Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Rupa Huq and Stuart Andrew(1 year, 1 month ago)
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The Minister for Equalities (Stuart Andrew)
Faith is a vital part of people’s identities and of their communities. We fully support the invaluable work being done by people around the country who are inspired by their faith. My hon. Friend is a great advocate for the work that goes on in his own constituency. I certainly encourage people to attend that event, and I will do everything I can to pop in myself.
Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Rupa Huq and Stuart Andrew(1 year, 4 months ago)
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Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)
Stuart Andrew
The hon. Lady is right to raise this important area. I am extremely grateful, as we all are in the Department, to Karen Carney for such an in-depth review of women’s football. We are obviously looking at the recommendations she made in that report, and that will be a continuous agenda item in my regular discussions with the FA.
Tackling Loneliness and Connecting Communities
Debate between Rupa Huq and Stuart Andrew(1 year, 5 months ago)
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Stuart Andrew
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I will come on to some of the cross-Government work, but we need to join up that messaging right across society.
I decided that, during Loneliness Awareness Week, I could not stand here and talk about breaking down the barriers and the stigma of loneliness if I did not admit that I have been lonely myself. That is why I did interviews in some national papers. I have been overwhelmed by the response, not just from the UK, but from around the world. Despite the fact that awareness was raised during the pandemic, it is still unusual to see people in public life, and people more broadly, talking about their loneliness.
We want to drive a lasting shift. My hon. Friend the Member for Chatham and Aylesford was the first Minister for loneliness. It is great to follow in her footsteps—there is not a lot of pressure on me there! We have invested over £80 million in projects up and down the country, including song-writing workshops in Devon, dance classes in Bedfordshire, health and wellbeing projects such as online chat services in Durham, and projects supporting education, climate and the environment, such as nature walks in Lambeth. Taking that national action is really important. We have also expanded social prescribing, which really does help loneliness, but also improves public health. My hon. Friend is a big advocate of that. I am really keen that we look at how we can expand these measures even further and add them to other strategies that we are developing in Government.
In 2021, we launched the tackling loneliness hub, an online forum that brings together people who are working in this area. It allows members to develop relationships with others around the country, learn from each other and upskill themselves through events and workshops, and, crucially, share that latest research. Organisations represented include the English Football League Trust, the Co-op Foundation and the British Red Cross. I thank them all for their contributions. It is great that we now have a membership of more than 500, including from the private and public sectors, academia and charities. It just goes to show that we need a joint approach.
Building the evidence base is key, and it is important that we continue that work and share best practice. I know that hon. Members have been flying around the world and speaking to others, and the Department has received requests for meetings with representatives of the Governments of Japan, Sweden, Finland and the US. That is fantastic, because they want to develop their national strategies and build their evidence base. That work will include publishing our own research. We are convening an evidence group to bring together academic experts so they can collect population-level data, in particular.
Our evidence has grown significantly thanks to the work that has been done since 2018. We have much stronger evidence that proves the bi-directional relationship between mental health, loneliness and physical health, which my hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock (Jackie Doyle-Price) mentioned. We are also looking for greater insights into the risk factors for people becoming lonely, and into the affected groups, including young people, people with disabilities and other special educational needs, people from the LGBT community and those living in deprived areas. It is important that we continue to do that work, but there is still much that we do not know, which is why we are investing in programmes to better understand what works.
This year, we announced the first of the know your neighbourhood fund projects, which will create volunteering opportunities in 27 of the most deprived and disadvantaged areas. I was pleased to visit Hull to see the great work that one of those groups is doing, particularly in the care setting. It really is fantastic. The projects also include museums, libraries—which the hon. Member for Worsley and Eccles South (Barbara Keeley) mentioned—social enterprises and community centres. The know your neighbourhood fund will create thousands of opportunities to bring people together to develop their skills and build relationships, and it will properly connect some of those communities. I look forward to getting the most out of that.
There is a lot for us to learn—not just the funders and delivery organisations, but the Government, local authorities and charities—so that we know what interventions are effective and boost social connections. A number of Members mentioned the cost of living. The Department was keen to lobby the Treasury, and we were successful in securing an extra £100 million for charities. We have also allocated more than £70 million from dormant assets to focus particularly on cost of living issues.
I see volunteering, which is another part of my portfolio, as one of the solutions to tackling loneliness. That is why we are a key partner in Vision for Volunteering, and are looking at a 10-year strategy. I see the sports strategy as another way of increasing the number of people who take up volunteering.
I have the support of my colleagues; this is collective work across Government. I cannot do it alone. I have been really pleased with the engagement with Ministers in other Departments, including the Minister for mental health, my hon. Friend the Member for Lewes (Maria Caulfield); the Minister for children, my hon. Friend the Member for East Surrey (Claire Coutinho); the Minister for Veterans, my right hon. Friend the Member for South West Wiltshire (Dr Murrison), and the Minister for local government, my hon. Friend the Member for North East Derbyshire (Lee Rowley).
We have made good progress, but I am keen that we do not lose momentum. We need to go even further. That is why we published the fourth annual report of the cross-Government tackling loneliness strategy with 60 additional actions for the next two years. They include providing targeted support for care leavers, unpaid carers and veterans; improving and building on the success in social prescribing across the country; supporting community infrastructure and community action to tackle loneliness in rural areas; publishing the new suicide prevention strategy, and opening school facilities out of school hours to make the benefits of physical activity more accessible and inclusive. A key focus of those commitments is sharing learning and best practice, and we will continue to do that right across Government.
There is a lot that I could say, but I sense that I am running out of time. The Government and I, as the Minister for loneliness, are keen to keep the collaboration going. It is working incredibly well, and I can sense that people want to play their part. There is a lot that we still need to do, but compared with where we were just a few years ago, where we are now is incredible. I pay tribute to every single person who has been key in developing the strategy.
Dr Rupa Huq (in the Chair)
To respond to all that, I call the pioneering first ever Minister for loneliness, Tracey Crouch.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Rupa Huq and Stuart Andrew(1 year, 7 months ago)
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Stuart Andrew
Again, the hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to raise that issue. Participation in sport and physical activity is a key piece of work that we are looking at. It is good to see that it has recovered to pre-pandemic levels, but we need to go even further. We are working on the sports strategy, which will address some of the issues he has raised, and I hope to make an announcement on that in due course.
Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Rupa Huq and Stuart Andrew(1 year, 11 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (Stuart Andrew)
The UK was one of the first countries to remove the barriers to both domestic and international visitors, and set out a post-covid tourism recovery plan in summer 2021. An inter-ministerial group for the visitor economy was formed this year, and will meet again in December to discuss cross-departmental policy priorities in support of this important sector.
Dr Huq
With the axe looming over the English National Opera and the Donmar Warehouse—both national attractions that have helped the tourism the Minister has described to be a multibillion-pound industry for so many years—and local newbies such as the Ealing Project venue and ActOne cinema facing a tough environment with the post-covid footfall downturn and looming bills, could the Government, now that they are in reset mode, reconsider the impact of Arts Council cuts on London so that we can get tourism flowing through our capital again, from centre to suburb?
Stuart Andrew
The Arts Council is an arm’s length body; it makes the decisions and has done so very carefully. It is working with various organisations that will be leaving the funding. However, it is right that we share the funding around the rest of the country; I make no apology for that. I want people not just to come to London to visit our wonderful facilities here, but to go around the whole country and experience what a great country we have to offer for tourism.