Asked by: Julian Knight (Independent - Solihull)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, if she will make an assessment of the potential merits of taking steps to tackle the practice of museums marginally editing non-copyrighted media in order to charge people to use that media.
Answered by Julia Lopez - Minister of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
Museums operate independently from the Government, and are responsible for managing their own commercial activities, which can include maintaining databases of images and other media. It is for museums to determine appropriate terms and conditions, in accordance with their internal policies.
Depending on their operating models, different museums will adopt differing approaches to monetising their spaces and collections to reinvest in their public programmes, expanding their reach and impact.
Asked by: Julian Knight (Independent - Solihull)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, if she will provide additional funding for the remediation of buildings on the Historic England Heritage at Risk Register in the Borough of Solihull.
Answered by Julia Lopez - Minister of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
There are a number of avenues for funding available to historic buildings at risk. Historic England itself offers public funding for sites which are most in need of repair and which, without additional investment, would be at risk of deterioration. The National Lottery Heritage Fund will also factor the Heritage at Risk Register into its assessments of applications for its National Lottery Grants for Heritage.
Asked by: Julian Knight (Independent - Solihull)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what assessment she has made of the impact of her Department's Listed Places of Worship Grant Scheme on places of worship in the West Midlands.
Answered by Julia Lopez - Minister of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
The Listed Places of Worship Grant Scheme was established to provide grants towards VAT paid on repairs and maintenance to the nation's listed places of worship. A total of 727 claims have been paid out in the West Midlands, worth £2,935,543, since August 2022.
Asked by: Julian Knight (Independent - Solihull)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, how many black and white television licenses were issued by the Television Licensing Authority in each local authority area in 2023.
Answered by Julia Lopez - Minister of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
The BBC is responsible for the collection and enforcement of the licence fee, and the Government therefore does not hold information on this issue.
The BBC’s 2022/23 Annual Report and Accounts can be found here.
Asked by: Julian Knight (Independent - Solihull)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, how much her Department has spent on outside consultancy fees in the 2022-23 financial year.
Answered by John Whittingdale
The annual report and accounts 2022-23 (note 4.3), which covers the spend referenced, can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/dcms-annual-report-and-accounts-2022-to-2023
Asked by: Julian Knight (Independent - Solihull)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, whether she has had discussions with the Television Licensing Authority on the potential merits of expanding payment exemptions for the television licence fee.
Answered by John Whittingdale
While concessions are set in legislation, it is the BBC, not Government, that administers these schemes.
We are not considering making changes to the current concessions regime at this time.
Asked by: Julian Knight (Independent - Solihull)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, if she will make it her policy to freeze the television licence fee in 2024.
Answered by John Whittingdale
We agreed a fair settlement with the BBC that will see the licence fee remain at £159 until 2024 to protect licence fee payers from inflationary pressures, and then rise in line with inflation until the end of 2027 when the current Charter is due for renewal. Exactly how a future increase would be calculated is yet to be confirmed.
Asked by: Julian Knight (Independent - Solihull)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, whether she has made an assessment of the impact of the Manchester City Visitor Charge on tourism in the North West of England.
Answered by John Whittingdale
On 1 April 2023, Manchester introduced a City Visitor Charge, whereby overnight guests in city centre hotels or holiday apartments will be charged £1 a night per room. The revenue raised from this will fund the new Manchester Accommodation Business Improvement District (ABID), which aims to improve the visitor experience and support future growth of the visitor economy over the next five years.
HM Government does not have any plans to introduce a national tourism tax or a pilot scheme for such a tax in local areas. An assessment on the potential impact of said tax on tourist numbers and tourists’ experiences, including in the North West, has therefore not been made.
Asked by: Julian Knight (Independent - Solihull)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what data his Department holds on the number of enforcement property visits that were carried out by the Television Licensing Authority in each year between 2015 and 2022.
Answered by John Whittingdale
The BBC is operationally independent of the Government, and is not specifically required to publish how many home visits the Television Licensing Authority has made.
The Department for Culture, Media and Sport does not hold further information on the number of enforcement visits made by Television Licensing.
Asked by: Julian Knight (Independent - Solihull)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, if she will commission research on the potential impact of media reporting on suspects under criminal investigation who have not been charged on the (a) mental health and (b) wellbeing of such individuals.
Answered by John Whittingdale
Media reporting on suspects who have not been charged is constrained by the law of contempt, by revised College of Policing guidance on when it is appropriate for the police to name suspects, and by the reasonable expectation, established by past legal action, that suspects will not be identified.
DCMS has no current plans to commission research on the potential impact on the mental health and wellbeing of suspects under criminal investigation.