Market Towns: Cultural Heritage
John Slinger Excerpts(6 days, 2 hours ago)
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John Slinger (Rugby) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Jeremy. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Southend East and Rochford (Mr Alaba) on securing this important debate. I represent the town of Rugby, which has perhaps the ultimate origin story in a sport that carries our name across the globe, but our great town is about much more than the sport. I will take a little canter around it, as I did when I joined Ken on the volunteer-run walking tour of Rugby.
Rugby has so much to offer. To take the music scene, for example, we have the Rococo players, the Bilton brass band, Boldfest in Newbold, Rugbylele—our own ukulele band—as well as great bands such as Courthouse, singer-songwriter Jessie May and much more. In the arts sector, we have Art at the Alex, a former pub, which is now a community-run arts organisation. We also have a wonderful art gallery and museum that currently has a fantastic exhibition from the Ingram Collection, and also runs a superb exhibition on a history of Rugby in 50 objects—I thoroughly recommend it to anyone who wants to come and have a look.
Rugby has a wonderful literary heritage, including being the birthplace of Rupert Brooke. It has a fantastic, vibrant sports sector, and Rugby borough women’s football team narrowly lost, unfortunately, to Liverpool in the FA cup recently. It has a wonderful industrial heritage, with British Thomson-Houston and Willans Works factories covering aviation, maritime and automotive. The inventor of helium was born in Rugby, holography was invented there, and Sir Frank Whittle first tested the jet engine in Rugby. We had the incredible radio masts at Hillmorton. Today, GE Vernova provides high-tech jobs.
This debate is about the future. There is such huge potential in small market towns that needs to be unleashed, so I wonder whether the Minister might consider a campaign to encourage people to visit small market towns such as Rugby. If we go to the VisitBritain website, we see a lot about cities, but we do not see much about towns. All too often, smaller towns are forgotten by officialdom—they are not forgotten by politicians, as everyone can see from this debate, but they are often forgotten by officialdom. We must invest in our small towns, our people and the potential. Cultural heritage is about the past, the present and, most importantly, the future.
Youth Provision: Universal and Targeted Support
John Slinger Excerpts(3 weeks, 6 days ago)
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Stephanie Peacock
I am really sorry, but in the interests of time, I will make some progress.
Those stakeholders experience youth work at first hand, and it is vital we hear from them about the challenges that young people and the sector face, as we build the national youth strategy. A vital part of co-producing the strategy will take place through our youth advisory board and the expert advisory group, both of which will be involved throughout the strategy development process. They will provide expertise, challenge and a diverse range of perspectives. I joined the first meeting of the expert advisory group, and I look forward to dropping into a meeting of the youth advisory group soon. Its members have already provided a wealth of valuable information, which will of course inform our thinking.
In addition to listening to the insights from those groups, we are engaging in a number of other ways to ensure that all young people have the opportunity to have their say—particularly those whose voices are too often excluded. We will work closely with expert organisations, which will lead a range of engagement activities with young people. That includes a wide-reaching national survey asking about young people’s needs, challenges and priorities, which we will launch very soon. The survey is currently being finalised in conjunction with our expert groups. I do not want to pre-empt what it will include, but I would expect it to cover a wide range of issues, such as what young people’s current needs are, whether they have access to safe spaces, what they would like to have access to outside of school, and much more. The expert organisations will also be conducting in-depth focus groups and innovative events with young people to develop solutions.
Stephanie Peacock
I am really sorry, but in the interests of time, I will make more progress.
We will provide more information to MPs within the next month regarding the development of the national youth strategy. That will include an engagement toolkit so that MPs can run their own workshops and discussions with young people or share this toolkit with organisations in their constituencies that work with young people. We will also share information regarding the national survey once it is live. It is vital that we reach young people from all parts of the country, and we will be asking MPs to help with that.
As I have set out, the national youth strategy is being led by my Department. However, increasing access to universal and targeted youth provision is a shared mission across Government. Therefore, we want the national youth strategy to co-ordinate the work of Government, helping to ensure that all young people from every corner of the country have access to the services they need.
My hon. Friend the Member for Huddersfield specifically raised the young futures hubs, which will be placed in local communities to improve the way that young people can access opportunities. My Department is working closely with the Department for Education, the Home Office and others to take that forward. Tomorrow, the Under-Secretary of State for Education, my hon. Friend for Lewisham East (Janet Daby), and I will co-chair the first meeting of the young futures ministerial group, which sits under the safer streets mission board. That will be the first step towards delivering a new cross-Government approach to supporting young people.
Today’s debate has focused on young people’s access to universal and targeted provision. This Government are committed to delivering on our national missions, and young people and their access to the opportunities they deserve form a vital part of that. We have an opportunity, through the national youth strategy, to work collectively, and across Government, to set a new direction for young people, listening to their needs and responding through universal and targeted youth provision.
The debate has been incredibly popular, and I am sorry I have not been able to take all the interventions. This has been a great opportunity to showcase the role of youth provision and the difference it makes to young people, and I look forward to seeing what we do together. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Huddersfield once again on securing this important debate.
Question put and agreed to.
Gambling Harms
John Slinger Excerpts(1 month ago)
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Alex Ballinger
I agree with my hon. Friend and will come on to the statutory levy in a moment. It is particularly important that that fund is used not just for treatment, but for prevention; I will talk a little bit about that as I get through my speech. Last year, the Gordon Moody charity received 12,000 applications for its six-week programme. That clear spike in gambling harm goes hand in hand with the increase in online gambling.
As people turned to online gambling during the pandemic, they were often engaged in the most harmful forms of gambling. Online slots, for example, have all the characteristics associated with the most problematic types of gambling: the high speed of play, making it easier to quickly and repeatedly receive the psychological hit and potentially rack up huge debts; the ease of availability, allowing people 24/7 access from home through their smartphone, where they are potentially at their most vulnerable, and relentless marketing, with advertising ever present on social media and videogames, as well as in offers through email.
John Slinger (Rugby) (Lab)
My hon. Friend is speaking very movingly about these tragic cases. I was also at the Gambling with Lives annual forum, and I met Lesley Wade, who tragically lost her son Aaron to gambling-related harm. He was 30, with a bright future ahead of him. His brother lives in my constituency. This insidious industry constantly offered Aaron perks and freebies, such as so-called VIP clubs, free tickets to football matches and hospitality. These companies are like parasites preying on people. Does my hon. Friend agree that the vast pay packets of the CEOs of some of the companies in this pernicious industry are not worth a single life, and that we must do all we can to reduce the number of lives lost?