Asked by: Fabian Hamilton (Labour - Leeds North East)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, whether she is taking steps with academic publishers to help ensure that they are not influenced by foreign powers that seek to (a) censor and (b) otherwise restrict the dissemination of research.
Answered by Chris Bryant - Minister of State (Department for Culture, Media and Sport)
The Government recognises concerns about overseas interference in our higher education sector, including those related to overseas funding. The Government works with the Office for Students, and other stakeholders to ensure that overseas funding does not interfere with academic freedom.
Asked by: Fabian Hamilton (Labour - Leeds North East)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, whether she has had discussions with Lambeth Council on the potential closure of Brixton Academy.
Answered by John Whittingdale
The details of the O2 Brixton Academy incident which took place on 15 December 2022 are being examined and investigations are ongoing. Licensing decisions for the O2 Brixton Academy are a matter for Lambeth Council. The government is grateful to the Metropolitan Police, Lambeth Council and the Security Industry Authority (SIA) for the work they are doing in this space. We will continue to carefully monitor the investigation’s progress, and want to ensure that the events of 15 December 2022 are not repeated.
Asked by: Fabian Hamilton (Labour - Leeds North East)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what discussions she has had with the Premier League on reports of antisemitic chanting and acts at football matches.
Answered by Stuart Andrew - Shadow Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport
The Government has always been clear that racism, including any form of anti semitism, has no place in football, sport, or society at large. This is why the government and its arm’s length bodies, Sport England and UK Sport, have worked closely with football authorities and the sector to ensure there is continued action to tackle all forms of racism at football matches.
This includes actions targeted at and around football grounds, such as improving reporting systems, providing better training and support for referees and stewards, and improving the quality of CCTV around stadia.
I will continue to meet with the Premier League and other football authorities to ensure that tackling all forms of racism remains a priority.
Asked by: Fabian Hamilton (Labour - Leeds North East)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what assessment she has made of the adequacy of the annual sales limit placed on charity lotteries.
Answered by Paul Scully
The society lottery annual sales limit was last increased in July 2020 as part of a wider package of changes to society lottery limits.
DCMS published a review of the impact of these in March 2022. 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.
My officials will continue working with the Gambling Commission, as part of its regulatory role, to keep the sector under review.
Asked by: Fabian Hamilton (Labour - Leeds North East)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, whether she has plans to review the cap on how much charity lotteries can donate to causes per year.
Answered by Stuart Andrew - Shadow Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport
Large society lotteries raised a record £402 million for good causes between April 2020 and March 2021. Currently, society lotteries must return a minimum of 20% of ticket sales revenue per draw to good causes, but there is no cap on annual donations. The current average return to good causes stands at 46%.
Asked by: Fabian Hamilton (Labour - Leeds North East)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, in the context of the recent success of UK cyclists at the 2022 UCI Cycli-cross World Championships, whether her Department (a) has provided and (b) plans to provide support to enable a round of the UCI Cyclo-cross World Cup to take place in the UK in the near future.
Answered by Nigel Huddleston
The government, through UK Sport, provides funding towards the staging of major sporting events in line with the Gold Framework guidance on UK-level support available when bidding for and staging major sporting events.
Given that Cyclo-cross is currently not an Olympic or Paralympic discipline, it is unlikely to be eligible for this type of funding (unless taking place as part of an event covering multiple cycling disciplines).
However, UK Sport does have regular contact with British Cycling about their event-hosting ambitions and is supporting the staging of the combined UCI World Championships in Glasgow in 2023
Asked by: Fabian Hamilton (Labour - Leeds North East)
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 ensure that covid-19 related funding allocated to cultural organisations is distributed equitably.
Answered by Caroline Dinenage
Rigorous criteria have rightly been applied to all applications made to the Culture Recovery Fund (CRF), to ensure we are supporting organisations that have national and local importance, and those that play a key role in the levelling up agenda. Additionally, decisions on larger grant payments have been scrutinised by the independent CRF Board. The Board also takes decisions on the repayable finance element of the Fund. This adds additional assurance that funding decisions are fair and unbiased.
To date over £500 million has been allocated to over 2,000 organisations across England, and 70 per cent of the latest round of Culture Recovery funding was awarded outside London.