Asked by: Seema Malhotra (Labour (Co-op) - Feltham and Heston)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, whether he has plans to issue guidance on holding VE Day celebrations to Royal British Legions as a result of the covid-19 outbreak.
Answered by John Whittingdale
In light of the COVID- 19 outbreak, all VE Day 75 event organisers should follow the guidance and advice that is regularly being issued and updated by the Government and Public Health England.
The Government is working closely with the Royal British Legion which has issued up to date advice to its branches.
Asked by: Seema Malhotra (Labour (Co-op) - Feltham and Heston)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Minister of State, Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, how many people aged (a) 16 and under and (b) over 16 years old undertook work experience in the Department in each of the last three years.
Answered by John Whittingdale
The Civil Service aims to increase opportunities for people of all backgrounds and create a
Civil Service fit for 21st century Britain through work experience, internships and
apprenticeship schemes.
DCMS does not run a central work experience scheme and therefore does not hold data on work experience placements for people under 16. The figures for people over 16 years old are as follows:
2017: 3 on the Summer Diversity Internship Programme
2018: 2 (1 on the Summer Diversity Internship Programme and 1 on the Autism Internship Exchange Programme)
2019: 5 (4 on the Summer Diversity Internship Programme and 1 on the Autism Exchange Internship Programme)
Asked by: Seema Malhotra (Labour (Co-op) - Feltham and Heston)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what assessment she has made of the effectiveness of the legacy benefits of the London 2012 Olympics.
Answered by Nigel Adams
Government commissioned an independent consortium to carry out a meta-evaluation of the benefits of London 2012. These reports are published on GOV.UK (https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/london-2012-meta-evaluation) and cover a broad range of research areas such as economic benefits, sustainability standards and the impact on volunteering.
Government, in conjunction with the Mayor of London, published four annual reports on legacy between 2013 and 2016. These described legacy benefits in the areas of sport and physical activity, economic impact, communities, East London regeneration and the impact from the Paralympics. Again, these reports are available on GOV.UK via https://www.gov.uk/society-and-culture/2012-olympic-and-paralympic-legacy.
Asked by: Seema Malhotra (Labour (Co-op) - Feltham and Heston)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what discussions she has had with British TV and film production companies on increasing the number of female actresses in lead roles in television and film.
Answered by Nigel Adams
The Secretary of State regularly meets with film and television representatives from a range of backgrounds as part of her role. However, due to the confidential nature of many of these meetings, we are unable to give details of such engagements. Increasing screen diversity is a priority for government, and we continue to work with our arm’s length body the British Film Institute (BFI) to improve representation both on and off screen, including through supporting the wider adoption of their world-leading Diversity Standards.
Asked by: Seema Malhotra (Labour (Co-op) - Feltham and Heston)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what recent estimate she has made of the number of households affected by broadband not-spots in each local authority area.
Answered by Matt Warman
Almost every premise in the UK is able to get broadband through a fixed, wireless or satellite connection. However, a small minority of premises are unable to get a decent service, providing 10 Mbps download speeds and 1 Mbps upload speeds. In their latest Connected Nations report, Ofcom estimated that these premises numbered only around 155,000 and was likely to reduce further by March 2020, when the Government’s Broadband Universal Obligation (USO) will come into force. The USO gives households without a decent service a legal right to request one up to a Reasonable Cost Threshold of £3,400 per premise.
Alongside the USO, investment by Government and the commercial sector has ensured that superfast broadband, providing download speeds of at least 24 Mbps, is now available to 96% of UK premises, and that access to full fibre broadband has increased by 1.5 million premises over the past year and is now available to 10% of the UK. The Government is ambitious to go further and, as part of this, has committed £5 billion to subsidise the deployment of full fibre and gigabit broadband in less commercially viable areas.
Further information on broadband availability in each local authority area can be found on the Connected Nations section of Ofcom’s website.
Asked by: Seema Malhotra (Labour (Co-op) - Feltham and Heston)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what funding her Department has made available to help tackle loneliness in Hounslow.
Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Government’s strategy on tackling loneliness in England includes a range of new policies that are benefiting people across England, including in Hounslow. This includes improving and expanding social prescribing and running a new communications campaign on social connection.
Government established the £11.5m Building Connections Fund in 2018. This funds 126 projects across England that bring people and communities together. 15 grants, totalling £1.25m, have been made to projects in London. This includes a £93,000 grant to the Afghanistan & Central Asian Association for a project based in Hounslow offering activities such as tea sessions, one to one mentoring and social events.
In October 2019 the Minister for Civil Society announced £2m of new grant funding for frontline organisations tackling loneliness. Details of this funding, including the application process, will be announced in due course.
Asked by: Seema Malhotra (Labour (Co-op) - Feltham and Heston)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what proportion of staff in her Department in receipt of each category of Honour in (a) December 2018 and (b) June 2019 were (i) from ethnic minority backgrounds and (ii) female aged (A) under 30, (B) 31 to 40, (C) 41 to 50 and (D) aged over 50.
Answered by Nigel Adams
The Government is committed to ensuring that the honours system is fully representative of UK society. The proportion of women and people from ethnic minorities receiving recognition on each honours list is available on GOV.UK as is a breakdown of ethnicities of recipients is published on the Ethnicity Facts and Figures website at https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/honours-recipients-by-ethnicity
Information on ages is not correlated with other diversity factors. We also publish the proportion of honours by independent committee on GOV.UK. The numbers of honours recipients in DCMS are very small and vary from year to year. Releasing the requested data would identify the individuals and they have given permission for their data to be used for statistical purposes only.
Asked by: Seema Malhotra (Labour (Co-op) - Feltham and Heston)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what support her Department is providing for youth facilities in Hounslow.
Answered by Baroness Morgan of Cotes
We have seven programmes that have been funded in and around Hounslow through the #iwill Fund, including the Our Barn Youth Club and the Uprising Leadership Group.
We recognise the importance of investing in our young people, and so in September this year the Chancellor announced a £500 million Youth Investment fund over five years. This will help build up to 60 new youth centres and refurbish hundreds of existing youth facilities across the country, as well as providing over 100 mobile facilities for harder to reach areas. The fund will also support the provision and coordination of high-quality services for young people, and an investment in the youth workforce.
Asked by: Seema Malhotra (Labour (Co-op) - Feltham and Heston)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what assessment she has made of levels of racism in local (a) football and (b) badminton clubs.
Answered by Nigel Adams
We strongly condemn the recent incidents of racism in sport both at home and abroad. There is no place anywhere for racism in sport and we want it stamped out at every level of competition.
Government ministers and officials regularly meet the football authorities and other sports governing bodies, including the Football Association and Badminton England, to discuss a wide range of issues, including how we can work together to tackle racism.
Asked by: Seema Malhotra (Labour (Co-op) - Feltham and Heston)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what recent discussions he has had with (a) the Football Association on racism in football and (b) Badminton England on racism in badminton.
Answered by Nigel Adams
We strongly condemn the recent incidents of racism in sport both at home and abroad. There is no place anywhere for racism in sport and we want it stamped out at every level of competition.
Government ministers and officials regularly meet the football authorities and other sports governing bodies, including the Football Association and Badminton England, to discuss a wide range of issues, including how we can work together to tackle racism.