We are fortunate in this country to have some of the world’s top tennis talent, including Emma Raducanu, Alfie Hewett and Gordon Reid, and I should take this opportunity to wish our athletes in Beijing the very best of luck—we have talent across so many sports. At the spending review, the Government announced £30.1 million to renovate park tennis courts in the UK, in partnership with the Lawn Tennis Association. Plans involved reviving over 4,500 courts, including those in poor or unplayable condition at more than 1,500 venues.
I am grateful to the Minister. That superb mapping exercise across the country by the LTA to benefit, as he said, over 4,500 public courts could be of huge benefit to families, sport, health, local pride and community improvements. My question is a nice and simple one: when will the application forms be ready? Will my hon. Friend share with us some good news?
I thank my hon. Friend for his excitement about our work on tennis courts. He never misses an opportunity to ask that question—I cannot venture into the Tea Room without him doing so—but I appreciate his persistence. Delivery will commence in the next financial year, from April 2022, because I am aware, as he is, that this will make a really big difference to tennis in this country.
May I ask the Minister to take this even more seriously? I know that the English team has not being doing well in some sports, but can we look seriously at the opportunities to get a much broader range of young people coming in to play tennis and, in particular, cricket? There seems to be a real difficulty for children in many schools to pursue cricket and tennis, and it seems that most of the people who end up rising to the top come from very privileged backgrounds.
The hon. Member raises some important points. We do punch above our weight in global sport and that is partly due to the success and investment from Sport England and, indeed, UK Sport. We will be refreshing the school sport and activity action plan and working closely with the Department for Education, focusing very much on engaging young children in a whole variety of sports, for the reasons that he expressed.
I am standing in for the Culture Secretary, who is today promoting the UK’s national day at the Dubai Expo and welcoming the Queen’s baton ahead of the Commonwealth games. Our Department is at the heart of the levelling-up agenda, through fantastic digital connectivity for all and initiatives such as the new national youth guarantee to enrich the lives of young people in every corner of our country.
We continue to make brilliant progress on our plans for a blockbuster 2022, during which we will honour Her Majesty the Queen, who this week marked 70 years of steadfast service to our country. Two nights ago, we celebrated the best of our world-class music industry at the BRITs. To echo the comments from the Under-Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Worcestershire (Nigel Huddleston), the ministerial team would like to wish the very best of luck to Team GB, who are flying the flag for the entire country at the Beijing winter Olympics.
Musicians in Newport West and across the UK have been campaigning alongside leaders in the Musicians’ Union, such as Councillor Sarah Williams, for a touring visa that will allow them to showcase British musical prowess. When will the Minister wake up and fight for the musicians’ passport that people so desperately want and need?
I thank the hon. Member for raising the issue of touring. I have been doing a lot of work with officials and other Departments to ease some of the challenges that people have had since we left the EU, and I will continue to work on this issue.
T5. Broadcast news has a long-standing duty of balance, which moderates public debate, tests opposing views and helps forge consensus across our country, but today’s digital world means that more and more of us get our news through social media platforms, where individual filter bubbles can feed us more of one side without ever showing an alternative view, driving extremism, radicalisation and division instead. Is it now time to extend that duty of balance to include social media platforms?
My hon. Friend raises an important question, but we need to distinguish between broadcasters, or indeed newspapers, that are exercising editorial judgment, and social media platforms that are carrying content generated by other users. However, we will introduce shortly—in the coming weeks—an online safety Bill that will impose new duties on social media firms in connection with illegal content, content that is harmful to children and content, including disinformation, that is harmful to adults. I hope that will go a long way towards addressing the points that he rightly raises.
I am afraid that the Minister’s answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Newport West (Ruth Jones) was far too vague. Musicians and orchestras are facing a touring crisis. We need an EU-wide cultural touring agreement that includes allowances for cabotage, carnets and customs rules. That needs to happen now, so what are Ministers doing to sort the problem as a matter of urgency?
We have been working closely across Government to deal with some of the cabotage issues. The issues around agreements with member states are being addressed on a bilateral basis. We have had great breakthroughs with Spain and are working closely with Greece, but most people can work in those countries for up to 90 days. I am happy to engage with the hon. Gentleman further on the issue.
Swimming is massively important not just for health reasons, but for safety in our island nation. Saltash swimming pool is an excellent facility. What more can the Government do to ensure the long-term future of such facilities?
I know that my hon. Friend is passionate about this issue, because we spoke about it when I visited her constituency last year. She is right that swimming is a vital life skill, as well as being very good for our physical and mental health. We have provided the sport sector with £1 billion of financial support through the pandemic, and launched the £100 million national leisure recovery fund precisely to try to ensure that swimming pools stay open. Further investment through Sport England and other bodies is forthcoming. I would be happy to facilitate further discussions between my hon. Friend and Sport England.
T2. The Minister will remember that the Government were strangely reluctant to implement a ban on the Chinese firm Huawei to prevent it from participating in the United Kingdom’s critical digital infrastructure because of the potential significant security risks. We now discover that the man who has just been appointed director of communications at No. 10 lobbied very hard against that ban. In the light of that information, will the Minister undertake to review the timeline for removing Huawei from our critical infrastructure, to ensure that Britain’s security cannot be compromised by the interests of the Prime Minister’s pals?
One of my first Acts as a Minister in DCMS was to take through the Telecommunications (Security) Act 2021. We take these issues incredibly seriously, and I offer the hon. Gentleman reassurance that we have a whole package of work to ensure that our telecoms networks are secure. Those matters have not been influenced by other issues.