Oral Answers to Questions

Jo Stevens Excerpts

Thursday 4th June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Oliver Dowden]

I thank my hon. Friend for his question. He is absolutely right to highlight the huge role played by volunteers and, indeed, the wider third and voluntary sector, and I join him in marking Volunteers’ Week. One of the big things we have done is provide £750 million to support charities and, indeed, just a couple of weeks ago I announced the start of the coronavirus community support fund, which provides £200 million for small and medium-sized charities. That went live on 22 May.

[Jo Stevens (Cardiff Central) (Lab)]

Our valuable cultural sector is starting to collapse. It will be one of the last to reopen, and its desperate pleas for Government support have been ignored. Tens of thousands of workers excluded from the job retention scheme and the self-employed scheme have been completely ignored, but we then had a tiny glimmer of hope just over two weeks ago, when the commission for cultural recovery and renewal was announced, but since that date there has been silence. There is no information about participants in the working groups, no terms of reference, nothing on what has been or is being discussed and considered to help the sector, no timescales—nothing. This is yet another example of poor communication adding to the plummeting levels of trust and confidence in the Government. So, I ask the Secretary of State: why the complete lack of transparency?

[Oliver Dowden]

I do not really recognise the hon. Lady’s characterisation. First, we have announced the members of the overall cultural renewal taskforce, but the important thing is the groups that sit underneath it, which provide the specific guidance. I am happy to run through all those groups and write to the hon. Lady subsequently, but just to give her a flavour, they include one on recreation and leisure, one on tourism, one on sport and one on library services. The point of each of those is to provide the guidance to help us open as rapidly as possible, consistent with the public health guidance. That is why I was delighted that at the beginning of this week, we announced that high-end film and TV could resume. The hon. Lady is absolutely right to highlight the need to support the cultural sector. I have engaged extensively with people from across the cultural sector and we are working to see what we can do to support them.