Tag: Stuart Andrew

The speech made by Stuart Andrew, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, in the House of Commons on 15 December 2022.

I am pleased to respond to this debate and I am very grateful to the hon. Member for Warrington North (Charlotte Nichols) for securing it. The contributions that we have heard across the Chamber show the importance that this House places on the provision of good-quality public leisure facilities, and I think all hon. Members will agree that those spaces are vital to allowing people, wherever they may be in the country, to participate in sport and to lead an active lifestyle.

Hon. Members have spoken in this debate of the challenges faced by their own local leisure centres, gyms and swimming pools. The most significant challenge is the rises in energy costs, further to the abhorrent Russian invasion of Ukraine, but there are other challenges with inflation, as the hon. Lady mentioned, the ability to keep qualified and dedicated staff and shortages of pool-cleaning chemicals. While a number of facilities are facing similar problems, no two are exactly the same—just as no two constituencies are the same, I guess.

The leisure sector as a whole has a wide range of stakeholders and operating models, encompassing providers from across the public, private and civil society sectors such as the community interest company in the hon. Lady’s constituency. Local authorities will choose the model that works best for them as part of their consideration of how they can best deliver their services for local communities.

In times such as these, I recognise that local authorities are having to make difficult decisions about which services to protect. I remind the House that leisure provision is not a statutory service for local authorities and, as such, may be deprioritised when it comes to setting budgets for the next year. However, I urge my colleagues in local government to consider the essential services that those facilities provide for their communities, because I firmly believe that public leisure facilities provide so much in the way of positive opportunities and benefits to those communities.

Charlotte Nichols

In my own area in Warrington, the funding available from central Government has been cut by about 60% over the last 10 years, which means that approximately 70% of the council’s spending is on statutory services, particularly things such as adult social care. Clearly ,those cannot be cut back on, and we expect the proportion of council spending spent on statutory services will only rise, as an ageing population will have more complex health needs. While I appreciate what the Minister says, that leisure facilities cannot be prioritised since they are not a statutory service but that he encourages councils to do all they can to support them, does he not agree that councils are being put in a difficult position, and that without additional public support and finance, they are fundamentally not able to do that?

Stuart Andrew

I recognise those challenges. That is why my right hon. Friend the Chancellor announced the additional support for local authorities in the recent autumn statement, and I hope that will help in these challenging circumstances.

I was referring to the positive opportunities and the benefits that leisure centres provide. I am sure hon. Members are aware that we have very high levels of inactivity in this country, as the hon. Lady mentioned, with almost one third of adults—more than 12 million people—classed as inactive. On top of that, 2.2 million, or 30%, of children are inactive.

While the figures show some signs of improvement post pandemic, we know that more work needs to be done to target the long-term inactive and make sure everyone can receive the benefits that being active brings. We will be publishing our sporting strategy, which will outline how we intend to do that, in the new year. A key part of that strategy will be making sure that people throughout the country, from Carlisle to Cornwall and west London to Warrington, have access to the right facilities for them to get active and feel part of their community.

That is why public leisure centres and facilities are so important: they provide a wide range of opportunities to be physically active—badminton, swimming or even Zumba— at low cost, and in doing so they become hubs for the community, places to meet and to make new friends and new social connections. They also offer jobs and volunteering opportunities to the communities they are in, and the hon. Lady gave a good example of the benefits those centres bring.

Why is this access to sport and physical activity so important? It is proven that regular activity genuinely helps to avoid a range of health issues, whether physical or mental, and that eases the pressure on our NHS. It helps to bring communities closer together, and gives young people essential leadership and teamwork skills. We know that sport works. I know from my own personal experience, when I do get the chance to go to the gym, that it is a great opportunity to reset and refresh, and hopefully that helps me to do my job in a better way.

Speaking to staff at my local facilities, and through conversations with people across the sector, I know that the sport and fitness sector has endured challenging times over the past few years. During the pandemic, the Government prioritised access to sport. We encouraged people to get out once a day for a walk. We worked with gyms to make sure they could reopen safely. In addition, we provided the £100 million national leisure recovery fund, which was part of more than £1 billion of support to the sport sector to ensure its survival.

On top of that, we continue to invest heavily in sport and physical activity through our arm’s-length body, Sport England, which receives over £100 million a year in Exchequer funding, along with over £200 million from the players of the National Lottery. We are continuing to support the sector now as we face the challenges of increased energy costs. Our energy bill relief scheme has limited energy costs for swimming pools, leisure centres, gyms and sports clubs throughout the country to half of what they could have been with wholesale prices as they are. That support will continue over the winter until March next year.

Charlotte Nichols

On a point of clarification, I asked what support would be available beyond March 2023, because a lot of leisure centres look as if they will not be able to survive after that cliff edge. I know the Minister will not be able to make a financial commitment today, but is he having conversations with the Treasury about the continuance of a scheme of that kind, in the hope that that support might continue beyond March 2023?

Stuart Andrew

The hon. Lady rightly predicts that I cannot make a financial statement here—my colleagues in the Treasury would be extremely angry with me if I did—but I will come on in a moment to some of the work we are doing.

We have also provided business rates relief for those providing these essential services in the private sector, which will remain in place until March 2024. Throughout the implementation of the energy bill relief scheme, officials in my Department and I have been working closely with partners in the sector, such as ukactive, and with colleagues in local government, such as the Local Government Association, to monitor the scheme’s impact and make sure that we are fully aware of the situation facing the leisure sector. Their feedback and the insights they have been providing and sharing with us are so important for ensuring that support can be continued where it is needed most. I take this opportunity to thank them all, as well as the staff at Sport England who have supported us with the review.

The energy bill relief scheme has been under review over the last months, and officials in my Department have engaged with colleagues in Treasury to make sure we have made the strongest case possible for further support. Outside of that energy review, the Department is continuing to review how best we can support the provisions of leisure centres across the country. That includes ongoing engagement with our partners in the public, private and civil society sectors, and across Government, and we will continue to make sure that we support those essential services every way we can. As I have said throughout my speech, I recognise the huge benefit that those services provide to our communities, to the health of the nation and, ultimately, to many of the services that Government provide. I thank the hon. Lady again for bringing this important matter to the Floor of the House.

The speech made by Stuart Andrew, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, in Westminster Hall, the House of Commons, on 6 December 2022.

I really mean it when I say that it is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Harris; like the hon. Member for Worsley and Eccles South (Barbara Keeley), I think it is for the first time. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Jo Gideon) for securing this debate and all Members for their contributions and their interest in the topic. I also add my thanks to those given to my hon. Friend the Member for Sedgefield (Paul Howell), who cannot be here today but has done a lot of work on this issue.

I feel I should start by trying to manage some expectations in respect of what I can say, for reasons that I will elaborate on later. That said, today’s discussion has been important and I am grateful for the thoughtful consideration of dormant assets funding and the opportunities afforded by empowering local people to decide for themselves how best to support their communities.

It is worth reflecting on the assets scheme itself, which enables dormant financial assets to be unlocked for social and environmental causes across the UK. Over the past decade, the scheme has been used to tackle systemic social challenges and to level up the communities that need it most, in particular by targeting and benefiting left-behind areas. The scheme is led by the financial services industry and backed by the Government, with the aim of reuniting owners with their financial assets. That is an important point to remember. If that is not possible, the money supports vital social and environmental initiatives across the UK.

Since it became operational in 2011, the scheme has unlocked £892 million to be spent on the current three named causes: youth, financial inclusion and social investment. The funding is focused on supporting innovative, long-term programmes and has gone towards tackling some of the UK’s most pressing social and economic challenges, including youth unemployment and problem debt. It has also invested in charities and social enterprises that serve vulnerable communities.

To date, as we have heard, the funding has been distributed by four independent and expert organisations: Youth Futures Foundation, Fair4All Finance, Big Society Capital and Access, the Foundation for Social Investment. I thank them all for their work. The funding has had positive real-world benefits. For example, as a result of the work by Fair4All Finance on financial inclusion, 150,000 vulnerable people are estimated to have saved between £50 million and £75 million in unaffordable interest repayments from high-cost lenders and loan sharks.

The scheme has also provided urgently needed finance for social-purpose organisations serving people across England, particularly in more deprived communities. This includes almost £110,000 that has been invested in Pinc College, a brilliant organisation that works to provide neurodiverse young people with a purposeful pathway to careers in the cultural and creative sectors. The college’s creative-learning studios operate in partnership with arts and cultural organisations such as the Potteries Museum & Art Gallery in Stoke-on-Trent, with which I am sure my hon. Friends the Members for Stoke-on-Trent Central and for Stoke-on-Trent South (Jack Brereton) are familiar.

The Dormant Assets Act 2022, which received Royal Assent in February and came into force in June, has expanded the scheme to include new financial assets. The scheme is set to unlock an estimated £880 million more throughout the UK. The English portion of that would be £738 million, on top of the ongoing flows from dormant bank and building society accounts. The release of the money is, of course, entirely dependent on voluntary industry participation. The Government anticipate that it could take some years for that to flow through the system.

After the Act became law, the Secretary of State launched a public consultation on the social or environmental purposes of the English portion of the funding. We ensured that the consultation was an open and fair opportunity for people to have their say on how the money could have the best impact in England. The consultation ran from June to 19 October and received more than 3,300 responses, including from financial services industry participants, civil society organisations and members of the public. It was gratifying to see so many people engage with how dormant assets funding should be spent in England in the years to come.

The consultation asked respondents to share their views on the three current named causes, the inclusion of community wealth funds in the scheme and any additional causes that they believed should be considered. All responses are being assessed and considered against a set of criteria published in the consultation. Any changes to the current causes, including if the scheme were to establish a community wealth fund, would need to be set out in secondary legislation and be approved by both Houses. Our officials are working at pace to analyse the thousands of responses to the consultation and I expect we will be able to publish a response in early 2023.

Let me turn to community wealth funds themselves. I am glad to see that they have brought together Members from across the House. As Members will know, community wealth funds are schemes that give pots of money to communities right across our country, empowering them to make their own decisions on how best to invest in their neighbourhoods. Such communities are typically areas of fewer than 10,000 residents.

The aim of community wealth funds is to direct funding to those areas that experience the highest levels of deprivation and the lowest social capital. The neighbourhoods that a community wealth fund could support are all too often ineligible for or unaware of how to apply for funding to address and overcome those challenges. This may be because local residents may not have the knowledge about grant processes, do not have the skills and experiences needed to apply for alternative funding sources or are unable to identify challenges and solutions.

Proposals for community wealth funds suggest that spending decisions should be made by local residents, who can design bespoke solutions that would improve their communities and the lives there. Allowing local residents to make the final decision would incentivise the involvement and participation of community members in the decision-making process, and using local knowledge would make spending as effective and impactful as possible.

I have always been an advocate for local people driving change in their own communities. It is something I certainly saw when I was growing up in Wales and during my more than 16 years of work in the charity sector. I believe local people will have the individual answers to addressing many of the disparities that Members have mentioned.

I am sure Members will appreciate that, as I said at the beginning of my speech, I cannot yet comment on whether community wealth funds will become a named cause in the dormant asset scheme. As I said, we are still reviewing the responses and the final decision rests with the Secretary of State, so I would not want to pre-empt the outcome of the consultation as it would undercut the fair and open process. However, I am deeply grateful for the opportunity to discuss this important idea and the inclusion of community wealth funds, and I am grateful for many of the excellent points that were made.

It is clear from the debate that we all share the same ambition: to ensure that the dormant asset scheme continues to be successful in unlocking such assets for public good. I thank colleagues for their patience while the outcome of the consultation is decided. I certainly look forward to engaging with them all as soon as the response is published in, I hope, early 2023. In the meantime, the contributions today have been absolutely invaluable in highlighting the benefits that the inclusion of community wealth funds could bring. I finish by again thanking my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central for leading this important debate.

The speech made by Stuart Andrew, the Minister for Civil Society, on 5 December 2022.

Thank you for having me here today.

It is a privilege to be part of an event which recognises and celebrates the great work Age UK and its volunteers have carried out to support people in their communities.

Having previously worked in the sector, I know how important charities are. As Minister for Civil Society, I now see the great work of local charities on a regular basis.

Thousands of small and local charities up and down the country work to support millions in society every day.

A key part of this support is helping to combat loneliness, particularly for older people.

Tackling loneliness is a priority for the government.

Over the past year, we have reached millions of people through our campaign activity, where we encourage people to ‘Lift Someone Out Of Loneliness’, to try and reduce the stigma around saying that you’re lonely.

We have also published new research into loneliness and its impacts.

We know that loneliness can be increased by certain life events, including retirement, decline in physical health and bereavement.

People with disabilities and long term health conditions are three times more likely to experience chronic loneliness, so it’s important that we work to support them.

This work is a cross-Government effort. I am bringing together ministers across government to continue to drive forward government action, and look forward to working together with the voluntary sector to promote social connection.

Volunteers are also key to delivering this work. Volunteering is critical to a vibrant and resilient society.

This Government is committed to enabling people to take part in all forms of social action, including volunteering.

We know the profound benefit that volunteering has on the individual, on communities and on society.

We recognise outstanding volunteers through the Points of Light Award and national honours.

In doing so, we are shining a light on volunteers whose work will inspire others in their community and beyond.

As households and communities face rising energy prices, local charities are seeing increased demand for their services while contending with the same price increases themselves.

I understand the sector is facing huge pressures at the moment, including local charities that are often at the forefront of supporting their communities in times of need.

My department will keep engaging constructively across the civil society sector and other government departments to monitor the impact of rising costs on the sector, and ensure DCMS is engaged on policy which concerns charities and civil society.

We know how important partnerships are to the success of this work. Government cannot tackle loneliness alone.

We are committed to building a more connected society, and are growing our Tackling Loneliness Network of organisations from across sectors to help us in this work.

So again, I would like to take a moment to thank all of you for the part you have played in tackling loneliness in our communities.

The speech made by Stuart Andrew, the Minister for Civil Society, on 15 November 2022.

Thank you for the introduction, Jessica.

It’s a pleasure to be here. I think you may have been expecting someone else a couple of weeks ago, but I am absolutely thrilled to have taken on the Civil Society portfolio and to be here today.

Thank you Carol and Jessica for inviting me. I know this is a big event in the ACF calendar, as well as being your first ‘in person’ conference in the last three years.

It is also my first engagement as Minister for Civil Society, and I am delighted to be in the presence of so many inspiring leaders of such a vital part of our sector.

Trusts and foundations are lifelines to so many civil society organisations – providing crucial independent funding to enable them to carry out their work and support communities across the country.

I’d like to extend my thanks and appreciation to you, the leaders of trusts and foundations, for the resilience you’ve shown over the past few challenging years. And the determination you’ve displayed in tackling our current economic challenges.

Your wealth of experience is a clear asset to be harnessed in promoting innovation in philanthropy, empowering the sector, and supporting trusts and foundations to thrive.

As you might know, my early career was in the charitable sector. As a fundraiser, I understood the generosity of the British public as well as the importance of philanthropy.

At Hope House Children’s Hospice, I experienced first hand the challenges that crises can have on giving – I was there at a time where donations dropped 50% during the Kosovo crisis.

We had to come up with solutions at a fast pace. And I’m aware of how – amidst the current pressures – funders have had to quickly adapt to a changing environment.

Throughout my career – in charities, and in politics – I have witnessed the impact that valuable funds can have for those who need it most – from vital health services for children and their families, to tackling homelessness, and levelling up our communities.

I know you have been focussing today on courageous leadership, and what it means over the next 10 years.

To me, courageous leadership is about three things: resilience, collaboration and humility.

We are facing unprecedented times – the global pandemic, climate change, Putin’s war on Ukraine, and the cost of living have created significant impacts across our society.

And it is the civil society organisations who are on the front line – helping individuals and families.

We have seen the resilience of great leaders and trustees who are able to adapt, pivot and flex against these challenges.

I’ve been inspired by the work and innovation in the civil society sector to make precious resources go further to reach those most in need.

I also believe that resilience means drawing on support.

I’m aware that trusts and foundations are seeing increased demand, and organisations – from small to large – are facing higher energy prices.

And I know that many of you are looking at the grants you have in place with vital civil society organisations – and are now providing flexibility, or additional funding to help them through the challenges they are facing.

In Government, we are also taking action to support these organisations by helping them with their bills over the winter, as part of our Energy Bill Relief Scheme.

And my department will continue to engage constructively across the civil society sector to monitor the impact of rising costs and pressures.

In order to be resilient, to be truly resilient in a way that allows us to ‘spring back’, we also need strong foundations to ensure our impact is sustainable.

ACF’s Stronger Foundations initiative does just that – bringing foundations together to share best practice – from strategy to investment – with the aim of understanding and promoting what works best.

At a time of huge global change, collaboration is more important than ever.

I was impressed to see that your Stronger Foundations format is a world leader, with influence outside the UK.

And finally, courageous leadership is about humility. As leaders, we don’t know it all, and never will. Acknowledging that is courageous.

We must continually listen to those around us – to those whose views resonate with ours – and just as importantly – those which challenge them.

As Minister for Sport, Tourism and Civil Society, including Minister for Equalities, there are – quite literally – countless opportunities to connect across my portfolio and the intersections of this amazing sector.

I am committed to listening to your views, championing the fantastic achievements of civil society, and building a strong relationship together.

Thank you again for inviting me here today. I look forward to meeting with some of you this evening, and to working with you in the months and years ahead.