To match an exact phrase, use quotation marks around the search term. eg. "Parliamentary Estate". Use "OR" or "AND" as link words to form more complex queries.


Keep yourself up-to-date with the latest developments by exploring our subscription options to receive notifications direct to your inbox

Written Question
Welsh National Opera: Finance
Tuesday 11th July 2023

Asked by: Alex Davies-Jones (Labour - Pontypridd)

Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what discussions she has had with Arts Council England on the potential impact of the reduction in funding on the Welsh National Opera.

Answered by John Whittingdale

It is important that people across the country have access to a diverse range of cultural opportunities. Arts and cultural bodies receive funding through a wide variety of sources, including through Arts Council England, an arm’s-length body of the Department for Culture, Media and Sport.

The Welsh National Opera will receive £4 million of public funding through Arts Council England’s 2023–26 Investment Programme, and was also successful in its application to the Arts Council’s ‘Transform Programme’ through which it will receive an additional one-off payment of £3.25 million. This means the Welsh National Opera will receive over £15 million of public funding between 2023 and 2026.

The decisions about which organisations to fund, and by how much, is a decision taken wholly by Arts Council England independently of HM Government. This is in accordance with the well established process, which is published on the Arts Council’s website and made clear in the guidance for applicants. How the Welsh National Opera chooses to spend its grant funding with respect to staffing, touring, and community work are matters for the organisation itself.

Cultural organisations such as the Welsh National Opera are also benefiting from the two-year extension to the higher rates of theatre, orchestra, museums and galleries exhibition tax reliefs announced at the last Budget. This extension will continue to offset ongoing pressures and boost investment in our cultural sectors. They will incentivise investment in productions in the UK, support them to tour, drive economic growth, and allow the sector to maintain its international competitiveness and reputation.


Written Question
Welsh National Opera: Finance
Tuesday 11th July 2023

Asked by: Alex Davies-Jones (Labour - Pontypridd)

Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what assessment she has made of the potential impact of the reduction in funding from Arts Council England on the Welsh National Opera.

Answered by John Whittingdale

It is important that people across the country have access to a diverse range of cultural opportunities. Arts and cultural bodies receive funding through a wide variety of sources, including through Arts Council England, an arm’s-length body of the Department for Culture, Media and Sport.

The Welsh National Opera will receive £4 million of public funding through Arts Council England’s 2023–26 Investment Programme, and was also successful in its application to the Arts Council’s ‘Transform Programme’ through which it will receive an additional one-off payment of £3.25 million. This means the Welsh National Opera will receive over £15 million of public funding between 2023 and 2026.

The decisions about which organisations to fund, and by how much, is a decision taken wholly by Arts Council England independently of HM Government. This is in accordance with the well established process, which is published on the Arts Council’s website and made clear in the guidance for applicants. How the Welsh National Opera chooses to spend its grant funding with respect to staffing, touring, and community work are matters for the organisation itself.

Cultural organisations such as the Welsh National Opera are also benefiting from the two-year extension to the higher rates of theatre, orchestra, museums and galleries exhibition tax reliefs announced at the last Budget. This extension will continue to offset ongoing pressures and boost investment in our cultural sectors. They will incentivise investment in productions in the UK, support them to tour, drive economic growth, and allow the sector to maintain its international competitiveness and reputation.


Written Question
Welsh National Opera: Finance
Tuesday 11th July 2023

Asked by: Alex Davies-Jones (Labour - Pontypridd)

Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what assessment she has made of the potential impact of the reduction in funding from Arts Council England on the (a) staffing, (b) touring and (c) community work of the Welsh National Opera.

Answered by John Whittingdale

It is important that people across the country have access to a diverse range of cultural opportunities. Arts and cultural bodies receive funding through a wide variety of sources, including through Arts Council England, an arm’s-length body of the Department for Culture, Media and Sport.

The Welsh National Opera will receive £4 million of public funding through Arts Council England’s 2023–26 Investment Programme, and was also successful in its application to the Arts Council’s ‘Transform Programme’ through which it will receive an additional one-off payment of £3.25 million. This means the Welsh National Opera will receive over £15 million of public funding between 2023 and 2026.

The decisions about which organisations to fund, and by how much, is a decision taken wholly by Arts Council England independently of HM Government. This is in accordance with the well established process, which is published on the Arts Council’s website and made clear in the guidance for applicants. How the Welsh National Opera chooses to spend its grant funding with respect to staffing, touring, and community work are matters for the organisation itself.

Cultural organisations such as the Welsh National Opera are also benefiting from the two-year extension to the higher rates of theatre, orchestra, museums and galleries exhibition tax reliefs announced at the last Budget. This extension will continue to offset ongoing pressures and boost investment in our cultural sectors. They will incentivise investment in productions in the UK, support them to tour, drive economic growth, and allow the sector to maintain its international competitiveness and reputation.


Written Question
Welsh National Opera: Finance
Tuesday 11th July 2023

Asked by: Alex Davies-Jones (Labour - Pontypridd)

Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what assessment she has made of the adequacy of the amount of transition funding offered by Arts Council England’s to the Welsh National Opera.

Answered by John Whittingdale

It is important that people across the country have access to a diverse range of cultural opportunities. Arts and cultural bodies receive funding through a wide variety of sources, including through Arts Council England, an arm’s-length body of the Department for Culture, Media and Sport.

The Welsh National Opera will receive £4 million of public funding through Arts Council England’s 2023–26 Investment Programme, and was also successful in its application to the Arts Council’s ‘Transform Programme’ through which it will receive an additional one-off payment of £3.25 million. This means the Welsh National Opera will receive over £15 million of public funding between 2023 and 2026.

The decisions about which organisations to fund, and by how much, is a decision taken wholly by Arts Council England independently of HM Government. This is in accordance with the well established process, which is published on the Arts Council’s website and made clear in the guidance for applicants. How the Welsh National Opera chooses to spend its grant funding with respect to staffing, touring, and community work are matters for the organisation itself.

Cultural organisations such as the Welsh National Opera are also benefiting from the two-year extension to the higher rates of theatre, orchestra, museums and galleries exhibition tax reliefs announced at the last Budget. This extension will continue to offset ongoing pressures and boost investment in our cultural sectors. They will incentivise investment in productions in the UK, support them to tour, drive economic growth, and allow the sector to maintain its international competitiveness and reputation.


Written Question
Welsh National Opera
Tuesday 11th July 2023

Asked by: Alex Davies-Jones (Labour - Pontypridd)

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 support the Welsh National Opera; and if she will make a statement.

Answered by John Whittingdale

It is important that people across the country have access to a diverse range of cultural opportunities. Arts and cultural bodies receive funding through a wide variety of sources, including through Arts Council England, an arm’s-length body of the Department for Culture, Media and Sport.

The Welsh National Opera will receive £4 million of public funding through Arts Council England’s 2023–26 Investment Programme, and was also successful in its application to the Arts Council’s ‘Transform Programme’ through which it will receive an additional one-off payment of £3.25 million. This means the Welsh National Opera will receive over £15 million of public funding between 2023 and 2026.

The decisions about which organisations to fund, and by how much, is a decision taken wholly by Arts Council England independently of HM Government. This is in accordance with the well established process, which is published on the Arts Council’s website and made clear in the guidance for applicants. How the Welsh National Opera chooses to spend its grant funding with respect to staffing, touring, and community work are matters for the organisation itself.

Cultural organisations such as the Welsh National Opera are also benefiting from the two-year extension to the higher rates of theatre, orchestra, museums and galleries exhibition tax reliefs announced at the last Budget. This extension will continue to offset ongoing pressures and boost investment in our cultural sectors. They will incentivise investment in productions in the UK, support them to tour, drive economic growth, and allow the sector to maintain its international competitiveness and reputation.


Written Question
Gambling
Tuesday 20th December 2022

Asked by: Alex Davies-Jones (Labour - Pontypridd)

Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, whether her Department has had recent discussions with the Gambling Commission on the role of open banking technology in helping to tackle problem gambling.

Answered by Paul Scully

The Government and Gambling Commission are exploring how technology and data can be harnessed in a number of areas to better prevent harmful gambling online. The Government’s White Paper on the Gambling Act Review will be published in the coming weeks.


Written Question
Charities: Lotteries
Thursday 3rd November 2022

Asked by: Alex Davies-Jones (Labour - Pontypridd)

Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, when she plans to raise the charity lottery annual sales limit.

Answered by Paul Scully

The society lottery annual sales limit was last increased as part of a wider package of reforms in 2020. These were reviewed 12 months after they were implemented, and the results of the review were published in March 2022. It concluded that it was too soon to reach any firm view on the impact of the changes, especially during a time when the effect of the Covid pandemic made any evaluation more difficult, and that more data on annual growth of the sector was required before considering any further changes. My officials will continue working with the Gambling Commission, as part of its regulatory role, to keep the sector under review.


Written Question
Social Media: Disinformation
Tuesday 20th September 2022

Asked by: Alex Davies-Jones (Labour - Pontypridd)

Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what proportion of reports about content or user accounts made to social media providers by Government units established to tackle disinformation resulted in action being taken by the social media providers in the last 12 months.

Answered by Damian Collins

The Government takes the issue of disinformation very seriously. The Counter Disinformation Unit team, based in DCMS, works to understand the scope, scale and reach of disinformation and works with a range of partners, including social media platforms, to tackle it.

The primary purpose of the team is not to spot every instance of disinformation across all social media platforms, but rather to understand overall trends and coordinated attempts to artificially manipulate the information environment. When the Unit does identify particular pieces of harmful content which may violate platforms’ terms of service these are referred to the relevant platform for consideration, who in turn decide what action to take.

As an operational matter it is not appropriate for the government to publicly provide details of content reported to platforms as doing so would give malign actors insight into our capabilities.


Written Question
Social Media: Disinformation
Tuesday 20th September 2022

Asked by: Alex Davies-Jones (Labour - Pontypridd)

Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, how many times Government teams tackling disinformation have reported content or user accounts to social media providers in the past 12 months.

Answered by Damian Collins

The Government takes the issue of disinformation very seriously. The Counter Disinformation Unit team, based in DCMS, works to understand the scope, scale and reach of disinformation and works with a range of partners, including social media platforms, to tackle it.

The primary purpose of the team is not to spot every instance of disinformation across all social media platforms, but rather to understand overall trends and coordinated attempts to artificially manipulate the information environment. When the Unit does identify particular pieces of harmful content which may violate platforms’ terms of service these are referred to the relevant platform for consideration, who in turn decide what action to take.

As an operational matter it is not appropriate for the government to publicly provide details of content reported to platforms as doing so would give malign actors insight into our capabilities.


Written Question
Lotteries
Tuesday 6th September 2022

Asked by: Alex Davies-Jones (Labour - Pontypridd)

Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, with reference to the increase in the annual sales limit for society lotteries from £10 million to £50 million, if she will publish a breakdown of the distribution of overall returns to good causes across (a) England, (b) Wales, (c) Scotland and (d) Northern Ireland.

Answered by Damian Collins

The annual sales limit for society lotteries was increased from £10 million to £50 million in July 2020.

We published a review of the impact of these and other changes to society lottery sales and prize limits in March 2022 (link). Early indicators are positive, for example the increase in the annual sales limit has allowed some multiple licensed operators who previously had annual sales in excess of £10 million, to take advantage of the new limit to restructure and become single licence holders, and use the cost savings in doing so to increase good cause returns. The review concluded that it is too soon to reach any firm view on the impact of the changes, especially during a time that the effect of the Covid pandemic made any evaluation more difficult, given changes in consumer behaviour over this period which may have had a distorting effect. We want to see more data on annual growth of the sector to fully measure their impact. Since the review, the Gambling Commission has published further data which shows that the large society lottery sector is continuing to grow.

The Gambling Commission does not collect data on the location of beneficiaries of grant funding. Society lotteries are a helpful way of permitting non-commercial societies to fundraise for good causes. Funds raised by society lotteries are distributed within the stated purposes of that society, and it is for each operator to determine where the money raised is distributed. Larger lotteries may support local, national or international charities, but many others exist solely to support their own work, such as hospice lotteries.

Legislation regarding society lotteries in Northern Ireland is determined by the Northern Ireland Assembly.