Topical Questions

Question

Access to arts and culture can help to break down barriers to opportunity. Sadly, our much-loved Oswaldtwistle civic theatre closed in 2023 and had to be placed on the theatres at risk register. I welcome the recent grants awarded by Theatres Trust and Hyndburn borough council, but will the Minister meet me to see how the Government could help to secure the future of this much-loved and important community asset?

Question

Grassroots football clubs such as Bletchley Scot FC are inspiring the next generation of girls and boys to take up the beautiful game. When I visited them last month, they told me that securing funding for modern sports facilities was their top priority, but that engaging with the Football Association was incredibly challenging. Can the Minister set out what steps she is taking to work with the FA at the local and national levels?

Question

Market Drayton in my constituency has really poor grassroots sports facilities for a town that serves more than 12,500 people. Shropshire’s Conservatives will not allocate any of the community infrastructure levy money from the significant recent development there to improving those facilities, so will the Secretary of State meet me to discuss how we can get proper funding in, in order to provide Market Drayton—Shropshire’s third largest town—with the sports facilities it deserves?

Question

As the Select Committee looks into school and community sports, it has learned that the previous Government’s opening school facilities fund helped deliver sport to 300,000 people outside of school hours, seeing more girls, more disadvantaged pupils and more of those with special educational needs taking part. That fund ended on Monday, and I have already heard from two schools in my constituency that they will be scaling back their community provision. The Government talk a lot about the importance of communities and supporting young people, but this flies in the face of that, does it not?

Question

My constituent Paul Dadge was iconically photographed rescuing a badly burned survivor of the 7/7 bombings. What thanks did Paul get? His phone was hacked by a newspaper looking for stories. Twelve years on from the Leveson inquiry, most national papers are still in the Independent Press Standards Organisation, a complaints handler that they control and that has never investigated or fined a single newspaper in its history. Will the Secretary of State consult on introducing a truly independent press regulator for all national papers, so that we can make sure there are no more victims of phone hacking and press intrusion?

Question

Mr Speaker, if I enter your house and steal the draft manuscript of your memoirs, I am guilty of a crime. Artists, writers, musicians and other creatives are all having their work stolen as we speak, and you and I have received letters about this issue. We do not have the time to wait; what are the Government going to do to protect creatives and their work?