Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Stella Creasy and Maria Miller

Thursday 31st October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Maria Miller]

I take this opportunity to welcome the hon. Lady to her first questions on the Front Bench. I am sure that she will make a good contribution to all our Question Times. She is right that the Government have a huge role to play in setting an example. In my Department we have a significant majority of women in leadership roles. We want to ensure that in future we have even more women not only in Parliament and as Ministers, but in the Cabinet—something on which the Prime Minister has made his thoughts very clear.

[Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)]

3. What steps she is taking to increase awareness of and prevent violence against women and girls.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Stella Creasy and Maria Miller

Thursday 14th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[Maria Miller]

I can give my hon. Friend that absolute assurance. Across the board, all areas are expected to make the savings that I know he and his constituents would expect us to, whether within the original DCMS functions or in the new responsibilities that the Department has taken on—those from the Government Equalities Office and telecoms responsibilities from the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills. That includes reducing accommodation costs from £4.9 million in 2010 to £3.6 million this year.

[Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)]

9. Whether her Department and arm’s-length bodies pay at least the minimum wage to all staff, including interns; and what steps she is taking to encourage the payment of at least the minimum wage to such interns.

[The Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport (Maria Miller)]

It is departmental policy to pay at least the national minimum wage to all employees, including interns.

[Stella Creasy]

The British Film Institute is due to review its policy on internships at the beginning of March. Will the Secretary of State commit to writing to it to encourage it to pay its interns so that the opportunities this publicly funded body provides are available to all without financial support?

[Maria Miller]

The important thing for the hon. Lady to recognise is that work experience and internships are an incredibly helpful way for young people to get into employment, and evidence from the Department for Work and Pensions backs that up. The hon. Lady will know that the BFI wants to ensure that work experience is available to people from a cross-section of society, and it has advertised its internships in such as way as to ensure that happens.