Asked by: Neil Hudson (Conservative - Epping Forest)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, whether she plans to maintain the Multi-Sport Grassroots Facilities Programme.
Answered by Stephanie Peacock - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Culture, Media and Sport)
The Government is investing £123 million UK-wide in grassroots facilities via the Multi-Sport Grassroots Facilities Programme in 2024/25. At the Autumn Budget on 30 October 2024, the Government confirmed our continued support for elite and grassroots sport by investing in multi-use facilities. Further details will be confirmed in due course.
Asked by: Neil Hudson (Conservative - Epping Forest)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what steps her Department is taking to support grassroots sports clubs in Epping Forest.
Answered by Stephanie Peacock - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Culture, Media and Sport)
The Government is committed to ensuring that everyone, regardless of background, has access to and benefits from quality sport and physical activity opportunities.
The Government provides the majority of funding for grassroots sport through our Arm’s Length Body, Sport England - which annually invests over £250 million in Exchequer and Lottery funding in areas of greatest need to tackle inactivity levels through community-led solutions.
Epping Forest has benefitted from £424,995 of investment under the Multi-Sport Grassroots Facilities Programme, the Park Tennis Court Renovation Programme, and the Swimming Pool Support Fund to date.
The Government is acting to support more people to get onto the pitch wherever they live through the delivery of £123 million UK-wide through the Multi-Sport Grassroots Facilities Programme in 2024/25.
Asked by: Neil Hudson (Conservative - Epping Forest)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what steps she is taking to promote access to sports for (a) young people and (b) people with disabilities in Epping Forest.
Answered by Stephanie Peacock - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Culture, Media and Sport)
The Inclusion 2024 programme is available to all schools in the country, including Epping Forest. It provides both expert support and free resources, and can help schools enhance opportunities for young people with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) to engage in P.E. and school sports.
The Government is committed to doing more to ensure that everyone, including children, young people, and those with disabilities, has access to and benefits from quality sport and physical activity opportunities. Sport and physical activity is central to achieving our health and opportunity manifesto missions, with the biggest gains coming from supporting those who are inactive to move more.
The Culture Secretary recently attended the launch of ParalympicGB’s Equal Play Campaign where she expressed her determination to put sport at the heart of the school curriculum. This includes opening up opportunities for all young people, including those with disabilities, to be able to access sport and physical activity at school.
The Government provides the majority of support for grassroots sport through Sport England - which annually invests over £250 million in Exchequer and Lottery funding. Sport England’s work focuses on bringing the health and sport sectors together at community level and to champion physical activity with local leaders to develop interventions tailored to communities. Since 2019, Sport England has invested over £195,000 in Epping Forest for grassroots sport & physical activity.
Sport England also works to ensure that each of their programmes impact directly on disabled people and those with a long-term health condition, with initiatives like the 'We are Undefeatable' campaign and partnerships with disability organisations.
Asked by: Neil Hudson (Conservative - Epping Forest)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what steps her Department is taking to support local journalism.
Answered by Julia Lopez
The Government is committed to supporting local and regional newspapers and other news outlets as vital pillars of communities and local democracy. They play an essential role in holding power to account, keeping the public informed of local issues and providing reliable, high-quality information.
Amid an evolving media landscape and changes in consumer behaviour, we are working to support journalism and local newsrooms to ensure the sustainability of this important industry. We are introducing a new, pro-competition regime for digital markets. The regime, which aims to address the far-reaching power of the biggest tech firms, will help rebalance the relationship between publishers and the online platforms on which they increasingly rely. This will make an important contribution to the sustainability of the press.
Additionally, our support for the sector has included the delivery of a £2 million Future News Fund, the extension of a 2017 business rates relief on local newspaper office space until 2025; the publication of the Online Media Literacy Strategy; and our work through the Mid-Term Review of the BBC Charter to encourage greater collaboration and transparency from the BBC in the local news market and other markets in which it operates. The BBC also supports the sector directly, through the £8m it spends each year on the Local News Partnership, including the Local Democracy Reporting Scheme.
We are also reducing regulatory burdens on commercial radio providers, and strengthening requirements on the provision of local news through the Media Bill to ensure commercial radio continues to provide high quality local journalism.
We continue to consider all possible options in the interests of promoting and sustaining news journalism.
Asked by: Neil Hudson (Conservative - Epping Forest)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, whether her Department has taken recent steps to support independent cinemas.
Answered by Julia Lopez
The Government recognises that cinemas are a hugely important part of the UK’s fantastic film industry and has been supporting them throughout the uncertainties of the past several years with the pandemic and rising energy costs.
We supported more than 200 independent cinemas through the pandemic, who received £34.4 million from the Culture Recovery Fund as well as benefiting from other pan-economy measures. The Government has also delivered an £18 billion package of support through the Energy Bill Relief Scheme supporting businesses - including cinemas, arts venues, and charities - through the winter.
The Government’s £500m Film and TV Production Restart Scheme also helped keep the cameras rolling at the other end of the screen supply chain. The scheme supported over 100,000 jobs and productions worth more than £3 billion. To build on this, and support the industry to not only survive but thrive, further actions have been taken. This includes the Government’s current £1.6 million annual funding of the British Film Commission, the £28 million UK Global Screen Fund, and the continued success of our screen sector tax reliefs. This has been further bolstered at Spring Budget 2024 with the new UK Independent Film Tax Credit, with films with budgets up to £15 million being eligible for an increased benefit of 53% - which is estimated to increase spending on independent films by 70% before 2032.
The British Film Institute (BFI), a DCMS Arms Length Body, is also conscious of the pressures faced by the cinema sector. The BFI’s Film Audience Network (BFI FAN) is a collaboration of 8 film hubs, managed by leading film organisations and venues around the UK. Film hubs are centres of expertise and support that connect cinemas, festivals and creative practitioners. You can also read more about the National Lottery funding the BFI makes available to bring film to a wider UK audience, including through BFI FAN, at: https://www.bfi.org.uk/get-funding-support/bring-film-wider-uk-audience.
Asked by: Neil Hudson (Conservative - Epping Forest)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, how many and what proportion of households in rural communities have full access to (a) television and (b) local radio services.
Answered by John Whittingdale
Freeview currently reaches nearly 99% of UK households. However, good terrestrial television signals may not be available to all households in rural areas due to a number of factors including local topography and spectrum availability. In these cases, Everyone TV – the organisation responsible for the day-to-day running of Freeview – advises that viewers consider other options to access free-to-air television such as the satellite service Freesat, which provides near total coverage in the UK.
Details of local radio coverage provided have been published by Ofcom in May 2022 and are available here.
More detailed data on the usage of free-to-air radio and TV is available from a variety of sources. For example, Ofcom produces its Media Nations report which reviews key trends in the media sector and sets out how audiences are served across the UK. The most recent report was published in August 2023 and can be found here. Ofcom also publishes the results of a number of annual surveys addressing these issues, as well as an interactive data set in the form of its annual Communications Market Report. Many of these publications include relevant analysis broken down by geographic area.
Asked by: Neil Hudson (Conservative - Epping Forest)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what funding the Government provides to grassroots sports clubs in England.
Answered by Stuart Andrew - Shadow Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport
The Government is committed to ensuring that everyone, regardless of their age or background, is able to enjoy the physical and mental health benefits that sport and physical activity provide.
We know that active people are fitter, happier and healthier - which is why in our new Sport Strategy - 'Get Active’ - we set out an ambitious strategy to boost our national health by getting 3.5 million extra active people by 2030. To help achieve this, Government is investing over £300 million between 2021 and 2025 to make essential facility improvements at grassroots sports clubs.
In 2021/22, 177 grassroots facilities projects across the UK were supported through the Football Foundation in England and the Football Associations in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. This includes the creation or resurfacing of over 80 artificial grass pitches, over 20 grass pitch improvements, and other projects such as changing rooms, floodlights and goalposts. Over 1,600 sites benefitted from funding in 2022/23 across a similar range of projects, improving both provision and quality of pitches.
We provide the majority of support for grassroots sport through our Arms Length Body, Sport England. Every year, Sport England invests over £250 million of National Lottery and public money to help people engage in sport and physical activity. Funding pots like the Small Grants and the Active Together programme offer over £18 million of funding for grassroots clubs across England to help get local communities active and to support clubs through specific issues such as adverse weather.
Asked by: Neil Hudson (Conservative - Epping Forest)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what steps her Department is taking to ensure access to digital terrestrial television in rural communities.
Answered by John Whittingdale
The Government remains committed to digital terrestrial television (DTT), the technology which underpins Freeview. Millions of households across the UK rely on DTT, particularly rural communities and older people.
While Freeview currently reaches nearly 99% of UK households, good terrestrial television signals may not be available to all households due to a number of factors such as local topography and spectrum availability. In these cases, Everyone TV – the organisation responsible for the day-to-day running of Freeview – advises that viewers consider other options to access free-to-air television such as the satellite service Freesat, which has total coverage in the UK.
The Government recognises the crucial role that DTT services such as Freeview play in the wider UK broadcasting system, in particular in helping ensure that public service content continues to be widely available and free-to-air to all audiences. For these reasons, we have legislated to secure the continuity of DTT until at least 2034.
We have also recently launched a major research and engagement programme looking at how UK audiences will get their TV in the decades to come, including digital terrestrial television (DTT), satellite, cable, and online.
Before any decisions about the future of terrestrial television are made, close consideration will be given to how any changes would impact audiences, and especially those who rely on DTT as their primary means of watching television.
Asked by: Neil Hudson (Conservative - Epping Forest)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what steps her Department is taking to support sports clubs in rural areas.
Answered by Stuart Andrew - Shadow Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport
We know that active people are fitter, happier and healthier - which is why in our new Sport Strategy - 'Get Active’ - we set out an ambitious strategy to boost our national health by getting 3.5 million extra active people by 2030. This includes bold targets to reach communities with the lowest levels of physical activity.
The Government provides the majority of support for grassroots sport through our Arms Length Body, Sport England. Since 2019, we have invested over £773,000 in the Penrith and Borders area supporting projects such as the refurbishment of the Hunsonby Community Centre, the Wigton Baths Trust and the Castle Park tennis project. A further £50,000 has been invested in the area as part of the Multi-Sports Grassroots Facilities Investment programme, providing funding for new goalposts, floodlights and improving grass pitch surfaces.
Building on their 12 local delivery pilot areas in areas such as Withernsea, Sport England is expanding their place-based work so that at least 75% of their investment is committed to areas with the lowest levels of physical activity and social outcomes.
Sport England are using a range of data sources to inform this approach, including physical activity data from the Active Lives Surveys as well as wider social data including IMD, community need and health inequalities data. These datasets help to identify a range of communities, including rural communities, across England that need support to become more active.
Asked by: Neil Hudson (Conservative - Epping Forest)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, pursuant to the Answer of 3 July to Question 191414 on Sports: Electronic Cigarettes, if her Department will collect information on the level of sponsorship of sports teams by vaping companies.
Answered by Stuart Andrew - Shadow Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport
The department does not currently plan to assess the levels of sponsorships by vaping companies in sport, or the level of vaping advertising more broadly. Sports are responsible for their own commercial deals.