Asked by: Gavin Williamson (Conservative - South Staffordshire)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what steps she is taking with Cabinet colleagues to help improve support for ex-footballers with chronic traumatic encephalopathy.
Answered by Stuart Andrew - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Culture, Media and Sport)
The safety, wellbeing and welfare of everyone taking part in sport is absolutely paramount. I welcome work by the football industry to protect players from harm and provide practical support to former players who develop neurodegenerative conditions. One example of this is the Professional Footballers’ Association’s Football Brain Health Fund, supported by the Premier League and announced in September 2023, which aims to assist former players and their families who have been impacted by dementia and other neurodegenerative conditions.
The Government continues to take the issue of head injuries very seriously. In December 2021 DCMS published its Command Paper report on concussion in sport; outlining the steps the government is undertaking to help reduce risks associated with head injuries by improving understanding, awareness, prevention and treatment of concussion in sport. As part of this, in April 2023 the Government announced the first UK concussion guidelines for grassroots sport, in conjunction with the Sport and Recreation Alliance. This guidance is intended to be a helpful tool in reducing the risks associated with concussion and marks an important step in making sport safer for thousands of people who enjoy sport at a grassroots level, as well as an aid to professional sports.
Further research on the links between health, dementia and contact sport is needed to better understand the issue. To that end, DCMS established a Sports Concussion Research Forum in July 2022 to identify key research questions that need answering in this important area.
The government remains committed to working with sports to build on the positive work that is already taking place to mitigate the causes and effects of concussion in sport.
Asked by: Gavin Williamson (Conservative - South Staffordshire)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what steps her Department is taking to prevent gambling companies contacting individuals who have excluded themselves from gambling platforms by (a) postal marketing and (b) other means.
Answered by Stuart Andrew - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Culture, Media and Sport)
As a condition of their Gambling Commission licences, all operators must offer self-exclusion procedures for customers, with multi-operator self-exclusion schemes in place for both online gambling (where all operators must be integrated with the GAMSTOP scheme) and land-based sectors.
As part of the self-exclusion process, licensees must take all reasonable steps to prevent marketing materials being sent to any self-excluded individual, including removing their details from any marketing database within two days of receiving notice of self-exclusion. If a customer has registered with GAMSTOP, all operators are expected to remove them from marketing lists. Operators who fail to comply with self-exclusion requirements are subject to enforcement action from the Gambling Commission.
Asked by: Gavin Williamson (Conservative - South Staffordshire)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what steps her Department is taking to help protect people who exclude themselves from gambling platforms.
Answered by Stuart Andrew - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Culture, Media and Sport)
As a condition of their Gambling Commission licences, all operators must offer self-exclusion procedures for customers, with multi-operator self-exclusion schemes in place for both online gambling (where all operators must be integrated with the GAMSTOP scheme) and land-based sectors.
As part of the self-exclusion process, licensees must take all reasonable steps to prevent marketing materials being sent to any self-excluded individual, including removing their details from any marketing database within two days of receiving notice of self-exclusion. If a customer has registered with GAMSTOP, all operators are expected to remove them from marketing lists. Operators who fail to comply with self-exclusion requirements are subject to enforcement action from the Gambling Commission.
Asked by: Gavin Williamson (Conservative - South Staffordshire)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, how much funding Arts Council England has provided per capita in (a) South Staffordshire, (b) Birmingham, (c) Kensington and (d) Chelsea in the financial year 2021-22.
Answered by Nigel Huddleston - Financial Secretary (HM Treasury)
Arts Council England (ACE) has advised that between 1 April 2021 and 31 March 2022 it provided the following funding: (a) South Staffordshire (Non-Metropolitan District) received a total of £38,500 investment representing £0.34 funding per capita; (b) Birmingham (Metropolitan District) received £33,173,995 investment representing £29.09 funding per capita; (c&d) Kensington and Chelsea (London Borough) received £6,398,309 investment representing £40.79 funding per capita.
These data are accurate at the time of writing, but are subject to change due to factors such as underspends, withdrawals, and other similar grant adjustments. The figures include both Lottery and Exchequer funding, including one-off grant schemes, such as the Culture Recovery Fund.
As part of building back more strongly, in February 2022, the government announced a series of measures to significantly increase and better distribute ACE’s funding, transforming the landscape for arts and culture to ensure that it benefits everyone. Additional funding announced at Spending Review 2021 for Arts Council England (£43.5 million) will be invested outside London in levelling up places. This means that access to arts and culture across the country will be transformed with plans to increase and better distribute funding for the sector in areas outside London by around £75 million by 2025.