Oral Answers to Questions
Ruth Cadbury Excerpts(1 year, 9 months ago)
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The Attorney General
My thoughts are very much with my hon. Friend’s constituent. That sounds like a very traumatic affair. I want to thank her for raising this case. I know that she has already received a reply from my Department setting out the reasons why the CPS could not proceed with this particular case. The CPS looked at all the facts of the case carefully and considered all the available offences under current legislation before determining that no offence had been committed under current law. I will raise the case with my colleagues in the Ministry of Justice so that they might look at the existing statutory framework.
Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)
Since the Supreme Court reversed the Roe v. Wade judgment, a 10-year-old girl in Ohio who is pregnant as a result of rape has been forced to travel to Indiana from her home state for an abortion, which she could not get locally. Will the Attorney General condemn the appalling cruelty that has resulted, and will result, from the Supreme Court ruling? Will she also condemn the Conservative MPs who celebrated it on social media?
The Attorney General
I do not think it is the right of a UK Government Minister to comment on a judicial decision in another jurisdiction such as the United States. That is a matter for the United States Supreme Court and the United States Congress to resolve. What I am focused on is the experience of victims in Britain and Wales and how we can improve our criminal justice system. That is why I am very proud of the achievements that we have secured. I am very proud that, for example, the CPS prosecuted 430,000 defendants last year on a whole suite of offences, including 69 alleged terrorists, 33 of whom were convicted, and 19,000 serious violence offences, with a conviction rate of almost 75%. Those are the statistics, the facts and the policies on which I am focused.
Football Index Collapse
Ruth Cadbury Excerpts(1 year, 10 months ago)
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Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Ms Ghani. I also want to thank my hon. Friend the Member for Blaydon (Liz Twist) for bringing this debate and to acknowledge the excellent contributions we have heard so far.
The £124 million spent on the Football Index scandal was not lost—it did not disappear down the sofa and it did not fall out of a purse. It was taken in a business model that was rightly described by the hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Aaron Bell) as a Ponzi scheme. A scheme that was allowed to happen because the Gambling Commission and the FCA failed in their duty to regulate gambling firms and protect consumers, and the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport did not act when warned.
The Gambling Commission was told on many occasions, and certainly by somebody who knew the business back in January 2020, that the Football Index was deliberately imitating an investment product and that it was leading to users
“believing that they were investing rather than gambling”.
People were conned to bet—sometimes tens of thousands of pounds, and even six-figure sums, as colleagues have already mentioned.
Sir George Howarth (Knowsley) (Lab)
The recurring theme throughout this debate has been the regulatory failure that my hon. Friend refers to. Does she agree that in such circumstances the Government are the only organisation that can put it right?
Ruth Cadbury
My right hon. Friend is absolutely right, and I will come to that point. As I say, there were various stages. The Gambling Commission took over a year to withdraw the licence and say that Football Index’s product was an exceptionally dangerous pyramid scheme under the guise of a football stock index. By submitting a written question to Ministers, I found out that it then took over a year for the Gambling Commission to warn the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport. It was not until 10 March 2021 that a letter went from the Gambling Commission to DCMS. In that year, a gaping black hole existed, and through that black hole went the hard-earned savings of my constituents and those of many others. Millions of pounds went down that black hole.
As hon. Members have said, there is a wider point. The scandal points to yet another failure of financial regulation in the UK. The FCA was set up to protect consumers, but we saw that it failed to act over the collapse of London Capital and Finance, which affected other constituents of mine, and many other schemes have taken people’s hard-earned savings. The FCA needs to be strengthened, because we cannot have a financial regulatory regime that is effectively a Potemkin village that exists in name but takes no real action and does not do enough to warn people about scams. My constituents, and the thousands who have been conned out of their money, deserve better than this.
Oral Answers to Questions
Ruth Cadbury Excerpts(1 year, 10 months ago)
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Kate Osborne (Jarrow) (Lab)
Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)
Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)
The Attorney General
I know that the Home Office is looking very closely at the issue of spiking. There will be movement on this because we take it very seriously, and we are very concerned about the increasing number of incidents relating to the spiking of victims as a way of attacking and sexually assaulting them. In the data we are beginning to see on how the system is responding—whether that is the number of referrals the police are making to the CPS, the number of charges that the CPS is passing on to trial and for prosecution, or the actual conviction rate—we are seeing improvements. We want to go further, of course, but we are seeing early signs of improvement.
Ruth Cadbury
The Attorney General rightly talked about a whole-system approach, but over the past year I have seen an increasing number of extremely concerning cases involving domestic violence in which, specifically, the CPS, the probation service, the courts and the police all seem to be operating in silos when trying to protect women from abusive ex-partners who continue to abuse and harass them. What is the Attorney General doing to ensure that the various parts of the criminal justice system work together to increase prosecutions and protect these women?
The Attorney General
The hon. Member is absolutely right that a whole-system approach is required. That is why the end-to-end rape review was announced last year and we have seen updates on how particularly the CPS is doing in relation to its responsibilities. The CPS recently published a rape strategy and the update to that, which sets out the improvements it has continued to see in every aspect of how it is managing rape prosecutions: better collaboration, as I mentioned; supporting more specialist units; and ensuring more support is given to victims. But I would just gently say that the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022, which I was proud to support as a great initiative by this Government, set out provisions to increase the sentences to be served by rapists and others convicted of sexual assault and I am only sorry that Labour voted against those measures.
Oral Answers to Questions
Ruth Cadbury Excerpts(2 years, 3 months ago)
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Mr Speaker
I will chase it up for you, Secretary of State.
Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)
The minor reforms made as a result of the collapse of the Football Index by the Secretary of State’s Department are thin gruel for my constituents who lost thousands through that scam. What are the Government doing to ensure that both the Gambling Commission and the Financial Conduct Authority are fit for purpose, and that my constituents get the justice that they deserve after the collapse of that scam, the Football Index?
Chris Philp
The Gambling Commission has revoked the licence of the Football Index’s operator. The individuals have surrendered their personal licences. The matter has been referred to the Insolvency Service, which is investigating allegations of directors’ misconduct. It has the power to conduct criminal investigations and criminal prosecutions, including for fraud if appropriate. On the broader question of compensation, there is no statutory basis upon which compensation can be paid to people who have lost money as a result of the collapse of a betting firm, but the investigations by the Insolvency Service are ongoing.
The Solicitor General
I am very grateful to my hon. Friend for once again raising a really powerful point. In my discussions with police officers up and down the country, this issue of redaction has arisen again and again, and he is right that this is creating a serious administrative burden that absorbs resources that could profitably be deployed elsewhere. That is why I can assure him that this issue is receiving very close and current attention, and I expect to say more on that shortly.
Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)
While the digital data extraction forms that were imposed on survivors of rape are now, thankfully, a thing of the past, the culture that led to their introduction by the CPS and the police is, sadly, not. Could I ask the Attorney General how she is ensuring that women who come forward to report being raped receive the dignity, privacy and respect to which they are entitled?
The Solicitor General
The hon. Lady is absolutely right. It is incredibly important that when complainants are brave enough to make these allegations, they are not then subject to intrusive, unnecessary and disproportionate disclosure inquiries. Getting that balance right is extremely difficult. There is clear guidance in the Attorney General’s guidelines, and the case of Bater-James and Sultan Mohammed is there as well, but we need to go further to make sure that correct, proportionate and fair decisions are made.
Oral Answers to Questions
Ruth Cadbury Excerpts(3 years, 1 month ago)
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Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)
The Minister for Digital and Culture (Caroline Dinenage)
The Government recognise the importance of international touring for our creative and cultural sectors. The DCMS-led working group on creative and cultural touring, which involves sector representatives and other key Government Departments, is working through the issues to ensure that the sector gets both the clarity and the support that it needs.
Caroline Dinenage
The hon. Lady is right: the end of freedom of movement has inevitably had some consequences for touring artists. We want our cultural and creative professionals to be able to work easily across Europe, in the same way that EU creatives are able to work flexibly in the UK, and we are working very closely with the sector to consider all the available options. I have said right from the start that our door will always be open if the EU is willing to reconsider its position, but we are also working with colleagues across Government and members of our working group on our engagement with different member states. I met FCDO colleagues only yesterday once again to discuss this, and we want to ensure that touring can resume as easy as possible for UK artists.
Ruth Cadbury [V]
My constituent George Jackson is a conductor. He has told me that in order to be able to fill last-minute jobs in the EU he would previously have needed just to get on a plane or train and been ready to be with the orchestra the next day, but he says that now he faces expensive and time-consuming paperwork just to achieve the same as before. It seems that the Government have managed to unite artists and creatives across the country in wanting to see the Government sort this out. Even Sir Elton John was urging the Government to fix this mess, so in that spirit can the Minister commit to keeping our creative industries standing rather than letting the sun go down on them?
Caroline Dinenage
I thank the hon. Lady for her question, and we understand the strength of feeling on this. The Secretary of State met Sir Elton John recently as well to discuss the issue. We care passionately about finding a solution to this, which is why we set up the DCMS-led working group on creative and cultural touring. It involves representatives from across the creative and cultural touring sectors and all the key Government Departments that have a handle on this, and we are working through all the issues and all the options to help the sectors resume touring as easily as possible when it is safe to do so, but, as the hon. Lady said, the priority is getting touring performers the information and support they need to tour, and, crucially, working bilaterally to ensure the process is as smooth and seamless as possible when they are able to do so.
Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation
Ruth Cadbury Excerpts(3 years, 1 month ago)
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Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)
In three minutes, I can touch on only a handful of my serious concerns about this Budget. For NHS staff this year has been the toughest ever, yet the only reward and recognition in this Budget is a 1% pay rise, which is, in effect, a pay cut when inflation is accounted for. We now know that the Government are to cut health and social care by £30 billion, with yet another year of no plans to fix our social care crisis. There was nothing to help a couple in my constituency after she was discharged from hospital and they both now face astronomical costs to ensure she gets the care she deserves. What does this Budget offer them? It offers them nothing.
With the UK hosting COP26, we would have thought the Government would have a bold, ambitious and sustainable plan that both tackles the climate crisis and creates high-paid, secure green jobs, with the associated economic stimulus the UK economy so desperately needs, but they do not. They have just a green-focused investment bank, and the Chancellor did not mention that it fails even to plug the gap left behind by leaving the European Investment Bank, nor does it replace the green investment bank that the Conservative Government sold off. There was a £1 billion cut to the green homes grant, which was justified on that grounds that “too few applied”; it was not reformed so that it actually worked for homeowners needing to make their homes energy secure and efficient, while also ensuring there is work for small and local businesses in my constituency and across the country.
Again, there was nothing for aviation communities, which have been so badly hit and are dominated by a sector that will be the last to recover from the pandemic. This could have been an opportunity to make aviation more sustainable and more environmentally friendly, while sustaining jobs, skills and businesses, for example, in the areas around Heathrow and other airports. Unlike Governments in France, Germany, Spain and the US, our Government have chosen to do neither. Where is the promised sector-specific support for aviation? It should be led by a tripartite body of government, the unions and industry that could help shape the sector’s recovery. It is not there.
This is a Budget where the rhetoric simply does not match the reality. It fails to support the NHS staff and further extends the social care crisis. It is a Budget that bakes in the already huge inequalities in our society. It is a Budget that fails to invest in covid pandemic recovery and fails to address the economic hit we know our economy faces after Brexit. It is a Budget that neither meets the challenge of the moment we are in nor plans for the future, but it is a Budget that rewards political friends. This Budget is yet another missed opportunity.
Covid-19: Cultural and Entertainment Sectors
Ruth Cadbury Excerpts(3 years, 1 month ago)
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Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab) [V]
The pandemic has had a devastating effect on the cultural sectors. Thousands of people’s livelihoods and work have been put on hold and, in some cases, ended. Those most affected are from the black and ethnic minority communities and from working-class backgrounds, thus reversing the incredible work of the last 20 years in increasing diversity across these sectors.
The arts and creative sector is not just “The Last Night of the Proms”, Glastonbury, the west end theatres, or the pioneering and world-leading TV and film industry, employing world-famous actors and armies of skilled production staff; it is also constituents I know making music with toddlers, puppeteers working in museum education, staff of the now silent community arts centres, dancers and photographers working with disaffected young people, pub bands, club comedians and many, many more. Our world-famous culture stands on the shoulders of people such as these.
Also, our international reputation for skills takes decades of hard work, and if they are not supported, we risk losing them almost overnight. For instance, a constituent who works in the costume department at the Royal Opera House described to me the lifelong training, learning and skills development needed for that role.
It is unfair and unjust that so many have been excluded from any Government covid support. They include people such as my constituent who is a TV director, who became self-employed only in April 2019, but thus missed the arbitrary deadline for the SEISS payments and could not get furloughed. They had to move out of their home and rely on universal credit, and they asked me, “Why am I discriminated against as a taxpaying citizen? It is not my fault that, in my line of work, it makes sense to be self-employed.” Why indeed?
In the middle of the pandemic, there was yet another blow—the loss of visa-free travel. It was a body blow for so many performers. A constituent said, “It confirms that Brexit has essentially transformed a tough enough profession into something even more difficult.” The Minister for Digital and Culture replied to me on this by saying that the situation was “regrettable”. I hope that she can do more than merely express regret.
This debate has shown the enormous role that the arts and creative sectors play in our national life and national economy, so those who work in the arts need to be at the centre of our coronavirus recovery. The Government must do far more to support them as we build back from the impact of the pandemic.
Football Spectator Attendance: Covid-19
Ruth Cadbury Excerpts(3 years, 5 months ago)
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Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stringer.
As others have said, football is an important part of our national psyche and it is a regular fixture of the week for many people. My husband and two close friends are season-ticket holders of different football clubs, so I know what football means to fans. However, I was particularly struck by the stories about some of Brentford Football Club’s fans. Woody is a young Brentford fan with Down’s syndrome. When football was taken away from him in March, he struggled, to the extent that his hair started to fall out. Huge credit must go to the Brentford players, in particular Woody’s favourite, Ollie Watkins, who left Brentford for Aston Villa earlier in the year but still took the time to go and visit Woody after he left the club, to see how he was doing.
The directors of Brentford have been playing their part in keeping the family of fans going, by making calls to some of the older fans in particular to check in for a chat and to see if they need any help. Marcus Gayle, a former player who is now a club ambassador, popped in to see a fan, Anthony Talbot, to take him a new shirt and brighten up his day, after he heard that Anthony was missing his football to the extent that his health was suffering. The football community at Brentford have also got together to help raise money for Jamie Powell, who is a lifelong Brentford fan with a rare cancer, so that he can go to Boston for life-saving treatment.
The club narrowly avoided going into administration in 2002 and was then taken over by a supporter-led trust. When I was a Brentford ward councillor on Hounslow Borough Council, I saw at first hand the amazing community response and effort to keep the club base in Brentford, and I persuaded my colleagues on the council to loan the fans the half a million pounds that they needed at that time, which has since been paid back. We realised how much the club meant to the borough and to our community.
The 18-year relationship that I have had with the club at the end of my road has taught me that we cannot and should not forget that clubs such as Brentford thrive because they are at the heart of their community. I am talking about the generations who watch games every Saturday, the new fans who move to the area, the countless hours of work done by the club and the local community, the support for the businesses that survive and thrive and the jobs that they create, because of the fans, home and away, who come for matches. Football is a real power for good in our society, and at times like this it is something that we should support and bring back to our stadiums as soon as we can.
We have important points from the operations team at Brentford. They have been working with the safety advisory group at Brentford to ensure that the new stadium can be safe, and they need to be respected by Government and work hand in hand with Government to ensure that fans can come back to matches as soon as possible.
Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stringer, and to speak in the debate. I congratulate the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Jonathan Gullis) on introducing the debate on behalf of the Petitions Committee.
Members have spoken at length about the various aspects of why football is so important. They have shared their considerable experience across the House in advocating for our national game. I congratulate them all. I was outed earlier by the right hon. Member for Staffordshire Moorlands (Karen Bradley) as a supporter of the red side of Merseyside, which drew one-all with Manchester City yesterday. It is fair to say that I have experienced frustration over the past months over the football team that I support.
Notwithstanding that, it has been a great honour to see the amazing work of football clubs across the United Kingdom. I could not be prouder to have seen their activism, whether delivering food parcels or former players ringing older supporters with dementia to give them comfort. I honestly believe that football has done itself proud, as we have heard from hon. Members this afternoon. That must not go unrecorded by the House. I thank colleagues for making those points and for arguing that it is crucial that, as soon as is humanly possible, people can get back to supporting their football team in the ground. It is so blatantly obvious to me that that is important that I do not think I need to add to what colleagues have said.
I want to raise two points briefly. Sport in general and football specifically were quite shocked that they would not be able to continue with pilot schemes and that supporters would not be able to return in October. I worry that they have been left hanging a bit. That is a problem. I know that the Minister will talk about the science group that is trying to tackle this, but some of his colleagues put it really well this afternoon: we need more of a plan than that. If the science group by itself represented enough of a plan, I am not sure we would be here this afternoon. We need to work on this matter together.
Secondly, there is an underlying problem: football, by law, is treated differently from other sports. That situation risks exacerbating the problem, rather than working towards undoing it, as I think we would like to do on a cross-party basis. All the problems have been described: the effort that football clubs have put in to comply with the covid regulations—
Alison McGovern
As my hon. Friend, who represents Brentford very well—the football club and the constituency—says, clubs have spent money on it. They all hired covid officers. I was lucky to be shown around the New Den by the chief executive of Millwall. I was so impressed by all the work that the club had done to prep for the regulations.
The position that football has been put in compared with other large events is hard to understand, so I did a bit of digging and looked a little deeper into the scientific advice that the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport commissioned from the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies. I found out that, preparing for the potential return of supporters, DCMS commissioned advice from the Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Behaviours, which is the behavioural sub-committee of SAGE. That advice, which anybody can read—it is on the SAGE website—goes through different things concerning large sports. It does not specifically focus on football, but the characteristics seem to tie in well with it.
Even in August, the advice from SAGE to DCMS was:
“The easing of some aspects of lockdown, which took place on July 4th… was preceded by a considerable media fanfare… as well as a public discussion about whether the 2 metre rule would be changed.”
To paraphrase the advice, all those trends in the media were contemporaneous with several factors, all of which could have contributed to the decline in compliance with distancing measures. It said that the trends could include
“decline in trust in the government”,
a declining
“sense of national togetherness… and decline in perceived risk”.
In August, SAGE was warning DCMS that this might not go so well. How did the Minister help football at that time to understand the situation that we were really in, what discussions has he had with SAGE directly, and what discussions did he have with stakeholders to help them to understand the problems that we faced and how the Government planned to get us out of a situation where the environment through the summer was counteracting some of the compliance measures that we needed to see, as the report from SAGE says?
Can the Minister explain how DCMS plans to, from this point, encourage and help football clubs to plan for what could happen in the future? At the moment, they feel as if they have been left hanging and some people wonder whether DCMS is really in control or decisions are being taken centrally by the Cabinet and No. 10. If that is the case, can he explain how the decision will be taken to get supporters back into grounds?
People have pointed out the inconsistencies, comparing football with other things. I am not one to set up sport against the arts. Both are great in this country and both should be able to move forward together, but the difference is that we, as football supporters, have been treated differently since the 1980s. I had understood that we were on a journey out of those worst times towards football supporters in this country being able to get proper respect, policing by consent and support from the Government.
As the Minister will have heard from Members across the House, football is universally a positive activity in Members’ constituencies. If he really wants to prove that football will not be permanently treated differently in this country, can he explain, as Members have asked, what the plan is to get supporters back into grounds?
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (Nigel Huddleston)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stringer, and I will indeed make sure that my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Jonathan Gullis) has plenty of time to sum up, given that his nine minutes of fame were disrupted earlier. I am grateful to him for leading the debate and for the contributions that he and many other hon. Members have made. The number of people who signed the petition speaks volumes about the importance of football and sport in general, and about making sure that we get fans back into stadiums.
We are in vehement agreement that we want to make sure that fans get back into stadiums as soon as possible. There is a slight disagreement on how and when we do that, but on both sides of the Chamber, and in all our constituencies, we are of one voice and mind. We want to get fans back as soon as it is safe. That is absolutely the Government’s goal.
Football clubs, as we have heard again and again today, and in all previous debates on the matter, are at the heart of our communities. They have unique social value, and many have rich and honourable histories. As Minister for Sport, I can attest to the importance of football clubs at all levels in their local areas, and to the incredible support that they have offered throughout the pandemic. From turning their car parks into NHS testing centres to delivering food packages to those isolating, that has been demonstrated again and again in the last few months.
The Government have provided an unprecedented support package to businesses throughout the period, including a comprehensive and sizeable package of direct fiscal support through tax reliefs, cash grants and employee wage support. Many football clubs have benefited from those measures and others, such as business rates relief and the furlough scheme. Sport England has provided £210 million of national lottery and Government funding to support the sport and the physical activity sector overall through covid-19. That includes the £35 million community emergency fund, which is helping community sports clubs and exercise centres during the pandemic.
The Football Foundation, a charity set up by the Government, the FA and the Premier League, has also introduced a number of funds to help clubs during these difficult times. The latest is the match day support fund, which helps clubs to prepare for the resumption of football. That follows the foundation’s pitch and club preparation funds, which also distributed grants to many local clubs.
The Government have worked tirelessly to get sports back up and running in the last few months. We were able to get elite sports, including the Premier League, back behind closed doors in June to allow seasons to be finished and vital revenue to flow into the game again. We ensured that Project Restart was shared with everyone by getting live Premier League football on the BBC for the first time. Elite sport will also be allowed to continue during the period of national restrictions that came in from last week.
I am fully aware of the importance of getting spectators back into stadiums for many sports, not just football, but rising infection rates across the country meant that, unfortunately, it was not the right time to proceed with a wider reopening on 1 October, as was widely recognised. A key issue is that this is not just about fans sitting in stands within the stadiums—admittedly outdoors, as many hon. Members have said—where infection rates are generally lower than indoors. We must consider the whole fan journey from home to venue, how fans travel to and from stadiums, the risk of gathering inside and outside such venues, and the high number of contact points that that risks.
The hon. Member for Glasgow East (David Linden) recognised that those are challenges, and not only here. We keep a close eye on what is happening in other nations and, indeed, other countries.
Ruth Cadbury
As the right hon. Member for Staffordshire Moorlands (Karen Bradley) said clearly, there are different situations and different physical layouts in different stadiums. Brentford football club has a brand-new stadium. Fans can come from all sorts of different directions, stations, bus stops and so on, and of course, only those permitted to enter the stadium should be anywhere near the ground at the time. Surely there is an opportunity for flexibility in the way that those rules are implemented.
Nigel Huddleston
I thank the hon. Lady for that point, and I certainly understand what she is saying. One of the problems or challenges we have is that while every individual is saying, “Can I get back to my stadium?”, we would have to multiply that by several levels, several leagues and several sports, and all of a sudden we would have to work on a scale that was far beyond what we believe is acceptable at this moment. However, we are considering the point made by several Members today that a one-size-fits-all approach may not be appropriate. We are paying careful attention not only to what is happening in other nations, but to what is happening in other countries in terms of opening up.
The Government understand the financial consequences of the decision not to allow spectators into stadiums from 1 October.
Oral Answers to Questions
Ruth Cadbury Excerpts(3 years, 5 months ago)
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Catherine West (Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab)
Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)
Chris Elmore (Ogmore) (Lab)
Caroline Dinenage
The hon. Lady will know that the £1.57 billion cultural recovery fund will benefit freelancers because it enables the assisting of organisations to reopen and restart performances, perhaps in a digital or livestream capacity. It will help many organisations to put on cultural activity in this financial year, which they would not otherwise have been able to do. I am sure the hon. Lady will be delighted that in her own constituency of Hornsey and Wood Green, for example, the recovery funding has enabled the sharing out of more than £571,000 between six organisations. I am sure it will be a lifeline for many of them.
Ruth Cadbury
I thank the Minister for her answer, but the reality is that the number of performances will be a fraction of what it would normally be. I have been contacted by constituents who are performers, make-up artists, instrumentalists and other freelancers in the creative sector who work in the west end; they have been excluded from all Government support. In west London, universal credit barely covers or fails to cover even the cost of rents, meaning that people now face going through lockdown with no additional support, adding to the queues at food banks. What will the Minister do to help them?
Caroline Dinenage
The hon. Lady is right to highlight the plight of freelancers, without whom, of course, our cultural institutions are simply bricks and mortar. We know that what they want to do more than anything is to get back to doing what they love, which is why I am so delighted that nearly 1,400 of the successful culture recovery fund recipients announced on 12 October set out in their applications how the support would enable them to deliver more than £150 million-worth of cultural activity before the end of March 2021, which they would not otherwise have been able to do. As the hon. Lady will know, well over half a million pounds of that money is being spent in her constituency.
Arts, Culture and Heritage: Support Package
Ruth Cadbury Excerpts(3 years, 9 months ago)
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Caroline Dinenage
There are two things to say. We want to get this particular tranche of money—this £1.5 billion—out into the sector as soon as possible, because we know that there are organisations that are really desperate. In terms of individuals, there are a number of packages of support. Many of them have been able to claim from the self-employed income support scheme. We know that some have slipped through the gaps, and, of course, as soon as we can get our sector back up and running again, we will be able to employ more of the amazing workforce who make it so special.
Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)
Brentford’s Watermans arts centre, like many arts centres across London, brings arts to all types of communities that do not access the west end. Watermans’ director is grateful for the £87,000 emergency funding, but it is less than a third of what she applied for, so that will only keep it going until September. How will the Government support venues beyond September to survive when they have less than a third of their capacity on their seats and costs are greater than normal?
Caroline Dinenage
The hon. Lady will note that we have just announced a £1.5 billion pound funding package, and her organisation should be able to apply for that. We will announce more details of how it will work in the next couple of days.