Asked by: James Wild (Conservative - North West Norfolk)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, pursuant to the Answer of 23 November 2022 to Question 87999, if he will provide a breakdown listing (a) the 15 sports that received loans and (b) the total number of loans allocated to each.
Answered by Stuart Andrew - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Culture, Media and Sport)
The Sport Survival Package distributed a total of £264.8 million funding (loan and grant funding) across 15 sports to ensure their survival throughout the pandemic.
The number of loans issued to sports and their organisations is as follows: one loan was issued to athletics, 10 loans were issued to basketball, 35 loans were issued to football, one loan was issued to horse racing, five loans were issued to ice hockey, five loans were issued to motorsport, five loans were issued to netball, one loan was issued for non-ticketed events, 27 loans were issued to rugby league, 103 loans were issued to rugby union and one loan was issued to tennis.
Asked by: Conor McGinn (Independent - St Helens North)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what support is being given to (a) football clubs and (b) rugby league clubs who own their stadium to assist with increased utility costs.
Answered by Stuart Andrew - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Culture, Media and Sport)
The Government recognises the importance of football and rugby league clubs, both professional and at grassroots level, which provide valuable opportunities for communities to come together and to take part in sport.
We understand that the rise in utility costs is having an impact on organisations of all sizes. In September we announced the Energy Bill Relief Scheme, under which businesses and other non-domestic energy users are offered support. This includes support to football and rugby league clubs.
After an initial six months of the scheme, the Government will provide ongoing focused support for vulnerable industries. A review is currently underway to determine where this should be targeted.
Asked by: Matt Vickers (Conservative - Stockton South)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what steps her Department is taking to promote British sport.
Answered by Stuart Andrew - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Culture, Media and Sport)
The Government is committed to building on the UK’s world-leading sporting reputation, and we are supporting our athletes and international sport activity through over £77 million investment per year in UK Sport for the Paris Olympic and Paralympic cycle.
We also ensure the UK is a global focus for sport through our hosting of major sporting events. This year has seen us successfully host a number of major sporting events, including the Birmingham Commonwealth Games, UEFA Women’s Euros and the Rugby League World Cup.
Looking ahead, we continue to build on our pipeline of events hosted in the UK between now and 2030. These include the UCI World Cycling Championships in Glasgow in 2023, the return of the UEFA Champions League Final to Wembley in 2024, the women’s Rugby World Cup in England in 2025, the European Athletics Championships 2026 in Birmingham, as well as both the 2026 Women's T20 Cricket World Cup (England and Wales) and the 2030 Men’s T20 Cricket World Cup (UK and Ireland). We are also supporting a UK & Ireland bid for the UEFA European Championships 2028.
Asked by: Stephen Hammond (Conservative - Wimbledon)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what steps her Department is taking to promote UK sport.
Answered by Stuart Andrew - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Culture, Media and Sport)
The Government is committed to building on the UK’s world-leading sporting reputation.
This year has seen us successfully host a number of major sporting events, including this year’s Birmingham Commonwealth Games, UEFA Women’s Euros and the Rugby League World Cup.
We aim to retain our world-leading hosting reputation in the years ahead, with a number of major sporting events due to be hosted in the UK between now and 2030.
Asked by: Mike Amesbury (Labour - Weaver Vale)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, how much funding her Department has provided to the Rugby Football League since 2017; and on what projects that funding has been spent.
Answered by Nigel Huddleston - Financial Secretary (HM Treasury)
I am looking forward to welcoming teams from across the world to the Men’s, Women’s and Wheelchair Rugby League World Cup which will take place in October and November. As part of this, the government has provided £10 million worth of funding to the CreatedBy legacy programme to support the development of large and small scale projects.
The Rugby Football League has received support from the government’s £600 million Sport Survival Package which ensured the survival of sports organisations throughout the pandemic. The Rugby Football League received £16.7 million loan support and £1.95 million grant support from the package, totalling £18.6 million of combined funding. This funding has safeguarded the immediate future of the sport for the communities it serves.
Furthermore, rugby league clubs will have benefitted from the £220m of National Lottery and Exchequer funding committed by Sport England since March 2020 to support community sport clubs and exercise centres through this pandemic.
Asked by: Stuart Anderson (Conservative - Wolverhampton South West)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what steps he is taking to support the disability sports sector.
Answered by Nigel Huddleston - Financial Secretary (HM Treasury)
The Government’s sport strategy, 'Sporting Future'', stresses the importance of helping under-represented groups and isolated communities, including disabled people, to take part in sport and physical activity.
Sport England, DCMS's arm’s length body for grassroots sport in England, launched their ten year strategy earlier this year, ‘Uniting the Movement’. The strategy reinforces their commitment to tackle inequalities in sport and physical activity, and provide opportunities to people that have traditionally been left behind, including disabled people. Sport England have also ensured that each of their programmes impact directly on disabled people, along with specific initiatives like the 'We Are Undefeatable' campaign, the Tackling Inequalities Fund and partnerships with groups such as Disability Rights UK, Activity Alliance, Aspire, Sense, International Mixed Ability Sport.
In addition, we are committed to championing disability sport at the highest levels, with continued support for Paralympic sports through UK Sport funding. We support the hosting of major sporting events in the UK such as the Rugby League World Cup in 2022, which will, for the first time in the event’s history, concurrently host the Men’s, Women’s and Wheelchair tournaments. We are also hosting the 2022 Commonwealth Games in Birmingham which will be the most inclusive Games ever, featuring the largest ever integrated para sport programme and which builds on the Games’ ambition of being the ‘Games for everyone’. We have also ensured the continued visibility of the Paralympics by adding the games to the list of protected sporting events that must be available to free-to-air broadcasters.
Asked by: Ruth Jones (Labour - Newport West)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what assessment he has made of the effect of Australia and New Zealand withdrawing from the Rugby League World Cup.
Answered by Nigel Huddleston - Financial Secretary (HM Treasury)
The Government was extremely disappointed by the decision to postpone this year’s Rugby League World Cup, but recognises that this was the inevitable result of a number of factors outside of the organisers’ control, including the decision of the Australian and New Zealand teams not to participate. DCMS continues to work closely with the Rugby League World Cup organisers, as they now work towards the rescheduled tournament which will be held between Saturday 15 October – Saturday 19 November 2022.
Asked by: Gary Sambrook (Conservative - Birmingham, Northfield)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, with reference to the announcement that the National Lottery will form a commercial partnership with the Rugby Football League, what assessment his Department has made of the potential effect of the allocation of funds from the National Lottery promotional fund to that partnership on the ongoing Fourth National Lottery Licence Competition.
Answered by John Whittingdale
The National Lottery's partnership with the Rugby Football League is a commercial arrangement entered into by the current operator of the National Lottery under the terms of its current (third) licence. Promotional deals are a valuable part of the National Lottery proposition as they strengthen the National Lottery brand and associated positivity.
The Gambling Commission, as the independent regulator, approved the release of funding for a range of promotional deals such as this, as they were satisfied that in the short term, they would benefit National Lottery players (through relevant prizes), while over the longer term, they would generate benefits for the National Lottery brand. The budget is from a promotional fund, and is therefore separate from the money allocated to National Lottery good causes.
The Gambling Commission launched the competition for the 4th licence on 28 August 2020. The next licence comes into force in August 2023.
Asked by: James Grundy (Conservative - Leigh)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what financial support the Government plans to provide to rugby league clubs to ensure the safe return of local sport following the covid-19 pandemic.
Answered by Nigel Huddleston - Financial Secretary (HM Treasury)
To date, the government has provided an unprecedented £300 million Sport Winter Survival Package to give a lifeline to organisations that would otherwise not survive the winter as a result of the restriction on spectators announced from 1 October. This included a provisional allocation of £12 million to support rugby league which is in addition to the £16 million cash injection government announced in May 2020 to safeguard the immediate future of the sport for the communities it serves.
Furthermore, rugby league clubs will have benefitted from the £220m of National Lottery and Exchequer funding committed by Sport England since March 2020 to support community sport clubs and exercise centres through this pandemic. This sector support was recently boosted by an extra £50million to help grassroots sports clubs and organisations as part of Sport England’s new strategy Uniting the Movement. Further details of Sport England funding including the organisations that have benefited can be found at: https://www.sportengland.org/why-were-here.
Asked by: Tracey Crouch (Conservative - Chatham and Aylesford)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, when he plans to make a decision on the timescale for the resumption of grassroots rugby during the period of covid-19 restrictions.
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. That’s why we made sure that people could exercise at least once a day even during the height of the first period of enhanced national restrictions and why we opened up grassroots sport and leisure facilities as soon as it was safe to do so.
However, as the Prime Minister said on 23 November national restrictions will end on Wednesday 2 December. This will allow both rugby union and rugby league to resume in accordance with their return to play guidance. Higher risk activity such as scrums have been removed from both codes of the game to ensure the risk of transmission is reduced.