Asked by: David Evennett (Conservative - Bexleyheath and Crayford)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, how many and what proportion of properties have access to superfast broadband in (a) Bexleyheath and Crayford constituency, (b) Bexley Borough, (c) Greater London and (d) the UK.
Answered by Julia Lopez
According to the independent website Thinkbroadband, 98.9% of premises in the constituency of Bexleyheath and Crayford, 98.8% in Bexley Borough, and 97.6% in Greater London have access to superfast broadband (>= 30 Mbps). These are all higher than the UK average of 96.9%.
Asked by: David Evennett (Conservative - Bexleyheath and Crayford)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what progress his Department has made on providing support for the culture and heritage sector through the Culture Recovery Fund in (a) Greater London, b) the London Borough of Bexley and (c) Bexleyheath and Crayford constituency.
Answered by Nigel Huddleston
Over £1bn from the Culture Recovery Fund has been distributed to over 3000 organisations across England.
Across recovery grants, repayable finance, and capital awards so far, support for London (including Greater London) in the first round of funding was over £300m.
Across recovery grants, repayable finance, and capital awards so far, support for Bexley Borough in the first round of funding was approximately £340,000.
Across the arts and heritage recovery grants, support for Bexleyheath and Crayford constituency was approximately £310,000.
This included funding for councils and local government owned assets including museums, theatres and music venues. Organisations and sites including museums; archives; historical areas; designed landscapes; buildings; monuments and industrial transport also received support.
Asked by: David Evennett (Conservative - Bexleyheath and Crayford)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, how much funding from the Culture Recovery Fund has been allocated to the culture and heritage sector in (a) Greater London, (b) Bexley Borough and (c) Bexleyheath and Crayford constituency since that fund was established.
Answered by Nigel Huddleston
As of 11 December, £1bn from the Culture Recovery Fund has been distributed to over 3000 organisations across England.
Across the arts and heritage recovery grants, repayable finance, and capital awards so far, support for London (including Greater London) was approximately £300m
Across the arts and heritage recovery grants, support for Bexley Borough was approximately £340,000.
Across the arts and heritage recovery grants, support for Bexleyheath and Crayford constituency was approximately £310,000.
This included funding for councils and local government owned assets including museums, theatres and music venues. This also included funding for organisations and sites including museums; archives; historical areas; designed landscapes; buildings; monuments and industrial transport.
Asked by: David Evennett (Conservative - Bexleyheath and Crayford)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what assessment his Department has made of the effect of Government support to the live events industry on that industry.
Answered by Caroline Dinenage
No estimate is available currently for this but we will analyse the impact of the funds we have already announced. We are continuing to meet with live events stakeholders to provide support and guidance for venues to re-open and stage live events.
The Secretary of State announced an unprecedented £1.57 billion support package for the cultural sector which will benefit the live events sector by providing support to venues and many other cultural organisations to stay open and continue operating. On Monday 12 October, the Government announced an investment of £257 million in 1,385 organisations including venues, festivals, theatres, museums and cultural organisations, through the first tranche of Culture Recovery Fund: Grants programme, administered by the Arts Council. Over the coming weeks further Culture Recovery Fund awards will be announced - including round two of Grants under £1 million, grants over £1 million, and the Capital Kickstart and Repayable Finance programmes.
The Chancellor has announced the Winter Economy Plan to protect jobs and support businesses over the coming months, once the existing Self-Employment Income Support Scheme and Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme come to end. We are also offering businesses who face a drop in demand for their services and possible cash flow issues generous terms for the repayment of deferred taxes and government-backed loans.
We continue to engage with the sector to discuss the on-going challenges facing the industry.
Asked by: David Evennett (Conservative - Bexleyheath and Crayford)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what assessment his Department has made on the effect of government support to the hospitality sector on that sector.
Answered by Nigel Huddleston
My Department is in regular contact with Her Majesty’s Treasury to closely assess the impact of COVID-related support measures on the hospitality industry.
Hospitality businesses can continue to make use of the Government’s comprehensive support package - including the various loan schemes, a significant cut to VAT until the end of March, plus business rates relief for eligible hospitality, retail and leisure businesses.
When it launches in November, the Jobs Support Scheme (JSS) will help protect jobs within businesses facing lower demand due to COVID-19. We have also announced an expansion of the JSS to provide temporary support to businesses whose premises have been legally required to close as a direct result of Covid-19 restrictions
We continue to engage with stakeholders through the Visitor Economy Working Group to assess how we can most effectively support employers and employees within the hospitality sector.
Asked by: David Evennett (Conservative - Bexleyheath and Crayford)
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 encourage an increase the number of annual visits to historic houses throughout the UK.
Answered by Jeremy Wright
In 2018 historic properties responded to a VisitEngland survey of visitor attractions in England, indicating that there were approximately 70m visits to historic properties in 2017. Of these, the most popular types of historic attractions were historic houses, making up 43% of all heritage visits. VisitBritain use historic houses in their promotional material to promote our heritage abroad and incentivise visits to the UK.
VisitEngland also administer the £40m Discover England Fund which helps create innovative, bookable tourism product across England and markets them at international audiences. Products which focus on historic houses include the England’s Originals project, The Great West Way and the Explorers Road.
In addition, Historic Houses work in partnership with the GREAT campaign. The GREAT Campaign use images and events throughout their international marketing campaigns to stimulate tourism and project a positive image of British national heritage abroad.
Asked by: David Evennett (Conservative - Bexleyheath and Crayford)
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 help increase tourism to the UK after the UK leaves the EU.
Answered by Jeremy Wright
We are working with the tourism and hospitality sector to ensure it remains globally competitive.
Whether the UK leaves with a deal or not, the UK and the EU have proposed reciprocal visa-free travel arrangements to enable UK and EU citizens to continue to travel freely for tourism in the future. The Government has also confirmed that EU nationals can continue to travel on a national ID card until December 2020 and use e-gates when travelling on a passport. The Home Office has also announced this week that the USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Singapore and South Korea have been added to the list of countries whose nationals are eligible to use ePassport gates to enter the UK.
For those visitors who need a visa, the UK Visas and Immigration service (UKVI) aims to deliver a world-class customer experience that is competitive, flexible and accessible. UKVI have a number of projects underway that will deliver significant customer service improvements this year.
The proposed tourism sector deal, which is in formal negotiations, has a strong focus on competitiveness through boosting connectivity (both transport connections and digital connectivity) and working with destinations to build quality tourism products that meet visitors needs and expectations. A key focus is also making the sector more attractive to UK nationals through investment in skills, career development and retention policies.
VisitBritain are also working hard to promote the UK as a destination, using targeted marketing in Europe, increasing work with partnerships such as EasyJet and increasing press engagement in the tourism market, featuring activities for visitors to do in the UK this summer.
Asked by: David Evennett (Conservative - Bexleyheath and Crayford)
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 encourage children to participate in a range of sports outside of the school day.
Answered by Mims Davies - Shadow Minister (Women)
We want all young people to be healthy and active. That is why Sport England is investing over £194 million (between 2016-21) into projects focusing on improving children’s engagement in and enjoyment of physical activity. This includes £40m for projects which support families with children to get active together, and continued investment into satellite clubs.
We are also working with the Departments for Education and Health and Social Care on a new cross-government action plan, to get kids active in and out of school, which will be published in spring.
Asked by: David Evennett (Conservative - Bexleyheath and Crayford)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what recent steps his Department has taken to support people with a gambling addiction.
Answered by Mims Davies - Shadow Minister (Women)
We published the Review of Gambling Machines and Social Responsibility Measures in May. This set out measures to strengthen protections around gaming machines, including cutting the maximum stake on B2 machine from £100 to £2, online gambling, and gambling advertising. It also set out action on treatment and support for those who experience harm, including initiatives to improve the evidence on treatment needs and effectiveness, expand access to existing services and strengthen the voluntary system for funding support. Government has also encouraged industry to increase its funding for third sector initiatives to support people with a gambling addiction.
GambleAware, an independent charity, commissions treatment services, including the National Gambling Helpline and counselling services, specialist treatment delivered by the NHS National Problem Gambling Clinic and the Gordon Moody Association. GambleAware aims to triple access to its treatment services across the country and recently announced the establishment of a further specialist NHS clinic and Problem Gambling Support team in Leeds.
As demonstrated by the report Gambling Behaviour in Great Britain 2016, which is based on the combined Health Surveys, there is an association between mental health and problem or risky gambling behaviour. Some problem gamblers will therefore access support through services for other addictions and mental health conditions. The National Institute for Care and Health Excellence (NICE) has been commissioned to explore developing a guideline on non-chemical addictions, including gambling, which would give support to clinicians seeking to support problem gamblers.
Asked by: David Evennett (Conservative - Bexleyheath and Crayford)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what assessment his Department has made of the economic effect of broadband blackspots in (a) the UK (b) England (c) London and (d) the London Borough of Bexley.
Answered by Margot James
The Department has not conducted a specific analysis of the economic impact of poor broadband connectivity in the UK, England, London, or the London Borough of Bexley.
We have published a further independent evaluation of the Department’s superfast programme, which has provided superfast broadband access to over 4.85 million homes and businesses across the UK, which can be found here https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/evaluation-of-the-economic-impact-and-public-value-of-the-superfast-broadband-programme.
The Department has analysed the impacts of superfast broadband, including the economic impact. Our 2013 UK Broadband Impact Study and an evaluation in 2015 of the UK's National Broadband Scheme are both available at www.gov.uk/government/publications/uk-broadband-impact-study--2 and www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-uks-national-broadband-scheme-an-independent-evaluation.