Asked by: Thangam Debbonaire (Labour - Bristol West)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, if she will made an estimate of the number and proportion of children aged 11 who can swim 50 metres unassisted.
Answered by Stuart Andrew - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Culture, Media and Sport)
Sport England’s Active Lives Survey for Children and Young People collects annual data on the engagement in, and attitudes to, sport and physical activity. The release of the 2022-23 Active Lives data for Children and Young People is scheduled for 7 December.
The Active Lives Survey captures swimming capability based on whether children can: swim; tread water; swim 25 metres unaided; and swim 200 metres unaided (the latter capturing years 7-11 only).
The survey informs us that in the academic year 2021/22:
Over 3 million infant and junior children could swim
2.7 million could tread water
1.8 million could swim 25 metres unaided
1.5 million secondary school children could swim 200 metres unaided
Asked by: Thangam Debbonaire (Labour - Bristol West)
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 increase the number of post-production film and tv industry jobs in the UK.
Answered by John Whittingdale
The recently published Creative Industries Sector Vision sets out the Government’s ambition to maximise the potential of the creative industries. It details our plans to grow these industries by an extra £50bn and create a million extra jobs by 2030, and build a pipeline of talent and opportunity for young people through a Creative Careers Promise. As part of this, it will be important to expand career opportunities in post-production film and television.
The Creative Industries Sector Vision sets out a range of interventions across education, skills and job quality to achieve this. The forthcoming joint Department for Education and Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) Cultural Education Plan will support the provision of high quality cultural education for all school-age children, including careers advice and skills development. This will provide young people with a window into the sector, and access to important foundational skills.
Strengthening talent pipelines for young people is also a priority. This will be delivered through our Creative Careers Programme, 14 new creative Local Skills Improvement Plans across England announced this summer, two new creative T-Levels rolling out in September 2024, and multiple national and regional opportunities to participate in digital and creative Skills Bootcamps.
These interventions complement the investment the sector is already making on skills, including the BFI’s £9 million National Lottery funded ‘Skills Clusters’ which will support skills development and training across the UK; ScreenSkills’ £19 million Future Film Skills Programme which has helped over 119,000 people progress in screen careers since 2018; and the work of the DCMS-funded, world-leading National Film and Television School.
Following the publication of the BFI’s Film and High-End TV Skills Review (2022), industry has set up the UK Production Skills Task Force for the Screen Sector to produce an industry-led response to the review. This will include supporting and delivering an action plan to address the skills shortages, gaps, and related workforce challenges in the sector over the next 5 years. Following on from the BFI's Skills Review, the BFI are now conducting a scoping study of the skills needs in the UK's animation, post-production, video games, and VFX sectors.
Asked by: Thangam Debbonaire (Labour - Bristol West)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what recent discussions she has had with the Leader of the House on parliamentary time for legislation on football governance.
Answered by Stuart Andrew - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Culture, Media and Sport)
The government is committed to delivering on the Football Governance White Paper and will legislate where parliamentary time allows.
Asked by: Thangam Debbonaire (Labour - Bristol West)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what recent discussions she has had with the Leader of the House on parliamentary time for the Draft Media Bill.
Answered by John Whittingdale
The Government is committed to delivering the Media Bill and will legislate when Parliamentary time allows.
Asked by: Thangam Debbonaire (Labour - Bristol West)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what recent discussions she has had with the Leader of the House on parliamentary time for legislation on gambling reforms.
Answered by Stuart Andrew - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Culture, Media and Sport)
The government remains committed to implementing the package of measures outlined in the gambling white paper. We will progress on both the measures requiring secondary legislation and those requiring primary legislation when parliamentary time allows.
Asked by: Thangam Debbonaire (Labour - Bristol West)
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 support the creative industries to reach net zero.
Answered by John Whittingdale
As set out in the Creative Industries Sector Vision, published in June 2023, the creative industries has an important role to play in helping the UK reach net zero. The sector vision set out how the government can work with industry to reduce the creative industries’ direct impact on the environment, improve the infrastructure to support net zero transition and seize the growth opportunity that improved sustainability can provide.
This includes the development of a Creative Climate Charter, led by the Creative Industries Council; providing a forum for creative sub-sectors to share their experiences and best practice on sustainability; creative clusters that demonstrate our world-leading sustainable and circular fashion sector; and working with the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero to provide tailored advice to creative businesses via the UK Climate Hub.
Asked by: Thangam Debbonaire (Labour - Bristol West)
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 ensure that (a) theatres, (b) sports halls and (c) libraries have access to surveyors for reinforced autoclave aerated concrete.
Answered by John Whittingdale
Individual building owners and managers are responsible for health and safety, including responding to safety alerts such as RAAC.
On the 1st May 2019, the Standing Committee on Structural Safety issued a safety alert on the failure of RAAC planks.
The government has already funded extensive RAAC mitigation works across the NHS and are working closely with responsible bodies to manage RAAC in the long-term across the education estate, via capital funding provided to the sector each year.
Government will consider the approach to any RAAC in other public sector estates on a case-by-case basis.
Asked by: Thangam Debbonaire (Labour - Bristol West)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what information her Department holds on the number of (a) theatres, (b) libraries and (c) sports halls that are affected by reinforced autoclave aerated concrete.
Answered by John Whittingdale
Departments have been asked to report on the current picture of suspected and confirmed RAAC in their estates as soon as possible. This will be updated on a regular basis as new buildings are identified and surveying and remediation are carried out.
Government published lists of education settings confirmed as having RAAC on Wednesday 6 September and committed to providing further updates.
Asked by: Thangam Debbonaire (Labour - Bristol West)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, how many visits were made by (a) the Secretary of State and (b) each minister in her Department to a (i) Government Hub and (ii) ministerial office outside of London in (A) 2022 and (B) 2023.
Answered by John Whittingdale
In 2023, the current Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) Secretary of State has so far made one visit to the DCMS Manchester office, with Ministers yet to visit. In 2022, former DCMS Secretaries of State made two visits to the DCMS Manchester office, with then Minister for Sports and Tourism, Nigel Huddlestone, visiting the office once.
Asked by: Thangam Debbonaire (Labour - Bristol West)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment her Department has made of the potential impact of trends in entries for art and design GCSEs and A-levels on the future ability of creative industries to recruit skilled staff.
Answered by Robert Halfon
The government set out plans for addressing the skills needs of the creative industries in the Creative Industries Sector Vision published by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport in June. As the vision sets out, the skills needs of the creative industries are complex and qualifications needed to enter the wide range of posts available in the industry will vary. In light of this, an assessment of the specific impact of art and design GCSE and A-level entry on the creative industry has not been carried out. The department is, however, delivering a wide range of skills programmes and reforms to deliver the skills needed by employers in this industry.
Employers in the Creative and Design sector have developed 58 high-quality apprenticeship standards including Creative Venue Technician, VFX artist, and Media Production Coordinator. Alongside this, T Levels, which are aligned to the same employer-led standards as apprenticeships, will also support the pipeline of talent into the creative industries. New T Levels in Craft and Design, and Media, Broadcast and Production will be rolled out in 2024.
The department’s reforms to higher technical education (level 4/5) include the introduction of Higher Technical Qualifications (HTQs). These are current (and new) level 4-5 qualifications approved, and quality marked by the Institute for Apprenticeships & Technical Education as providing the skills demanded in the workplace by employers. 31 Digital HTQs launched for AY 22/23. Creative and Design HTQs will be available for teaching from September 2025.