Jonathan Gullis

The Department works closely with the ceramics industry to support its efforts to decarbonise.

Manufacturers of ceramics will soon be able to access the Industrial Energy Transformation Fund, a scheme to help businesses with high energy use to reduce their emissions and energy costs by investing in clean technologies. The first phase will open for applications this summer, supporting industrial energy efficiency projects, as well as feasibility and engineering studies.

Ceramics firms can also access the Industrial Heat Recovery Support Programme. This grant funding programme helps manufacturing businesses to identify and invest in opportunities for recovering and reusing industrial waste heat. A total of £18 million is available to support industrial heat recovery projects across England and Wales.

Investors in People is responsible for awarding the Investors in People standard. Since 1 February 2017 this has been a Community Interest Company, which is not part of the Government.

The Government is working tirelessly to protect our people and businesses, during and after the COVID-19 outbreak, including those in the ceramics industry.

The Government has taken unprecedented action to support businesses, which may be of benefit to the ceramics industry. Measures include:

- £330 billion worth of Government-backed loans through the Coronavirus Large Business Interruption Loan Scheme, the Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme, and the newly launched Bounce Back Loans Scheme.

- VAT deferment for firms for the next quarter.

- The Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme, where employers are eligible to apply for a Government grant of 80% of their workers’ salaries, up to £2500 per month.

Locally, the Government has supported and invested in 38 Growth Hubs across England. Growth Hubs provide businesses with free advice, and improve awareness and coordination to increase the take-up of the business support schemes that are available.

In the financial year 2018/19, the Stoke-on-Trent & Staffordshire Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP) reached over 5000 business individuals. This included supporting 2231 businesses with face-to-face support, of which 107 received high-intensity support. The LEP has also helped 491 individuals to start a new business.

The Government has taken unprecedented action to support businesses, including those within the ceramics sector, during the outbreak of COVID-19. This includes changes to Statutory Sick Pay, the opportunity to defer VAT and/or income tax for 3 months, as well as regulatory easements to help businesses manage the impact of the virus.

In addition, the Job Retention Scheme offers a Government grant to enable companies to furlough their staff from 1 March 2020 and will run until the end of June 2020..

The Coronovirus Business Interruption Loan Schemes for businesses of all sizes, alongside the Covid Corporate Financing Facility, also provides businesses with the opportunity to access Government-backed financing.

These measures are providing unprecedented support to businesses across the country, and the Department is in daily contact with the ceramics sector to offer further advice and support.

Consumer law requires traders to provide consumers with information on the main characteristics of goods. This would not normally require the inclusion of origin markings for ceramic products.

Where goods have a country of origin mark, there is a requirement for it to be accurate and not misleading. The Government does not have plans to change these rules.

Support for the Arts for Local Authorities in Round 1 was £23,376,244. Support for Heritage for Local Authorities in Round 1 was £1,435,900. This included funding for councils and local government owned assets including museums, theatres, music venues, archives; designed landscapes; buildings; monuments and industrial transport.

In addition to the arts and heritage emergency recovery grants, The CRF Heritage Stimulus Fund ‘Covid-19 Emergency Heritage at Risk’ stream granted £89,870.

Under the CRF Heritage Stimulus Fund ‘Repair Grants for Heritage at Risk Fund’ Lincoln City Council received £1,086,629 for Lincoln Castle and Blackpool City Council received £764,000 for the Blackpool Tower Ballroom.

To date more than £62 million of VAT on sanitary products has gone to good causes supporting women and girls, through the Tampon Tax Fund. The successful applicants to the 20/21 round of the Tampon Tax Fund were announced on gov.uk on Friday 27th November 2020 and funding will be distributed in due course.

The Government recognises the huge contribution the film and wider creative industries sectors make, not only to the economy and international reputation of the United Kingdom, but also to the wellbeing and enrichment of its people.

Regarding the film sector specifically, the Government has worked alongside industry to quickly develop guidance allowing for the restart of production activity and has continued to support the sector in applying this guidance. In addition, in July 2020 the Government granted quarantine exemption for cast and crew of eligible film and high-end television productions, bespoke action which has helped ensure that significant inward investment projects have still been able to operate safely in the UK.

Since then, the Government has also announced the Film and TV Production Restart Scheme, a £500m scheme to help TV and film productions get back up and running across the country, despite a lack of available insurance for Covid-19 losses. It is a temporary scheme that will compensate eligible productions for costs incurred due to delays or abandonment of productions because of Covid-19.

As you will know, in March, the Government implemented an unprecedented package to support businesses, charitable organisations, workers and the self-employed through the Coronavirus crisis. The Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme, Self-Employed Income Support Scheme, Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme (CBILS) and business rates relief in particular are providing support to organisations across these sectors.

The extension of the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme was announced in May, which was extended to the end of July, with more flexibility being introduced from August to October.

The Self-Employment Income Support Scheme has also been extended with applications opening in August for a second and final grant. The grant will operate in the same way as the existing scheme with self-employed workers eligible for a single payment covering three months, at a level of 70% of average monthly earnings up to a maximum of £6,570 (i.e. down from 80% and a maximum of £7,500).

The Secretary of State provided a major £1.57 billion support package for key cultural organisations to help them through the coronavirus pandemic. This funding will provide targeted support to organisations across a range of cultural and creative sectors.

We are committed to continuing to work with the film and creatives industries sectors to understand the difficulties they face and help them access support through these challenging times and through recovery.

Festival UK 2022 is a major nationwide festival of creativity and innovation. It will deliver a programme of ten ground-breaking large-scale new commissions with the ambition of bringing people together and promoting the UK’s creativity to the world.

The programme, led by Martin Green, Chief Creative Officer, recently launched a £3m R&D Project. This is an open call for creative teams of organisations and individuals from across Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Maths to come together to receive funding to develop new ideas for 2022.

I encourage people and organisations in Stoke-on-Trent and Staffordshire to get involved by registering on the Festival website (www.festival2022.uk)

Arts Council England, British Film Institute, Historic England and National Lottery Heritage Fund are considering applications for grant funding against agreed criteria, as set out in the published guidance.

Our priority is to ensure that organisations get the funding they need as swiftly as possible and we expect some funding decisions to be made this month with announcements soon after that. A list of the recipients of the Arts Council’s Emergency Grassroots Music Venues Fund can be found here:

https://www.artscouncil.org.uk/document/emergency-grassroots-music-venues-fund-recipients

This funding will provide a lifeline for thousands of organisations facing imminent challenges and will be available this financial year.

The Government is absolutely clear that there is no place for hateful content online. In April 2019 the Government published the Online Harms White Paper setting out our plans for world-leading legislation to make the UK the safest place to be online. In February 2020 the Initial Government Response to the consultation was published indicating the direction of travel for the legislation. The Full Government Response detailing proposals for the legislation will be published later this year.

Government recognises that incidents of online hate crime are becoming more prevalent and we are taking action to tackle the issue. We allocated £200,000 for a new national police hub to tackle the emerging threat of online hate crimes which went live in January 2018.?We have been supporting initiatives specific to tackling islamophobia and anti-semitism. We have committed £100,000 for the Antisemitism Policy Trust to support their work to tackle online antisemitism,?and acknowledge this as a growing area of concern. We have also supported Tell MAMA?(Measuring Anti-Muslim Attacks)?with?just over £2.8m between 2016 and 2020 to monitor and combat anti-Muslim hatred (including online).

Good progress has been made in the Stoke-on-Trent North constituency, with over 99% of premises in the constituency able to access superfast broadband. This is up from 73% in March 2013. Gigabit-capable coverage in the constituency stands at 8%.

There is an active Local Full Fibre Network Project (LFFN) taking place in Stoke-on-Trent with around 110km of new fibre network being built with the aim of creating 100% city wide full fibre connectivity. DCMS have invested over £9 million into this project with a supplier also contributing. There is a video which gives an overview of this Government funded project in Stoke here: https://vimeo.com/368247591

On top of that, 25 premises took advantage of our recently closed Gigabit Voucher Scheme in the area.

For those premises that are still struggling with slow speeds, there are a number of options available to them. DCMS runs another voucher scheme that can be used by rural communities across the UK to reduce the cost of installing gigabit-capable connectivity. This provides a voucher worth up to £3,500 for eligible small businesses and vouchers worth up to £1,500 for residents. However, Staffordshire County Council have recently committed to “top up” these voucher values investing £1m of funding in addition to eligible funding from the Rural Gigabit Connectivity Programme. This means that in rural areas of Staffordshire, residents can get a voucher of up to £3,500 and small businesses a voucher of up to £5,500.

The Culture Recovery Fund will provide £1.57 billion of targeted support to critical cultural, arts and heritage organisations to help them survive and recover through the coronavirus pandemic. Funding will be prioritised to institutions of national and international significance and those that are crucial to levelling up places and communities, including smaller organisations and cultural venues that are at the centre of their communities.

Key organisations in England have been able to apply for grants or loans. The relevant DCMS Arms Length Bodies (Arts Council England, Historic England, National Lottery Heritage Fund and the British Film Institute) will make funding decisions for grants against the published criteria agreed by Ministers. In addition, the independent Culture Recovery Board will make decisions regarding applications for loans, and provide additional assurance over the largest grants.

Our priority is to ensure that organisations get the funding they need as swiftly as possible and we expect some funding decisions to be made this month with announcements soon after that.

The Underground live music venue in Stoke on Trent has already benefited from the £3.36 million Emergency Grassroot Music Venues Fund which has been shared among 135 venues across England who applied for support to survive the imminent risk of collapse caused by the coronavirus pandemic.

DCMS officials are rapidly assessing how the impact of Covid-19 will affect the delivery of the Youth Investment Fund in 2020-21 and beyond.

We hope to provide further information during the summer.

My department is aware that Covid-19 has had an unprecedented impact on young people, in particular those deemed at risk. DCMS has been working with departments across Whitehall, including the Department of Education and the Home Office, to ensure at risk young people are supported during and post Covid-19.

Youth centres are able to re-open from 4th July, to ensure at risk young people have access to support, and opportunities to engage in safe activities. Youth workers are already supporting vulnerable young people through detached youth work, and we have supported the National Youth Agency to produce guidance for youth organisations on operating safely during Covid19.

This government will further support youth services with the new £500m Youth Investment Fund, designed to increase the capacity of youth services and the opportunities available to young people.

I am having regular discussions with sector and industry bodies to understand the full impact of COVID-19 on sport and how the government can best provide support. This includes a fortnightly meeting with sporting organisations including national governing bodies. My officials maintain daily contact with sporting organisations.

The Department remains committed to delivering Festival 2022 which will showcase the UK’s unique strengths in creativity and innovation, and celebrate our place in the world in the 21st century. The Festival is currently in its development phase and Martin Green (Chief Creative Officer) is leading work collaboratively with the devolved administrations. We expect Festival 2022 will offer opportunities for research, strategic and development work through the commissioning phase later this year.

The Government recognises the important role creative industries play in the UK by providing access to entertainment, culture and news during the COVID-19 pandemic.

To ensure we are assisting the sectors as effectively as possible, regular ministerially-chaired roundtables are held with business representative organisations (BROs) as well as trade associations within the creative industries. In addition, officials are in regular contact with stakeholders from all sectors.

To further support businesses and workers in the creative industries the Government has launched a number of schemes. For example, the Chancellor announced £330bn of guaranteed loans (equivalent to 15% of GDP) for supporting businesses to access finance. This support is delivered through two main schemes: the Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme, and the Coronavirus Corporate Financing Facility. More recently, the Government launched the Bounce Back Loan Scheme, which helps small and medium-sized businesses to borrow between £2,000 and up to 25% of their turnover during the coronavirus outbreak. For workers in the creative industries, the Government has sought to protect millions of jobs by introducing the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme. This has now been extended to the end of October, with new flexibility being introduced from August to get employees back to work and boost the economy. For those who are self-employed, the coronavirus self-employment income support scheme can provide grants, worth 80% of trading profits/partnership trading profits, up to a maximum of £2,500 per month.

Alongside these support measures, we continue to speak with HM Treasury colleagues to ensure that the full spectrum of government support reaches the UK's world-leading creative industries.

We are regularly engaging with tourism stakeholders and are feeding into cross-Government discussions on how we can safely reopen the tourism sector.

As part of the Government’s leisure and recreation taskforce, my Department has set up a Visitor Economy Working Group to specifically focus on the practicalities and guidelines for opening up the sector during the recovery period. We will issue further guidance shortly on our phased reopening approach, including which businesses could be covered in each phase and the timeframes involved.

The Government’s contingency planning with industry and considerable investment in superfast broadband has ensured that the UK’s broadband and mobile networks have stood up well to the increase in home working as a result of COVID-19

We are also ambitious to see further improvements in broadband and mobile coverage, including nationwide coverage of gigabit capable broadband, and are introducing a range of measures to deliver this ambition. The Telecommunications Infrastructure (Leasehold Property) Bill will make it easier for operators to deploy broadband in blocks of flats. In addition, in March, we announced that we would be legislating to mandate gigabit connectivity in new build homes, and that we will be investing £5 billion in bringing gigabit broadband to the hardest to reach areas of the UK.

The Government also announced on 9 March that it had agreed a £1 billion deal with the mobile network operators to deliver the Shared Rural Network. This will see operators collectively increase 4G mobile coverage throughout the UK to 95% by the end of 2025, underpinned by legally binding coverage commitments

In Stoke-on-Trent specifically, the Government has also provided £9.2 million to the City of Stoke-on-Trent for a Local Full Fibre Networks (LFFN) Wave 3 project. In partnership with VXFIBER, this project will develop a publicly owned and operated, open access and gigabit-capable, 60 mile long network with citywide coverage by spring 2021.

DCMS is engaging regularly with key youth organisations and colleagues in other government departments to understand the impact of Covid-19 on the provision of vital services for young people and options for addressing this.

Government has funded up to £7 million through the Youth Accelerator Fund, expanding existing successful projects delivering positive activities for young people, and to address urgent needs in the youth sector.

UK Youth has distributed over £1 million in small grants to support grassroots organisations to deliver extra sessions in youth clubs and increase positive activities for young people across the country. 5 grants have been awarded to organisations in Staffordshire totalling over £18,000.

This Government is also distributing £310 million via the National Lottery Community Fund to support the organisations in England most impacted by Covid-19. This is part of the wider Voluntary Community and Social Enterprise package to include organisations working with vulnerable people.

The government’s first annual report on tackling loneliness was published in January 2020. It highlighted the progress made so far across the country, including in the West Midlands.

The report highlighted the good work of the 126 projects supported through the £11.5m Building Connections Fund to bring people and communities together. 14 grants, totalling £1.2million, have been made to projects in the West Midlands. This includes grants made to Staffordshire Housing Association Limited to provide long-term social support to older people and to Saltbox to support older people in Stoke-on-Trent and the surrounding areas.

In addition, the Government has recently announced a plan to tackle feelings of loneliness and social isolation during the coronavirus outbreak and period of social distancing. The plan includes funding for loneliness organisations, a new #Let’sTalkLoneliness public campaign and a new ‘Tackling Loneliness Network’ convened by Government of high profile charities, businesses and public figures to help connect groups at risk of isolation.

The Department for Digital, Media, Culture and Sport is not aware of any discussions that have been had with charities in a) Stoke-on-Trent and b) Kidsgrove about applying to the 2020/21 round of the Tampon Tax Fund.

The Government is committed to delivering nationwide gigabit capable connectivity as soon as possible. Much progress has already been made, with full fibre coverage doubling in the past year to reach 10% of UK premises, according to the latest Ofcom figures.

This Government will continue to take action to remove barriers to network rollout and to ensure that those in the hardest to reach areas are not left behind. We have introduced legislation to make it easier for operators to deploy broadband in blocks of flats, will be legislating to mandate gigabit connectivity in new builds and will invest £5 billion of funding to support gigabit rollout in hard to reach areas.

Specifically in Staffordshire, the Government has already invested £9.6 million into better broadband. Superfast coverage is 98.9% across the area, compared to the UK average of 96%. The Government has also provided £9.2 million to the City of Stoke-on-Trent for a Local Full Fibre Networks (LFFN) Wave 3 project. In partnership with VXFIBER, this project will develop a publicly owned and operated, open access and gigabit-capable, 60 mile long network with citywide coverage by spring 2021.

My department is in contact with the Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government and its Cities and Local Growth Unit with regard to Stoke-on-Trent and Staffordshire’s Local Industrial Strategy. The Government is committed to delivering world-class digital infrastructure across the country, including 5G and encourages all Local Enterprise Partnerships to consider opportunities for digital infrastructure deployment with their plans.

Government has allocated up to £200m to build the business for 5G through its 5G Testbeds and Trials Programme. This has accelerated 5G deployment with over 80 UK towns and cities now receiving 5G coverage - including Stoke-on-Trent.

The Government recently announced further funding via the Programme, a £30 million competition - 5G Create. This is an open competition aiming to attract bids from a variety of industries where the UK has a competitive advantage, encouraging dynamic business models and opening up new opportunities and markets. This includes our creative industries such as film, TV and video games, but also our rich variety of technology businesses in diverse sectors such as energy, water, health and social care, logistics and more.

Chatterley Whitfield Colliery is one of the UK’s most important industrial heritage sites, and is deserving of a positive regeneration solution to protect it for future generations. The previous Heritage Minister recently visited the Chatterley Whitfield Colliery alongside representatives from Historic England and Stoke-on-Trent City Council to discuss the issues facing the site, and to seek to identify potential next steps and opportunities for its future.

The scale of the challenge presented by a site of this size and complexity is vast, but Government stands ready to further support Historic England and Stoke-on-Trent City Council in their ongoing conversations to find a long-term solution that will provide a sustainable future for Chatterley Whitfield.

Government's Sporting Future strategy emphasises the important role that facilities play in encouraging people of all ages and backgrounds to get more active.

Through Sport England, Government is investing over £120m into grassroots facilities across England between 2017-2021 to make sure that everyone is able to access high quality sports facilities, regardless of where they live.

So far, during their current investment period (2017-2021), Sport England has awarded over £12.5k to improve or refurbish sports facilities in Stoke on Trent North.

Sport England welcome applications from projects looking to take over an underused sports facility or one under threat of closure. More information is available on Sport England’s website: https://www.sportengland.org/how-we-can-help/our-funds/community-asset-fund