Jo Stevens
MP for Cardiff East · Labour · United Kingdom
“I thank my right hon. Friend, because my Cardiff East constituents were absolutely delighted with the announcement yesterday of £30 million for Cardiff Parkway station. Mine is the only constituency in the capital city without a train station, so this will be transformational for growth, jobs and travel.”
House of Commons29 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Many of my constituents work in Cardiff’s three universities. Before Brexit, EU students in Wales contributed £83 million off campus, but new EU enrolments halved within a year of them losing home fee status. Does my hon.”
House of Commons12 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Q3. My Cardiff East constituents are pleased that the Government are funding extra neighbourhood policing for us, but Cardiff is the only capital city in the UK that does not have specific capital city police funding.”
House of Commons2 September 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“8. I welcome the Secretary of State to his new role and wish him all the best. Earlier this year, my Cardiff East constituents were thrilled to hear of the agreement between this Labour Government, the Welsh Labour Government and private investors on funding to proceed with our long-awaited Cardiff Parkway station on the cross-border main…”
House of Commons2 September 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“As my hon. Friend knows from his constituency experience, poverty scars children’s lives and life chances. That is why we announced the child poverty strategy, including the removal of the two-child limit, which will benefit nearly 70,000 children right across Wales.”
House of Commons17 June 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I have to say that it has been rather amusing to hear the new minority Plaid Cymru Welsh Government bragging about what they have done since the election. They have started a review, they have set up a steering group, they are working on a plan for another plan, they have set a target, and they are thinking about things.”
House of Commons17 June 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
The complete record
1,334 lines on record for Jo Stevens, in date order, each linked to its source. Free to read, without an account. Most recent 500 lines shown. Search to find more. Page 9 of 10.
This is not an official version of UK Parliament proceedings. It reproduces the published record and links to it; the official version is the one UK Parliament publishes.
“Yesterday, Lord Patel took the first steps to begin to right these wrongs. The next step must be that the rest of the board leave their posts. Their role in this shameful fiasco gives them no right to continue to hold positions of power in the club. I, too, hope that the EHRC will formally investigate what has occurred. Racism has no place in cricket or any other sport, and as Michael Holding has said of this case: “Each sport or industry can try to and put their house in order, but the message has to reach society at large or no real meaningful change can take place.” Society at large includes all of us here, and it of course includes the Prime Minister.”
House of Commons9 November 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Stockport (Navendu Mishra) for securing the urgent question. I too want to pay tribute to the bravery and persistence of Azeem Rafiq. He has already given others the courage to come forward, and I am sure that more will do so. Racism destroys lives, and that is why allegations must be properly, fairly and transparently investigated. The handling of this case is a textbook example of what should not happen. A legal investigation team was second-guessed by the club’s panel, there was a failure to apply the legal tests correctly to the evidence gathered, and Yorkshire even changed the inquiry’s terms of reference part-way through, preventing the investigation team from drawing conclusions about institutional racism. One has to wonder whether it was taking lessons from the Prime Minister on that.”
House of Commons9 November 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. May I ask your advice, as I believe the Minister has just inadvertently misled the House on two occasions in his responses to questions? In July, the Prime Minister accepted Labour’s request to extend football banning orders to online racist abuse. I raised the fact that nothing had been done about that in oral questions to the new Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport on 16 September. She was not able to answer the question and said that she would write to me. She has actually done so today, some two months on, saying, in effect, that nothing has been done yet because it will require primary legislation to extend football banning orders. So these orders are clearly not in force and action has not been taken.”
House of Commons9 November 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“We already have such a legal regime that works in financial services and in health and safety. There must be a compelling reason why the Government refuse to do the same to protect our children online. Can the Minister tell us what it is?”
House of Commons16 September 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“May I, too, extend a warm welcome to the new Secretary of State and the new Minister? I hope that, as Digital Secretary, she has changed her parliamentary password. Online fraud is a growing goldmine for fraudsters and online child abuse is a growing goldmine for paedophiles. Latest figures from the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children and the Internet Watch Foundation show a 70% increase in sexual communication offences with children, and a 77% increase in self-generated child sexual abuse material. Why are the Government still stubbornly and inexplicably refusing Labour’s call and the NSPCC’s call for the immediate implementation in the online safety Bill of personal criminal liability for senior tech executives whose actions consistently and significantly put children at risk?”
House of Commons16 September 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“We know that the new Secretary of State has set out her own views and interpretation of racism online, because she has written about it, so I am sure she will remember what the Prime Minister said about the torrent of online racist abuse against England footballers on 14 July. This is what he said: “Today we are taking practical steps to ensure that the football banning order regime is changed, so that if a person is guilty of racist online abuse of footballers, they will not be going to the match—no ifs, no buts, no exemptions and no excuses.” —[ Official Report , 14 July 2021; Vol. 699, c. 362.] I am really pleased that the Prime Minister heeded my call to extend banning orders to online racism. Can the Secretary of State tell us exactly what practical steps have been taken to change the football banning order regime since 14 July?”
House of Commons16 September 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I remind the Secretary of State of the election results in Wales in May. I too wish England all the best for the quarter finals. It was a fantastic game, and I look forward to a repeat of the performance in the quarter finals. On 23 March, the Minister for Digital and Culture, when asked about Government-backed insurance for the live events industry, said that “the decision is with the Treasury right now.” —[ Official Report, 23 March 2021; Vol. 691, c. 309WH.] We are three and a half months on, and there is silence from the Government. Can the Secretary of State say today whether the Government are going to underwrite time-limited insurance for live events? The industry just needs to know the answer—a straight yes or no, please.”
House of Commons1 July 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Festivals continue to be cancelled, even those scheduled for after 19 July, such as Womad, because the Government still have not published any guidance about sector reopening. They were forced into publishing the results of the events research programme last week after our urgent question, but they are also briefing to the press that nightclubs, for example, are going to reopen with no testing or proof of vaccine requirements. Businesses have had 15 long months of this chaos. The Secretary of State will not confirm insurance now and he will not publish guidance, so will he explain how festivals and live events scheduled for after 19 July can go ahead?”
House of Commons1 July 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport if he will make a statement on the results of the events research programme.”
House of Commons22 June 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Andrew Lloyd Webber refused to join the programme because the rest of the industry was not being treated equally; do companies have to have the Prime Minister’s mobile number to run a test event? Kendal Calling was cancelled yesterday because its application to participate in the third phase of the ERP was refused. Under what criteria was Wimbledon accepted as a pilot? When was that agreed? Will there be a fourth stage of the ERP if restrictions remain in place for the sector beyond 19 July? Finally, will the Minister just publish the ERP results today?”
House of Commons22 June 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“They wanted to see them in real time or, at the very least, at regular intervals over the past four months. Without seeing the results, how can they plan for the summer? How are the public to understand the Government’s plan for the sector? Organisations involved in the ERP have told me that a report with those good results was produced by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, but they were not allowed to see it. They also told me that No. 10 refused to allow the report to be published last week because it did not fit with the communications grid. Did No. 10 block publication of the report last week? What evidence are the Government using to make decisions about pilot events? Why are some organisations getting the go-ahead to test events and not others?”
House of Commons22 June 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I thank you, Mr Speaker, for granting this urgent question, and the Minister for his response. The terms of reference for the programme were published on 22 February; we are four months on and no results have been published. Last month, the Secretary of State said in a newspaper interview that 15 of the 58,000 ERP participants had tested positive for covid, but still no results have been published. I am afraid there was nothing in the Minister’s response to explain the failure to publish the results. What is the secret? Why will the Government not tell the public, the industry and us what the results are? All those who have spent time and money on organising and hosting test events, and those who rely on the programme, would like to see the results.”
House of Commons22 June 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The new director-general, and the chair of the BBC, whose appointments were welcomed by the Government, have been in post for less than a year. They need to be given time to make the reforms they have promised. The mid-term review is an important chance to take stock, but we must be clear exactly what problems any governance reforms will solve, and keep the issue of funding the BBC separate from its editorial control.”
House of Commons24 May 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The onus is now on him to explain whether he considers that changes to the governance of the BBC in those 25 years mean that something like this could not happen again. I welcome the announcement of the review by the BBC board, its terms of reference, and the timescale to which it will report. However, in among some of the commentary on the BBC that we have heard over the past few days, we must remember that the BBC is bigger than just Martin Bashir. It is bigger than “Panorama”, bigger than other programmes, and even bigger than the current affairs department. The BBC is one of the most trusted sources of news in the world, at a time when trusted sources are more important than ever before. The Secretary of State said in The Times today that he would not be having a knee-jerk reaction to this incident, and I welcome that commitment.”
House of Commons24 May 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I thank the hon. Member for Solihull (Julian Knight) for securing this urgent question, and the Minister for his response. I also echo the many expressions of deep concern about the actions of Martin Bashir 25 years ago, and the deception he used to secure the interview with Diana, Princess of Wales. The understandable hurt and pain expressed by Princes William and Harry has been deeply moving. The methods used by Mr Bashir were unethical and wrong, and clearly he should not have been re-employed by the BBC in 2016. The internal inquiry by the BBC into the interview was wholly inadequate. It was right that Lord Dyson conducted this inquiry, and his findings are stark. The fact that the interview was obtained 25 years ago does not minimise the damage caused, and it is right that the BBC director-general has given an unequivocal apology.”
House of Commons24 May 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“More than 3 million people participate in parkrun in England, and it plays a major role in the physical and mental wellbeing of participants. Parkrun has had legal permission to return since 29 March under the covid framework from the Government and Public Health England, but there is completely inconsistent decision making across authorities, and the situation is threatening parkrun’s future. As Great Britain Olympian Greg Rutherford has said: “If we’re all allowed to go and pile into restaurants and pubs again why on earth would we not be allowed to run about outside?” Will the Secretary of State give a clear, simple statement here today and say that local authorities and landowners need to recognise and accept the nationally approved framework and allow parkrun to start again?”
House of Commons20 May 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Why the late guidance? Will the Secretary of State publish the evidence that led to his decision? Thank goodness his Department is getting an experienced director of communications, because he needs one.”
House of Commons20 May 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I am delighted with the Secretary of State’s response and grateful for it. Singing also makes a positive difference to the health of over 2 million people who sing in amateur choirs. The go-ahead was given for indoor rehearsals from Monday of this week, following step 3 of the roadmap, but on Tuesday, literally as conductors were on their way to rehearsals, late guidance was issued by DCMS limiting indoor rehearsals to just six people in total. This news was devastating to choir members but also to their conductors and directors, who lose their income because of it. I am afraid that confusing and contradictory communication is the hallmark of this Government. Last year it was the Secretary of State encouraging rehearsals for pantos that were never going to happen; this year it is choral concerts with no rehearsals. What is going on?”
House of Commons20 May 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“They should explore every option, and I hope that they will, whether that is a super-tax on revenue or investigating whether the proposal breaches the clear rules that govern markets and competition in this country. For football fans up and down the country, our message is clear: Labour stands ready to do whatever it takes to stop this plan, and I hope that the Government will make exactly the same commitment.”
House of Commons19 April 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“From supporters trusts and groups, including the Football Supporters’ Association, to the Professional Footballers’ Association, the Football Association, UEFA, the Premier League, the League Managers Association and the European Clubs Association—I could go on—it has been universally rejected as the greedy, obscene and selfish proposal that it is. Let us act urgently. It is already too late for some clubs and their supporters, so I ask the Secretary of State when the review will be launched, what the terms of reference will be, who will take part and when it will report. What exactly will the Government do to stop the European super league decimating our national game?”
House of Commons19 April 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“We are in a global pandemic and the owners of the six clubs behind this proposal think that now is the time to ride roughshod over their fans and endanger the future of football, on the back of a year when fans have been at the heart of supporting communities up and down the country. What a contrast! These proposals have been carved out behind closed doors without consultation with fans or players, and they have at their heart a plan that is anti-football—a super league from which teams can never be relegated and in which they are always guaranteed a place because of their wealth. That represents a fundamental attack on the integrity of sporting competitions. It is very rare that an issue unites football fans and organisations across the rivalries and divides, but this super league proposal has managed to do just that.”
House of Commons19 April 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Why create the vacuum that has allowed these super-league proposals the space and ability to become a reality? Eleven years have been wasted when a small amount of Government time could have been found to bring primary legislation to the House to sort out the problems. Instead, it has been all punditry and no progress on the pitch, and in that time, clubs and fans have suffered disasters. Fans in Bury know only too well the importance of reforming the way in which football is governed, and supporters in Liverpool, Edinburgh, Manchester, my city of Cardiff, Portsmouth and most football towns and cities have seen the damage done to clubs when profit outstrips the role of supporters in our game.”
House of Commons19 April 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Mrs Grant), has said: “no one is speaking for the football world with the independence and authority needed to address the big issues.” —[ Official Report , 26 January 2021; Vol. 688, c. 207.] She is right. The former Conservative Chair of the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee, the hon. Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Damian Collins), has said: “We should have long ago reformed the governance of football”. He is right as well. The current Conservative Chair of the Select Committee, the hon. Member for Solihull (Julian Knight), has said: “What’s needed is a fan-led review of football with real teeth and here we have more evidence to strengthen the case for it.” I welcome the review, but why the long delay?”
House of Commons19 April 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Friend the Member for Wirral South (Alison McGovern), repeatedly urged the Government to get on with their promised fan-led review of football—a promise that they made in 2019. It is nearly a year since our letter to the Sports Minister offering support and help with 16 questions that the review should focus on. We know that Members across the House have supported reform for the past 11 years of Conservative-led Governments, so it is time for the Government to get off the subs bench and show some leadership on the pitch, because we need reform of football. It is not as if there has been a blockage in Parliament preventing the Government from taking action to sort out the problems. Former Conservative Sports Minister, the hon.”
House of Commons19 April 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The hedge fund owners and billionaires who treat football clubs like any of their other commodities have no care for the history of our football, for the role it plays in villages, towns and cities up and down our country, and especially for the fans who are the beating heart of it. They should understand their role as custodians, rather than cartel chiefs. The future of our national game and all our clubs depends on it. Labour has repeatedly called for the reform of the governance and finances of football by the Government. Government intervention is needed to fix this broken system. That is why we pledged in all four of our manifestos going back to 2010 to take action, and it is why I and the shadow Sports Minister, my hon.”
House of Commons19 April 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I thank the Secretary of State for advance sight of parts of his statement. This is a watershed moment for our national game, and this statement is welcomed, as is the chair of the review, but it is short on detail and on the urgency that this situation merits; fans will have noted that. The Secretary of State tweeted last night extolling the virtues of the football pyramid, but if anything exposed the Government’s lack of understanding of our broken football system, that tweet summed it up. Tory trickle-down economics does not work, and it especially does not work in football. Football governance is broken, football finance is broken and football fans, whichever club we support, are ignored.”
House of Commons19 April 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“This House and the public are impatient to hear from the Government on this legislation.”
House of Commons24 March 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Why would the Government water down the original proposals so that companies will be encouraged to set minimum terms and conditions, as they will be judged on how they enforce them? That will incentivise completely the wrong approach. The Bill, whenever it eventually arrives, cannot be a lost opportunity to reset the dial on our online discourse. This is a once-in-a-generation opportunity. We all recognise and largely agree on what the problems are, and many of us on both sides of the House agree on the solutions. Plenty of them were suggested today. The Government need to stop delaying, stop watering down, catch up with other countries that have taken the lead and get on with this legislation. What have we gained by waiting? Nothing. What is to be gained by waiting? Nothing.”
House of Commons24 March 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Although we expect it to be announced in the forthcoming Queen’s Speech, it is now likely to be more than five years after it was first promised that it will come into law. This delay is inexcusable, because we know that behaviour online can translate to behaviour offline. The watering down of the measures initially proposed has dripped slowly, very slowly, since the White Paper was published two years ago next month. Why, if the Government are serious about clamping down on this abuse, would they keep in reserve criminal sanctions for senior company executives where there are repeated or aggravated breaches of the legislation, rather than implementing them immediately, as Labour has called for?”
House of Commons24 March 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“While there are legitimate reasons for people to use a pseudonym online, it is clear that those accounts should be limited in what they do, and that other users should be able to limit their interaction with them. This could be done by the platforms now; it could have been done years ago. There is far more that the platforms could do using technology to prevent abuse from being hosted in the first place, and also to take it down quickly when it is reported. This is why the online safety Bill is so vital and so urgent, and why it is so important that we get it right, so that it is not superseded by technological advancements. That is why Labour backs a principles-based approach. Despite insisting last week that the new law was a priority, the Government have yet again delayed the Bill.”
House of Commons24 March 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Justifiable complaints are ignored, and community standards are weak and not enforced. As several hon. Members have mentioned, the latest in a long line of shockingly negligent examples concerning Facebook emerged yesterday when it was revealed that its bullying and harassment policy explicitly allows for public figures to be targeted in ways otherwise banned on the site, including through death threats, according to internal moderator guidelines that were leaked to The Guardian . The public figures identified by Facebook include people whose claim to fame may simply be a large social media following or infrequent coverage in local newspapers. We have heard lots of agreement across the House that anonymous accounts that attack people or spread hate should not be amplified, but nor should those that are not anonymous.”
House of Commons24 March 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Secondly, platforms that facilitate and permit abusers to operate need to be subject to the same regulatory framework that is applied to products on the market that carry a risk of harm, or cause harm to those who use them. We need a product safety regulatory approach for online platforms in the same way as we have them for medicines or children’s toys, to name two examples. If a product has a risk of harm, then the owner, creator or manufacturer—whatever we want to call them—should take steps to mitigate or remove that risk in order to operate. We have heard plenty of examples this afternoon of failures by companies to prevent their platforms from hosting and amplifying abuse and attacks. Algorithms promote this, because algorithms feed the platforms’ business models.”
House of Commons24 March 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“What should we as politicians and policy makers do to improve the situation? I will make two suggestions to the House. First, leadership should be demonstrated in this House—we heard lots of examples of that this afternoon. When my former colleague Paula Sherriff asked the Prime Minister to moderate “offensive, dangerous or inflammatory language”, —[ Official Report , 25 September 2019; Vol. 664, c. 793.] the Prime Minister dismissed her request as “humbug”. Many of us in this Chamber were there to hear that at first hand. The way we conduct ourselves in this House has an impact on the world outside. When Government Ministers attack journalists and falsely accuse them of bad practice, they open them up to abuse, too.”
House of Commons24 March 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Why would any girl or young woman stand for elected public office or become a journalist or a television presenter if this is what awaits them? It erodes our democracy and it erodes our society. There will always be people who spew anonymous hate and abuse. In past years, it would be a letter hand-written with capital letters and green ink, which required some effort and the cost of a stamp. In today’s world, people have the internet at their fingertips. They have become emboldened and they have been joined by many others, sadly mainly men, who take advantage of unregulated globally powerful and very wealthy online platforms—which are, incidentally, also run by men—to attack and abuse women. Those attacks are copied and amplified to the point where it is normalised within public discourse online.”
House of Commons24 March 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Women from all walks of life are subjected to it, but particularly those in public life, from MPs to journalists to TV presenters. Today’s debate has been a small snapshot of what has become a tsunami of vitriol, hate, misogyny and racism online, a cesspit that parts of public engagement online have sadly become. Just ask my right hon. Friend the Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott), the journalist Nadine White or the rugby presenter Sonia McLaughlan. Glitch’s research found that 84% of its respondents experienced online abuse from strangers—a shocking statistic. Members know that much of the abuse directed at us is first seen by our staff, and that can and does take a huge toll on them.”
House of Commons24 March 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The issues that this debate raises will resonate across the country because of the prevalence of online abuse. There were excellent contributions from Members across the House, including very thoughtful ones from my hon. Friends the Members for Canterbury (Rosie Duffield), for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams) and for Newcastle upon Tyne North (Catherine McKinnell), my right hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell), and my hon. Friends the Members for Easington (Grahame Morris) and for Coventry North West (Taiwo Owatemi). My hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy) mentioned in her speech the charity Glitch, which found that almost half of women have reported experiencing online abuse since the beginning of the covid pandemic.”
House of Commons24 March 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I thank the hon. Member for Stroud (Siobhan Baillie) for securing this debate, which I know very many colleagues across the House wished to participate in. I, too, wish that we had had more time to listen to and debate this important aspect of online activity. As she so clearly articulated from personal experience, no woman should be prevented from doing her job because of online hate. Maternity leave is a hard-won right for women in this country—it was introduced by a Labour Government—and all women should be able to benefit from it without having to be subjected to abuse. This has been a difficult debate to listen to, particularly the brave speeches from my right hon. Friend the Member for Barking (Dame Margaret Hodge) and my hon. Friends the Members for Bradford West (Naz Shah) and for Warrington North (Charlotte Nichols).”
House of Commons24 March 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Over the last two weeks, we have seen an outpouring of grief over the death of Sarah Everard, and we have read and heard numerous accounts of women made to feel unsafe in their daily lives. The Secretary of State will know that words online often translate into actions offline. Last June, he said at the Dispatch Box that the online harms Bill, which was supposed to follow the White Paper published two years ago next month, would be introduced before the end of this parliamentary Session. We are still waiting. Does he accept that the continuing delay has left women and girls at risk for too long, and does he commit to measures to protect them online when he finally publishes the Bill?”
House of Commons18 March 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I thank the Secretary of State for his words. I know that he has a very well-publicised interest in the nation’s heritage, particularly in statues, telling museums and gallery experts how to do their jobs through the policy of “retain and explain”, so perhaps he can explain today what input his Department had into the Government’s legislation this week that provides for longer sentences for hitting statues than those that have been given for raping women.”
House of Commons18 March 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Instead, a series of Conservative Governments have reduced public funding and made many theatres and arts organisations radically change so that they rely solely on ticket sales and outside sponsorship. Therefore, when the pandemic hit, this left them utterly vulnerable. Tomorrow, the Chancellor needs to give our world-leading creatives the support they need to get on and create. Can I say this to him? That does not simply mean employing them to make his own promotional videos. It means addressing all those problems with the culture recovery fund and, specifically, a whole year on from when it should have been done, providing support for those whom the Government have deliberately excluded. Our cultural sector is not just a huge and vital part of our economy. For many people, it is what makes life worth living.”
House of Commons2 March 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The work of nurses, doctors, carers, scientists and many more people is rightly at the forefront of our minds when we think about recovery, but to me national recovery—our national recovery—is something greater and wider. This national trauma has caused a huge rupture in the fabric of everybody’s lives. We have lost family, friends, colleagues. We have lost opportunities and missed out on key milestones of our lives. We have had to Zoom watch funerals, unable to properly say goodbye. We have had to send cards for weddings we would rather have travelled across the world to be at. We have all put things on hold. When we are safe and when we still need to grieve collectively, we will do that and move on together. The cultural sector is not one that typically asks for Government support.”
House of Commons2 March 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Not only did it display some of our finest talent; it allowed us to celebrate our history in all its complexities and contradictions, and to do so with a good dose of self-deprecation and some laughs at our own expense. But this Government do not get that. They do not get what it is to be British in the 21st century. They see the world in black and white and we know that this is not how many of us live. The fact is that our arts and culture allow us to examine that—to ask questions, to respectfully disagree, to challenge each other and to find common ground. There is no doubt that the last year has been one of the hardest in living memory.”
House of Commons2 March 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“No matter that the sector was the fastest growing ahead of the pandemic, no matter that the role of arts and culture in social prescribing and education delivers huge returns on investment and no matter the potential for brand GB from our biggest exports—this Government’s priority is stoking a culture war, rather than championing our world-class cultural sector. There are other problems of the Government’s own making that the pandemic has masked. The broken promise on post-Brexit touring by performers has already been laid bare for its failures. Labour strongly believes in the artistic and creative life of this country not only as a powerful driver of economic growth but as a part of who we are as a nation. There is a reason why so many people still talk about the 2012 Olympic opening ceremony as a great national moment.”
House of Commons2 March 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The sector has been hugely sympathetic to the difficulties facing the Government, but that sympathy is now wearing thin. We see Ministers spending their time feigning concern for statues, rather than figuring out how this resilient and dynamic sector can be best supported through this crisis. The thinly veiled threats to museums and galleries and the attempts to bully independent cultural organisations packed with national expertise that rely on Government funding show where the Government’s priorities for our cultural sector really lie.”
House of Commons2 March 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“We need to see an extension of the reduced rate, so that venues and festivals can start to benefit from the scheme and the public can be incentivised to buy tickets. The VAT issue is another example of the Government’s lack of understanding of the day-to-day realities of the pandemic for our cultural venues. That was never more apparent than in the run-up to last Christmas, when the Secretary of State was busy encouraging theatres to put on pantomimes, while at the same time knowing that the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies advice and data suggested that cases were rising to such an extent that theatres would inevitably have to close. Even the retired Conservative peer Lord Lloyd Webber spoke of his frustration with the incompetent handling of reopening dates.”
House of Commons2 March 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The criteria are rigid, and its hallmark is to protect institutions rather than jobs. It could have been designed in a much better way, to provide protection for people’s livelihoods, had there been a proper understanding by Government of the ecology of how employment works in this sector. The top-up announced in the press release last night still does not address those problems and it does not say when the money will be distributed. I also hope that the Chancellor will tomorrow heed Labour’s call to continue the VAT rate of 5% on tickets. That scheme could not be used by many in the cultural sector because the restrictions meant closure and, in the short periods outside lockdown, there simply was not enough time while open to be able to sell any tickets.”
House of Commons2 March 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“At least 55,000 culture jobs have already gone—nearly a third of the arts element of the workforce—and two thirds of people who have lost their jobs in this sector have already decided that they cannot risk returning to it, meaning that those skills and talents are lost to our economy. The Government should be going out of their way to save those jobs, but we have heard virtually nothing about them from either DCMS or the Government as a whole. Is that indifference or incompetence? I know what the cultural sector’s verdict is. Last July, we welcomed the announcement of the culture recovery fund but, as I said at the time, it came too late for some people and organisations. The distribution of the fund was delayed, characterised by slowness when the need was immediate, and it has still not reached some of the places where it is required.”
House of Commons2 March 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Tomorrow, nearly a year after the start of the first lockdown, the Chancellor has another opportunity to right that wrong and level the playing field. We have heard today about the topping up of the pot for theatres, but people who work in theatres still do not know how long they can be furloughed for. Self-employed people have no idea what level their next grant will be. Freelancers have still been left out of support altogether, as I have described. The industry faces a VAT cliff edge at the end of the month, and none of that needed to wait until tomorrow’s Budget: it should have been clarified by the Government weeks ago.”
House of Commons2 March 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“We know from the decisions taken in Wales that it did not have to be that way. The Welsh Labour Government’s freelancer fund has already supported thousands of freelancers in three phases of support. The Opposition believe in fairness and equitable access to support during the pandemic and that no one should be excluded because they are engaged to work outside of permanent employment contracts. The rich patchwork of creative talent in this country is built on freelancers—people who work across different projects or genres, and it is that cross-pollination of ideas that makes it so rich. But because they do not fit the Chancellor’s model, this Government have excluded them from support, even speaking about those in the cultural and creative sectors as if they were people exercising their hobbies rather than world-class skills.”
House of Commons2 March 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It is this misunderstanding that lies behind the lack of appropriate provision to support the brilliant professionals in the sector, hundreds of thousands of whom have fallen through the gaps because of the Chancellor’s rigid criteria for support and his complete refusal, despite numerous requests, to provide financial help to those he has excluded and who have become known as “the excluded”. There are more than 3 million such people, and many of them are in the cultural sector. During this fast-moving pandemic, there has been a great deal of sympathy for the Government having to react quickly to events, but we are almost a year on from the first lockdown and the refusal to help people in the cultural sector can only be seen as a choice—a choice to ignore them for an entire year.”
House of Commons2 March 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗