more to do.
Oral Answers to Questions
Baroness Keeley Excerpts(14 years, 2 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Maria Miller
I thank my hon. Friend for her question and say to her that we absolutely share the objective of ensuring that the people with the severest challenges in living independently in our society do not receive undue assessments. At the moment there is no in-built reassessment under disability living allowance. She put her question in the present tense—I am not sure whether she was referring to other things for which people are assessed. I reassure her that under PIP, we do not intend to have fixed annual reassessments. They will be made based on individuals’ personal circumstances.
Barbara Keeley (Worsley and Eccles South) (Lab)
In their report “Responsible Reform”, disabled people and carers analysed the responses to the Government’s consultation and raised many issues about the replacement of disability living allowance. Carers UK has also expressed deep concern about the impact on carers of cuts to disability benefits, yet today we learn that 5,000 carer households will be hit by the mean reduction of £87 a week as a result of the benefits cap. Will the Minister now publish an assessment of the impact on carers of all the Government’s cuts?
Maria Miller
To give the House total clarity I should say that the report that the hon. Lady references was highly selective. It examined only about 10% of the responses that we received on the DLA and PIP consultation.
I will answer the hon. Lady’s question about carers directly as she, like me, wants to ensure that carers get the support that they need. We have already made it clear that carers will be eligible for carer’s allowance as a result of the person for whom they are caring being in receipt of either level of PIP.
Oral Answers to Questions
Baroness Keeley Excerpts(14 years, 8 months ago)
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Chris Grayling
I absolutely agree. One of the most important steps the Government have taken has been significantly to increase the number of apprenticeships available, particularly for young people. It is absolutely clear under the Work programme agreement that a successful placement in an apprenticeship counts as a job outcome under the Work programme. I hope that will mean there is a clear link between the two.
Barbara Keeley (Worsley and Eccles South) (Lab)
Steve Kerr of the London Voluntary Service Council has questioned whether the Work programme
“will succeed…or simply make matters worse through sidelining the voluntary sector.”
What action is the Minister taking so that the voluntary sector does not continue to feel sidelined through the Work programme?
Chris Grayling
The hon. Lady is absolutely wrong. The voluntary sector is not being sidelined. On Friday in Stafford I visited the Shaw Trust—a major voluntary sector organisation that is already delivering support to people under the Work programme. There are many other organisations such as Groundwork delivering support right across the spectrum and there is specialist help available from some of the specialist groups. The Work programme has been designed to attract best practice, of which there is much in the voluntary sector. That is why it is such an important part of the Work programme.