Speeches by Nandy.

“I had the pleasure of meeting Sir Mo Farah recently. We did a few laps up and down Downing Street, which I won—no, I joke, I did not win. He is an incredible campaigner on this issue and he talked very movingly and passionately about how sport saved his life as a teenager coming to the UK in such horrendous circumstanc…”

“As Damian said earlier, when you protect time on the curriculum, you remove two things. You remove other things, because not everything can be a priority, and you also remove flexibility for the teaching workforce to be able to look at the children in front of them in the classroom and make a decision about what they w…”

“There is a formal process that we have to follow as part of the charter review negotiations. The Permanent Secretary is very helpfully waving a piece of paper in front of me that explains it. I asked for a briefing from officials about this because we have to consult with Parliament and obviously this Committee is the …”

“As I said, nothing is off the table. One of the things that we have already done is that in the first week that I was appointed I asked for a report from the BBC about non-payment of the licence fee and prosecutions. You will know that 75% of those who end up prosecuted are women, often very vulnerable women. That can’…”

“Very much so. One of the things about the BBC is that wherever you go in television and the creative industries as a whole, the BBC has usually played some kind of role in the success of those other institutions. It is an incredibly important part of the ecosystem. So, any reform to the BBC has major impacts on the who…”

“No options are off the table, both in terms of the BBC’s operational structure and funding models. I know that this Committee did some work a few years ago looking at different funding models, and concluded that there were downsides to every one of them. We are not in the business of reform for reform’s sake, but in th…”

“I would very much welcome the input of this Committee into that conversation about the sustainability of BBC funding, about the operation of the BBC, about the way in which it doesn’t just commission from outside of London but it moves power outside of London as well so that the people who are deciding what story is to…”

“We think that the BBC is incredibly important. It plays a unique role in British life. The Prime Minister and I are both strong supporters of the concept of the BBC. This Committee did a report back in 2015, which found that the licence fee model wasn’t delivering the sustained and stable funding that the BBC needs in …”

“I am not sure that Britney was ever part of youth culture but it certainly isn’t nowadays. I will be completely honest with you: it is not something that I have given a lot of thought to, but I will be happy to look at it.”

“Lovely. Thank you.”

“I did say imminently. “Imminently” does a lot of heavy lifting in the Government. I don’t know if there is anything more that we can say about the timing.”

“There is a lot of expectation out in the country as well. Certainly, the Competition and Markets Authority, as you know, has announced that it is investigating Ticketmaster over the Oasis sale, which was one of the catalysts for this, although there are lots of parliamentarians who have been campaigning particularly on…”

“You have a private Member’s Bill on this, I think.”

“I will have a look at it and I will look at the debate as well.”

“I think the honest answer to that, Rupa, is that that would be a conversation that I will need to have with the Home Secretary. She has to consider the overall numbers of people coming to the UK. She has to think about the entry requirements and national security and balance that against our shared desire to make sure …”

“I think that point about the absence of a T-level in tourism specifically is a good one. I will take that away and come back to you on it. I think that is a point well made. We are also reforming the apprenticeship levy to make it easier for the creative industries to access. I accept the point that you made about mark…”

“It is an ambitious target but it is one that we think we can meet. The top priority for me is addressing the skills shortages in the visitor economy. We have a lack of capacity at the moment. We have around 100,000 vacancies in the UK visitor economy. Addressing those workforce shortages and creating a talent pipeline …”

“—all those subjects at GCSE. We think that we could do better. We are going out and consulting. We are looking at the curriculum as a whole. We have already committed to protecting PE. Like you said, the last Government were also very well aware of the value that PE in school can make to the lifetime of a child if you …”

“Yes, but we have seen a huge drop-off in the numbers of young people choosing to take arts, music—”

“We have not made any decisions or announcements around the length of the school day. The curriculum review that Professor Francis is leading for us will look at whether the curriculum is working well for young people. One of the things that I did recently was to go and look at some grassroots music venues in Ipswich wi…”