Question

To ask the Minister for Women and Equalities, how much of the £5 million announced in the Spring Budget 2017 to commemorate the centenary of votes for women will be spent on the statue of Millicent Fawcett in Parliament Square.

The £5m funding is available for projects across England to celebrate the centenary of the 1918 Representation of the People Act, educate young people about democracy and encourage women to get involved in politics at all levels.

The Government Equalities Office is in the process of agreeing how the Centenary Fund will be allocated. Given the limited time available and the size of the fund, a full public consultation was not feasible. Instead, we chose to consult widely with women’s organisations and non-governmental organisations on how the Government could support projects next year.

As announced in April this year, the first statue of Millicent Fawcett, a leader of the suffrage movement, was erected in Parliament Square and funded from the £5 million Centenary Fund. Government has contributed just over £706,000 towards the statue’s costs.

We are setting up a £1.5million Women’s Suffrage Centenary Grant Scheme specifically to support local and community groups across the regions of England to celebrate the centenary. This grant scheme has two funding streams: the small grants stream has a ceiling of £2,000 to support small local celebratory events. The larger grant stream will cover projects from £2,000 to £125,000 that will principally focus on increasing young people’s understanding and engagement with democracy as well as encouraging women to participate in public life. There will be a grant administrator to oversee the scheme which will be opening soon.‎ I have written to all members of the House to alert them to our plans and will be writing again when the scheme opens.

We are also developing plans for supporting the reach, impact and legacy of existing centenary activities in a number of cities across England that have a strong suffrage history.

The Barnett formula has been applied to this funding in the usual way and it is for the devolved administrations to decide how they choose to mark the centenary.