Asked by: Lord Weir of Ballyholme (Democratic Unionist Party - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask His Majesty's Government why those entitled to a free TV licence have to apply for it, rather than receiving it automatically, and whether they will ask the BBC to remove the need to apply for such licences.
Answered by Baroness Twycross - Baroness in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)
The BBC is responsible for administering the Television Licence, and as the BBC is independent from the Government, this is an operational issue for the BBC. The BBC does not hold the necessary information to automatically determine which households are eligible to receive free TV Licences. However, the BBC is able to verify automatically whether a person applying for a free TV Licence is on Pension Credit with the Department for Work and Pensions, meaning in most cases eligible applicants can apply online or over the phone without any need to supply additional paperwork.
Asked by: Kevin Bonavia (Labour - Stevenage)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what assessment she has made of the adequacy of gambling warnings for prize draw competitions advertised on websites, radio and tv shows.
Answered by Ian Murray - Minister of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
The Government is acutely aware of the impact harmful gambling can have on individuals and their families, and we are committed to strengthening measures to protect those at risk.
In November 2025, we launched a Voluntary Code for prize draw operators. The Code was developed in collaboration with the prize draw industry. It aims to promote best practice standards to strengthen player protections, transparency and accountability for those participating in prize draws.
In the development of the Code, we consulted with broadcasters and their trade associations and concluded the Code would not apply to this sector. We are satisfied that the fundamental principles of increased player protections, transparency and accountability that underpin the Voluntary Code are largely addressed by broadcasters through their existing regulatory bodies and governing principles. In particular, broadcasters’ draws and competitions are already subject to established, comprehensive regulatory frameworks enforced by different bodies, such as Ofcom.
Asked by: Caroline Voaden (Liberal Democrat - South Devon)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what recent discussions she has had with the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government to ensure local authorities are adequately funded to support public libraries.
Answered by Ian Murray - Minister of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
The government is committed to getting local government back on its feet. The final Local Government Finance Settlement for 2025-26 makes available over £69 billion for local government, which is a 6.8% cash terms increase in councils' Core Spending Power on 2024-25.
Public libraries are funded by local authorities as part of this broader settlement. Each local authority is responsible for assessing the needs of their local communities and designing a library service to meet those needs within available resources.
Asked by: Andy Slaughter (Labour - Hammersmith and Chiswick)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, if she will make it her policy to include measures to help tackle the resale of live event tickets in the forthcoming King’s Speech.
Answered by Ian Murray - Minister of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
This Government is committed to putting fans back at the heart of live events and we recently announced a series of measures to end the scourge of ticket touting and protect consumers on the ticket resale market. We will legislate to introduce these measures when parliamentary time allows.
Asked by: Shaun Davies (Labour - Telford)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what discussions she has had with Sport England on supporting the expansion of local sporting facilities.
Answered by Stephanie Peacock - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Culture, Media and Sport)
The Government recognises the importance of ensuring public access to sport and leisure facilities which are vital spaces for people of all ages to stay fit and healthy, and which play an important role within communities across the country.
The Government provides the majority of support for grassroots sport in England through Sport England, which annually invests over £250 million in Exchequer and Lottery funding. As outlined in my answer to PQ 96846, the Secretary of State met with Sport England’s Chair and CEO in October to discuss priorities and plans moving forward, including how the organisation can best deliver and measure impact for the investment they make in sport and physical activity.
In June, following the Spending Review we committed another £400 million to transform facilities across the whole of the UK over the next four years. We will ensure that this funding promotes health and wellbeing, and helps to remove the barriers to physical activity for under-represented groups. We are working with sporting bodies, including Sport England, and local leaders to establish what communities need, before setting out further plans on how future funding will be allocated across the UK.
Asked by: Jim McMahon (Labour (Co-op) - Oldham West, Chadderton and Royton)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, if she will make an assessment of the potential implications for her policies of trends in the number of online platforms scraping news articles produced by UK newspapers.
Answered by Ian Murray - Minister of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
UK newspapers at national and local level play an invaluable role in the fabric of our society and we are committed to supporting a free, sustainable and plural media landscape. Rapid recent developments in generative AI pose both significant risks and opportunities for news media, including with regard to the scraping of news articles for use in AI development.
We are engaging with press stakeholders on this. The Media Minister and the Technology Secretary each held roundtables earlier this year with publishers and broadcasters to discuss the impact of AI on journalism.
The Government intends to support our news media to capitalise on the huge potential benefits of the technology, while mitigating its risks. This includes with regard to our work to ensure a copyright framework which values and protects human creativity, can be trusted, and unlocks new opportunities for innovation across creative sectors, including news media, and the wider economy. A number of news media representatives are also involved in the Government’s Technical Working Groups established in November to consider this work in more detail.
The Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act (2024) gave new powers to the Competition and Markets Authority (the CMA) to both boost competition and innovation in the UK digital tech sector, and ensure the largest digital firms treat consumers and UK businesses fairly, including news publishers. The CMA concluded its first investigations in October 2025, designating Google with SMS in search, and both Apple and Google with SMS in mobile ecosystems. The CMA will now consult on conduct requirements which Google and Apple must adhere to. These conduct requirements will be based on fair dealing, open choices, and increasing trust and transparency.
Asked by: Andrew Snowden (Conservative - Fylde)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, pursuant to the answer of 13 November 2025 to question 90762 on BBC: Royal Charters, what assessment she has made of the potential impact of perceived bias in the programme Question Time on the priorities of the new BBC Royal Charter.
Answered by Ian Murray - Minister of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
The BBC is editorially and operationally independent from the Government and this is a crucial component of why people trust it. Under its Royal Charter, the BBC has a duty to deliver impartial and accurate news coverage and content, and the Government expects the BBC to uphold these standards.
It is then for Ofcom, as the independent regulator, to ensure the BBC is fulfilling its obligations to audiences, including on impartiality and accuracy, as outlined in the Charter.
The forthcoming Charter Review will provide an opportunity for the Government to consider a range of issues and to set the BBC up for success long into the future.
Asked by: Richard Holden (Conservative - Basildon and Billericay)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, whether she has had discussions with the BBC on managing conflicts of interest at BBC Wales.
Answered by Ian Murray - Minister of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
The Secretary of State meets with the BBC regularly and discusses a range of issues.
The BBC has duties under the Charter to be independent, to act in the public interest and provide impartial services. The BBC is operationally independent of the Government in delivering on those duties, and it is for Ofcom as the BBC’s independent regulator to hold the BBC accountable against these responsibilities. The Secretary of State has been clear that the Government supports a strong independent BBC. In an age of disinformation, the argument for robust and impartial BBC services are stronger than ever.
Asked by: Alex Mayer (Labour - Dunstable and Leighton Buzzard)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what assessment her Department has made of the Public Notice Portal’s contribution to improving public engagement with statutory notices, and how its archive and consultation functions will be incorporated into the forthcoming local media strategy.
Answered by Ian Murray - Minister of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
The Government committed to a review of statutory notices as part of the response to recommendations made by the Licensing policy taskforce in July, including in relation to alcohol licence notices. The review is being taken forward as part of the Local Media Strategy to support local journalism.
We recognise that local press and statutory notices in particular continue to play a central role in keeping communities informed about decisions that affect local services and amenities. In this context, the industry’s Public Notice Portal is a welcome innovation, taking advantage of print publishers’ growing digital audiences and providing a centralised resource for all types of public notice. We welcome the Portal's current expansion to include archive and consultation functions, helping public bodies and commercial entities engage with the public more effectively. DCMS is monitoring the progress of the Portal, and the effect that it has on the audience reach of statutory notices and overall public engagement.
This type of industry innovation and collaboration is integral to securing the sector’s future, and will be taken into account in the statutory notices review, which will more broadly consider the merits of making changes to existing requirements to place statutory notices in print local newspapers, including the impact this has on local transparency and the newspaper industry. The review will also take forward final decisions on the future of alcohol licence notices. More detail including timescales of the review, and the Local Media Strategy more broadly, will be announced in due course.
Asked by: Alex Mayer (Labour - Dunstable and Leighton Buzzard)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what the planned timescales are for the commencement of the statutory notices review.
Answered by Ian Murray - Minister of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
The Government committed to a review of statutory notices as part of the response to recommendations made by the Licensing policy taskforce in July, including in relation to alcohol licence notices. The review is being taken forward as part of the Local Media Strategy to support local journalism.
We recognise that local press and statutory notices in particular continue to play a central role in keeping communities informed about decisions that affect local services and amenities. In this context, the industry’s Public Notice Portal is a welcome innovation, taking advantage of print publishers’ growing digital audiences and providing a centralised resource for all types of public notice. We welcome the Portal's current expansion to include archive and consultation functions, helping public bodies and commercial entities engage with the public more effectively. DCMS is monitoring the progress of the Portal, and the effect that it has on the audience reach of statutory notices and overall public engagement.
This type of industry innovation and collaboration is integral to securing the sector’s future, and will be taken into account in the statutory notices review, which will more broadly consider the merits of making changes to existing requirements to place statutory notices in print local newspapers, including the impact this has on local transparency and the newspaper industry. The review will also take forward final decisions on the future of alcohol licence notices. More detail including timescales of the review, and the Local Media Strategy more broadly, will be announced in due course.