Asked by: Andrea Jenkyns (Conservative - Morley and Outwood)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what steps his Department is taking to ensure that the Events Research Programme accurately assesses the risk of live events with crowds taking place in summer 2021 as covid-19 restrictions are eased.
Answered by Nigel Huddleston - Financial Secretary (HM Treasury)
Public safety is our main priority and decisions on the Events Research Programme (ERP) are guided by a Science Board of experts—including senior Public Health England (PHE) representation—who take into account the latest public health data. All ERP pilot events are designed in a scientifically controlled way, and carefully consider ways to reduce the risk of Covid-19 transmission.
The ERP has been developed within a SAGE research framework, in line with the latest PHE and DHSC guidance, including on consent and ethical approval.
The evidence from these pilot events is being used to inform and shape Government policy to bring about the phased return of fuller audiences to venues and events across England.
Asked by: Andrea Jenkyns (Conservative - Morley and Outwood)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what steps his Department taking to encourage volunteers in engaging with local sports clubs.
Answered by Nigel Huddleston - Financial Secretary (HM Treasury)
The Government recognises the value of sport volunteering both to the sports that benefit and the volunteers themselves, and our sport and physical activity strategy, 'Sporting Future', emphasises the importance of volunteering.
Volunteering is a focus for Sport England’s new ten year strategy “Uniting the Movement”, published in January 2021. Their ambition is to place an emphasis on diversity, inclusion, skills and behaviours across the sporting workforce, to help open up and increase volunteering opportunities for people from a broader range of backgrounds and experiences.
Since 2016, Sport England has invested more than £5m of National Lottery funding in programmes to promote quality volunteering experiences and increase the diversity of volunteers who help to keep the nation active. Sport England supports local sports clubs to encourage and support volunteers through Club Matters. Club Matters provides free, convenient, practical resources to help organisations to develop, grow and become more sustainable and successful.
Sport England also works with stakeholders to look at the support and experience for volunteers within the sporting sector, focusing on what’s needed to make giving their time easy, meaningful and supported, and in doing so, reducing drop-out rates.
Asked by: Andrea Jenkyns (Conservative - Morley and Outwood)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what steps his Department is planning to take in response to the findings of the Consultation on decriminalising TV licence evasion.
Answered by Caroline Dinenage
The government response to the consultation was published on 21 January. The response to the consultation shows that a significant number of people oppose the criminal sanction with some highlighting the considerable stress and anxiety it can cause for individuals, including the most vulnerable in society, such as older people.
However, changing the sanction for TV licence evasion would have wide-ranging impacts for licence fee payers, as well as potentially leading to a significant increase in fines for those evading payment.
The government will therefore keep the issue of decriminalisation under active consideration while more work is done to understand the impact of alternative enforcement schemes.
Asked by: Andrea Jenkyns (Conservative - Morley and Outwood)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what steps his Department is taking to help ensure that large scale events can take place safely once covid-19 lockdown restrictions are lifted.
Answered by Caroline Dinenage
As announced by the Prime Minister on Monday 22 February, the government aims to reopen large events and closed settings in Step 4 of the Roadmap. To determine how and when we can lift the restrictions on large events and closed settings we will run a scientific Events Research Programme of pilots, starting in the Spring, to trial running events with larger crowd sizes and reduced social distancing. This will include trialling ‘test-to-enable’ approaches to returning crowds to these settings.
In the interim, whilst the pilot programme runs, we will have capacity caps for events which will return in Step 3: Indoor events = lower of 1000 or 50% of capacity; Outdoor events = lower of 4000 or 50% of capacity; and for large seated outdoor venues, where crowds can be dispersed across a stadium, we will allow up to 10,000 people, or 25% of capacity - whichever is lower.
Asked by: Andrea Jenkyns (Conservative - Morley and Outwood)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what steps he is taking to support the re-opening of (a) gyms and (b) group exercise classes as covid-19 restrictions are eased.
Answered by Nigel Huddleston - Financial Secretary (HM Treasury)
Sports and physical activity are incredibly important for our physical and mental health, and are a vital weapon against coronavirus.
On Monday 22 February, the Prime Minister announced a roadmap out of the current lockdown in England. Step 2 will take place no earlier than 12 April and as part of this indoor leisure (including gyms) for individual use will reopen. Step 3 will take place no earlier than 17 May and as part of this exercise classes can resume. This will be subject to social contact limits.
To ensure they can reopen the Government has provided unprecedented support to businesses through tax reliefs, cash grants and employee wage support. The National Leisure Recovery Fund seeks to support eligible public sector leisure centres to reopen to the public, giving the sport and physical activity sector the best chance of recovery to a position of sustainable operation over the medium term. A total of £100 million is available as a biddable fund to eligible local authorities in England.
Asked by: Andrea Jenkyns (Conservative - Morley and Outwood)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, whether his Department has made an assessment of the potential merits of providing support to sports clubs to encourage more people to take up more sports once national covid-19 lockdown restrictions have been lifted.
Answered by Nigel Huddleston - Financial Secretary (HM Treasury)
Sports and physical activity are incredibly important for our physical and mental health, and are a vital weapon against coronavirus.
Government has provided unprecedented support to businesses through tax reliefs, cash grants and employee wage support, which many sport clubs have benefited from. The £300m Sports Winter Survival Package also aims to protect the immediate futures of major spectator sports in England over the winter period. On 22 October 2020, the Government also announced a £100m support fund for local authority leisure centres. We have no plans to provide additional bespoke support for indoor tennis centres.
In addition, Sport England’s Community Emergency Fund has provided £220 million directly to support community sport clubs and exercise centres through this pandemic. On 26 January Sport England also published their strategy ‘Uniting the Movement’ and as part of this have committed an extra £50million to help grassroots sports clubs and organisations affected by the coronavirus pandemic.
We are continuing to work with organisations to understand what they need and how we may be able to support them. We will also continue to promote exercise throughout the pandemic and encourage the usage of sports facilities when they are able to open again.
Asked by: Andrea Jenkyns (Conservative - Morley and Outwood)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what steps the Department is taking to protect monuments of historical, artistic and local heritage importance from political protests.
Answered by Nigel Huddleston - Financial Secretary (HM Treasury)
Responsibility for the policing of political protests - including those focused on public statues and memorials - rests with the Home Office however, through its responsibility for the listing system, DCMS identifies those statues and memorials deemed to be of special architectural or historic interest, something that can inform the targeting of policing resources. DCMS has also reminded its arms-length bodies that it is Government policy that statues and memorials, however contentious, should be retained and their presence explained in order to help educate people about all aspects of Britain’s past.
Asked by: Andrea Jenkyns (Conservative - Morley and Outwood)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what estimate his Department has made of the cost to the public purse of publicly-funded reviews of cultural monuments and institutions in response to the Black Lives Matter campaign by (a) Leeds Council, (b) Wakefield Council and (c) nationally.
Answered by Nigel Huddleston - Financial Secretary (HM Treasury)
Government does not hold this information. The vast majority of total funding for councils is not ring fenced, and as such councils are best placed to decide the most efficient way to fund their services in order to meet the needs of their communities.
The Government has set out a clear policy position, and DCMS has written to its arms length bodies to make this clear, that statues and memorials, however contentious, should be retained and their presence explained in order to help educate people about all aspects of Britain’s complex past.
Asked by: Andrea Jenkyns (Conservative - Morley and Outwood)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, whether he plans to allocate funding to local authorities that undertake a review of public statues situated in their local authority areas.
Answered by Nigel Huddleston - Financial Secretary (HM Treasury)
The Government has no plans to provide funding for local reviews of public statues. Historic England, as the Government’s adviser on the historic environment, have set out why they believe removing difficult and contentious parts of the historic environment risks harming our understanding of our collective past. They and other heritage funding bodies invest significantly in improving public access to historical objects, providing contemporary interpretation of them and supporting diverse heritage projects around the country.
Asked by: Andrea Jenkyns (Conservative - Morley and Outwood)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what assessment her Department has made of the (a) effectiveness and (b) competitiveness of the division of usable mobile spectrum between telephone operators in the UK.
Answered by Matt Hancock
The Secretary of State noted the assessment that was published as part of Ofcom's recent consultation on rules for the 2.3 & 3.4 GHz spectrum auction.