Asked by: James Davies (Conservative - Vale of Clwyd)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what the (a) number and (b) value of grants made to grassroots sport was in (i) Wales and (ii) North Wales since 2010.
Answered by Stuart Andrew - Shadow Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport
Sport is typically a devolved matter. Support for grassroots sport and physical activity in Wales is therefore generally the responsibility of the Welsh Sports Councils and the Welsh Government.
However, using financial assistance powers created in the UK Internal Market Act 2020, the UK Government is investing over £400 million between 2021 and 2025 into a wide range of grassroots sports facilities across the UK, to provide people with much-needed spaces to get active and to level up communities.
In Wales, this includes:
Multi-Sport Grassroots Facilities Programme: Over £6.6 million into over 110 sites funded directly from the Multi-Sport Grassroots Facilities Programme since 2021. This includes over £1.5 million into the North Wales region, with 32 sites funded directly. All funded sites are listed on gov.uk.
Park Tennis Court Programme: Over £800,000 into 89 park tennis courts across 36 parks, renovated directly as a result of investment from the Park Tennis Court Programme. Nearly £15,000 has been invested into the North Wales region, with 11 park tennis courts across 5 parks renovated directly as a result of investment from the Park Tennis Court Programme. All completed park tennis courts are listed on gov.uk.
Asked by: James Davies (Conservative - Vale of Clwyd)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, how many grants have been made through the Park Tennis Court Programme in (a) Wales and (b) the UK since 2010.
Answered by Stuart Andrew - Shadow Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport
As part of the Park Tennis Court Programme, the UK Government and Lawn Tennis Association are investing £30 million between 2022-2024 to deliver improvements to up to 3,000 park tennis courts across Great Britain. The renovation works include the installation of digital access gates, re-surfacing, and re-painting - all of which aim to improve access and increase participation in tennis, whilst prioritising the courts in the most deprived communities.
Since the start of the programme, over £800,000 has been invested in Wales with 89 tennis courts across 36 parks renovated directly as a result of investment from the Programme. A further £1.2 million will be invested in park tennis courts across Wales before autumn 2024, meaning in total the programme is forecast to invest £2 million renovating 178 courts across 65 parks in Wales. Completed tennis courts are listed on gov.uk here:
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/park-tennis-court-programme-completed-projects
More broadly, sport is a devolved matter and therefore support for grassroots sport and physical activity in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland is generally the responsibility of the respective Home Nations Sports Councils and devolved governments. In England, we provide the majority of support for grassroots sport through our arm’s length body, Sport England - which receives £323 million in Exchequer and Lottery funding each year. Prior to the Park Tennis Court Programme, from 2010 - 2022, Sport England provided over £59 million of support to programmes to facilitate participation in grassroots tennis in England. Sport England publishes data on all grant recipients as part of its register of grants awards, which is updated on a quarterly basis with awards dating back to 2009. Please find the information here,
Asked by: James Davies (Conservative - Vale of Clwyd)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what the (a) value of grants made and (b) number of recipients was of the (i) National Lottery Heritage Fund’s grant programme and (ii) Heritage Emergency Fund in (A) the UK and (B) Wales since 2010.
Answered by Julia Lopez
In total, through all Lottery-funded programmes since 2010, the National Lottery Heritage Fund has awarded a total of £3,923,036,950 to recipients across the UK.
In the financial year 2020–21, The National Lottery Heritage Fund made 956 awards across the UK, totalling £49,988,885, through the Heritage Emergency Fund, part of a package of support provided to the heritage sector as a response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
In total, since 2010, the National Lottery Heritage Fund awards across all Lottery funded programmes has awarded a total of £221,956,000 to recipients in Wales.
In the financial year 2020–21, The National Lottery Heritage Fund made 53 awards in Wales, totalling £2,744,200, through the Heritage Emergency Fund, part of a package of support provided to the heritage sector as a response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Asked by: James Davies (Conservative - Vale of Clwyd)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, if she will make an estimate of the number of days that Avanti staff worked on previously booked rest days between June and August 2022.
Answered by Kevin Foster
The Department does not hold this information across all staff grades at Avanti West Coast (AWC).
On 30 July 2022, AWC experienced a near total cessation of drivers volunteering to work passenger trains on rest days. As noted by Avanti in its stakeholder bulletin of 8 August, it had regularly and reliably seen approximately 400 services a week worked by drivers on their rest day. This figure fell suddenly by 90 per cent.
Daily driver rest day working has remained minimal since then.
Asked by: James Davies (Conservative - Vale of Clwyd)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, whether her Department holds data on how many and what proportion of staff have regularly worked on their rest days per quarter over the last three years in (a) each train operating company and (b) Avanti.
Answered by Kevin Foster
It is the responsibility of train operating companies to ensure they have adequate staffing to resource their operations.
Asked by: James Davies (Conservative - Vale of Clwyd)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what recent assessment his Department has made of the value for money of subsidies given for the use of biomass for electricity generation.
Answered by Graham Stuart
The Government has in place conditions to ensure generators only receive subsidies for biomass that complies with the UK’s strict sustainability criteria. In 2021, biomass made up 12.9% of total electricity generation.
Asked by: James Davies (Conservative - Vale of Clwyd)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what assessment his Department has made of the potential impact of biomass used for energy generation on (a) biodiversity and (b) the UK’s overseas land footprint.
Answered by Graham Stuart
The UK sustainability criteria are some of the most stringent in the world and include requirements under the land criteria and GHG (greenhouse gas) criteria. The land criteria take into account a range of social, economic, and environmental issues, including protecting biodiversity and land use rights.
Where biomass is sourced from forests, the land criteria include requirements around regeneration rates and sustainable harvesting in the sourcing regions, requiring that the carbon stock of the forest from which biomass is derived is not decreased.
Asked by: James Davies (Conservative - Vale of Clwyd)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many (a) phase I, (b) phase II and (c) phase III clinical trials for dementia have been hosted in Wales in each of the last 10 years.
Answered by Robert Jenrick - Shadow Secretary of State for Justice
The information requested on clinical trials hosted in Wales and Scotland is not held centrally. A table showing the number of phase one, two and three clinical trials supported by the National Institute for Health and Social Care Research Clinical Research Network in England for dementia from 2012/13 to 2021/22 is attached.
Asked by: James Davies (Conservative - Vale of Clwyd)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will make it his policy to extend the eligibility for the spring booster vaccine to people with motor neurone disease who are clinically extremely vulnerable to covid-19.
Answered by Maggie Throup
On 21 February 2022, the Government accepted advice from the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) to offer a COVID-19 booster vaccination to specific vulnerable groups. This included residents in care homes for older adults; adults aged 75 years old and over; and individuals aged 12 years old or over who are immunosuppressed.
On 15 July 2022, the Government accepted advice from the JCVI to offer a booster vaccination to additional vulnerable patient cohorts in autumn 2022. This includes all clinical risk groups and those with motor neurone disease.
Asked by: James Davies (Conservative - Vale of Clwyd)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps NHS England is taking to ensure standardised approaches to developing radioligand therapy services across the country.
Answered by James Morris
NHS England is appointing a new National Specialty Advisor for Nuclear Medicine to ensure the opportunities for radioligand therapies approved by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence are realised.