Asked by: Sajid Javid (Conservative - Bromsgrove)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what steps his Department is taking to implement an age verification process for access to legal online pornography.
Answered by Caroline Dinenage
Protecting children is at the heart of our online harms agenda and wider government priorities. The strongest protections in the online safety legislation will be for children.
Under our now-published draft Online Safety legislation, we expect companies to use age verification technologies to prevent children from accessing services which pose the highest risk of harm to children, such as online pornography.
The online safety regime will capture both the most visited pornography sites and pornography on social media, therefore covering the vast majority of sites where children are most likely to be exposed to pornography. Social media platforms will need to put appropriate systems and processes in place to prevent children viewing pornography on their services.
The draft Online Safety legislation will be subject to pre-legislative scrutiny in this session. We are also working closely with Ofcom to ensure that the implementation period, that will be necessary following passage of the legislation, is as short as possible.
Asked by: Sajid Javid (Conservative - Bromsgrove)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps his Department is taking to ensure that driving test appointments can take place (a) quickly and (b) safely to reduce any backlogs resulting from the covid-19 outbreak.
Answered by Rachel Maclean
The Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA) has put in place a number of measures to increase practical driving tests. These include offering overtime and annual leave buy back to examiners, asking all those qualified to conduct tests, but who do not do so as part of their current day job, to return to conducting tests, and conducting out of hours testing (such as on public holidays). The DVSA is also running a recruitment campaign to increase the overall number of examiners.
The DVSA’s aim is to increase testing capacity and reduce the backlog as quickly as possible, whilst maintaining a COVID-secure service for customers and examiners. Standard Operating Procedures are in place at all test centres to ensure measures are in place to help stop the spread of coronavirus.
Asked by: Sajid Javid (Conservative - Bromsgrove)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what Government support is available for (a) the provision of facilities for and (b) to encourage participation in grassroots football.
Answered by Nigel Huddleston - Financial Secretary (HM Treasury)
Sports and physical activity are incredibly important for our physical and mental health, and are a vital weapon against coronavirus.
Many football clubs have benefited from the multi-billion pound package of cross-sector business support from the Government that has enabled many sports clubs and leisure businesses to survive, including the furlough scheme and business interruption loan scheme. Sports have accessed many hundreds of millions of pounds of support through this.
As part of this, Sport England has provided £220 million directly to support community sport clubs and exercise centres through this pandemic, via a range of funds including their £35 million Community Emergency Fund. This support is available to both men’s and women’s clubs with the latest figures showing £10.5m has already been awarded to over 1,500 football clubs. This sector support was recently boosted by an extra £50 million to help grassroots sports clubs and organisations as part of Sport England’s new strategy Uniting the Movement.
The Government continues to invest in community sport facilities as well, via the Football Foundation, alongside The Football Association and the Premier League, with government investing £18 million per annum. This three-way partnership sees £70 million of investment into community sport facilities every year.
Asked by: Sajid Javid (Conservative - Bromsgrove)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps his Department is taking to promote the use of (a) the electric shuttle bus scheme in Bromsgrove District and (b) other electric powered public transport.
Answered by Rachel Maclean
The Government is committed to tackling climate change, which is why in Spring this year we will be publishing a bold and ambitious Transport Decarbonisation Plan which will set out how to achieve net zero emissions across all modes of transport. Tackling emissions at a local level will make an important contribution to the decarbonisation of transport. Developing solutions that consider the needs of different locations is one of our six strategic priorities for transport decarbonisation and recognises that different decarbonisation solutions will be required and will work best in different places across the UK.
On 30 March, the Department launched the £120 million Zero Emission Buses Regional Areas (ZEBRA) scheme. The scheme will be open to local transport authorities, including Worcestershire County Council, who can bid for funding introduce single and double decker zero emission buses for local bus services buses and the infrastructure needed to support them.
Asked by: Sajid Javid (Conservative - Bromsgrove)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what steps his Department is taking to increase the level of tourism to (a) Worcestershire and (b) Bromsgrove District once covid-19 restrictions are eased.
Answered by Nigel Huddleston - Financial Secretary (HM Treasury)
My Department is taking a number of steps to encourage tourism once restrictions are eased, including in Worcestershire.
The Global Travel Taskforce last year committed the Government to publish a Tourism Recovery Plan in support of the sector. The Government intends to set out proposals in the Spring, including plans for a marketing campaign to welcome visitors back to the UK as soon as it is safe to do so.
We are working with VisitBritain, VisitEngland and local partners to champion the UK’s diverse tourism offer through the Escape the Everyday campaign.
We will continue to work with industry to provide assurance regarding when people can safely visit attractions - as demonstrated through the We’re Good to Go industry standard, which has been used by over 45,000 businesses.
The March Budget included £700m of extra funding to support our world-leading arts, culture and sporting institutions - protecting the venues which make the UK an attractive destination to visit.
Across all rounds and competitions of the Culture Recovery Fund, the West Midlands region received around £110m in funding, through awards to over 450 organisations/sites. As examples of funding in Mid-Worcestershire, Hartlebury Castle Preservation Trust received £290,000 across both rounds of funding, and The Mono Box received £107,318 across both rounds of funding.
As some examples of funding in Bromsgrove, Avoncroft Museum received £275,943 across both rounds of funding, and Blackwell Adventure received £55,000 in Round 2.
In total, over £25bn has been provided to the tourism, leisure and hospitality sectors in the form of grants, loans and tax breaks.
Asked by: Sajid Javid (Conservative - Bromsgrove)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what steps his Department is taking to ease the covid-19 restrictions on singing inside places of worship.
Answered by Eddie Hughes
We understand the importance of singing to all of our faith communities but, due to the transmission of COVID-19 through droplets and airborne particles, it has been essential to limit this to control the spread of the virus. We have been working closely with the Places of Worship Taskforce and faith communities to facilitate this and are grateful for their support.
Currently singing can take place outdoors on the grounds of a place of worship and this can include the congregation taking part. Indoors it is currently only possible for small groups of singers to perform, and the congregation cannot join in. It is important that we take a cautious approach in easing restrictions, so that we can see the impact of the steps we are taking before moving to the next step. For that reason, we will continue to keep guidance and restrictions under review, in line with the changing situation. As soon as we are able, we will update our advice further. We do not wish to keep restrictions in place for any longer than we have to. This is in line with wider guidance for performing arts across all sectors.
Asked by: Sajid Javid (Conservative - Bromsgrove)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many people have received a covid-19 vaccination in Bromsgrove constituency on the most recent date for which information is available.
Answered by Nadhim Zahawi
On 15 April 2021 NHS England and Improvement published data showing that between 8 December 2020 and 11 April 2021, 56,146 people in Bromsgrove had received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine. This data is published at the following link:
https://www.england.nhs.uk/statistics/statistical-work-areas/covid-19-vaccinations/
Asked by: Sajid Javid (Conservative - Bromsgrove)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps his Department is taking to increase awareness of the National Tutoring Programme among (a) schools and (b) parents in (i) Bromsgrove District and (b) England.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Department is committed to ensuring that there continues to be a good take-up and engagement with the programme. We are undertaking a range of communications and engagement activities to ensure that schools are aware of the support offered by the National Tutoring Programme (NTP).
We are working directly with multi-academy trusts and local authorities to target schools in particular need of support and increasing our engagement with local and regional school networks. The NTP is also providing regular newsletters and blogs direct to schools, alongside targeted social media activity. Since the programme’s launch in November 2020, the Department has continued to share case studies and good practice to show how tuition can support pupils effectively, including guidance on making the most of tutoring during the recent lockdown period.
We will continue to monitor how many schools in different regions are accessing the NTP so we can bolster our efforts in areas where schools would benefit from the programme.
Over 4,000 schools are now participating in the programme. It is estimated over 250,000 pupils will benefit from tuition provided by Tuition Partners this academic year. This is in addition to the 1,000 Academic Mentors have been placed in our most disadvantaged schools this academic year.
We are continuing to focus on regions with the most disadvantaged pupils who have yet to take advantage of NTP, including the Bromsgrove District. We are engaging directly with head teachers, local networks of schools and national stakeholders to ensure that NTP support reaches as many disadvantaged pupils in these areas as possible. We have also attended local network meetings, including the Handforth Heads Forum in the West Midlands, and have delivered a number of webinars to schools in the regional Midland areas with high levels of disadvantage to highlight the benefits and the support being offered through the programme.
Asked by: Sajid Javid (Conservative - Bromsgrove)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what support she is providing to Bromsgrove Jobs Centre to help unemployed people in Bromsgrove District.
Answered by Mims Davies - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
Through our Plan for Jobs, the Department is providing broad ranging support for all jobseekers. Currently, support includes the Kickstart scheme, Job Finding Support, Sector Based Work Academy Programmes (SWAP) and Job Entry Targeted Support. In addition, the Work and Heath Programme, and Intensive Personalised Employment Support, is available to support to support disabled people and people with long term health conditions, to enter and stay in work.
To support the long term unemployed, £2.9 billion is being invested in the Restart Programme, which is due to go live from summer 2021. The Restart Programme will support individuals who have been unemployed for at least 12 months and through regular, personalised support providers will work with participants to identify the best way to support them into sustained employment. We have also increased the number of Work Coaches, by 13,500 nationally, to support Claimants - with 368 joining our Mercia District by the end of April, including 4 based at Bromsgrove Jobcentre.
Bromsgrove Jobcentre has strong partnership links with the Local Authority with partnership representation on housing, financial inclusion and claimant support forums at both district and county level. It also has strong relations with local providers such as New Starts who have provided laptops to assist with online courses during the pandemic.
The Jobcentre team are engaging with Kickstart employers and Gateway organisations to support our younger customers move closer to employment, and have partnered with local employers and organisations to deliver a number of successful Sector Based Work Academy Programmes, across multiple sectors, which are available to all claimants irrespective of age or length of unemployment.
Asked by: Sajid Javid (Conservative - Bromsgrove)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to help improve (a) medical research into Parkinson’s disease and (b) care for people with Parkinson’s disease.
Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
The Department funds research into conditions through the National Institute for Health Research, which invested £6.5 million in 2019-20 in research on treatment and care of Parkinson’s disease. In addition, UK Research and Innovation allocated £8.8 million towards funding research into this area over the same period, primarily through their research councils.
NHS England and NHS Improvement work closely with the National Neurosciences Advisory Group (NNAG) to develop and coordinate England’s national programme of neurology service improvement. The NNAG worked with NHS RightCare and published a toolkit in 2019 which offers a comprehensive set of recommendations for improving care for progressive neurological conditions, including Parkinson’s disease. NHS England and NHS Improvement have made commissioners aware that they are responsible for implementing these toolkits in their local areas. The toolkit is available at the following link:
www.england.nhs.uk/rightcare/wp-content/uploads/sites/40/2019/08/progressive-neuro-toolkit.pdf