Asked by: Chris Elmore (Labour - Ogmore)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, which video-on-demand platforms currently use British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) ratings; and what estimate he has made of the proportion of video-on-demand platforms that will adopt BBFC ratings in the next (a) year and (b) three years.
Answered by Caroline Dinenage
As the designated body for age classification of film content, the Government has great trust in the British Board of Film Classification’s (BBFC) best practice age ratings.
While adoption of the BBFC’s age ratings by online platforms is currently voluntary, we welcome their usage by Video on Demand platforms. We were particularly pleased to see Netflix announce on 1 December 2020 that they have become the first platform to achieve complete coverage of their content under the BBFC’s ratings
A number of other Video on Demand platforms use BBFC ratings for some of their content, including Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV+, Curzon Home Cinema and BFI Player.
We will continue to engage with industry to encourage other platforms to adopt the BBFC’s ratings across all of their content, and will keep the evidence for legislation in this area under review in the coming years.
Asked by: Chris Elmore (Labour - Ogmore)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what steps the Government will take to ensure children are prevented from accessing pornography on sites that (a) do not carry user-generated content and (b) are not subject to regulation by Ofcom under the Online Harms legislation.
Answered by Caroline Dinenage
The strongest protections in our online harms proposals are for children. All companies in scope, regardless of their size, will be required to assess whether children are likely to access their services, and if so, provide additional protections for children using them.
Where pornography sites host user generated content or facilitate online user interaction (including video and image sharing, commenting and live streaming), they will be subject to the duty of care. The online harms regime will capture both the most visited pornography sites and pornography on social media, therefore covering the vast majority of sites where children are most likely to be exposed to pornography. Taken together we expect this to bring into scope more online pornography that children can currently access than the narrower scope of the Digital Economy Act. We will continue to review our proposals to ensure we deliver the most comprehensive protections for children online.
Under our proposals, we expect companies to use age assurance or age verification technologies to prevent children from accessing services which pose the highest risk of harm to children, such as online pornography. We are working closely with stakeholders across industry to establish the right conditions for the market to deliver age assurance and age verification technical solutions ahead of the legislative requirements coming into force. We would encourage companies to take steps ahead of the legislation to protect children from harmful and age inappropriate content online.
Asked by: Chris Elmore (Labour - Ogmore)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, whether the Online Harms Bill will take a twin track approach to regulatory standards and enforcement of (a) illegal and (b) legal but harmful content; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Caroline Dinenage
Our online harms legislation will take a risk-based and proportionate approach to ensuring companies protect their users from harmful content and improve their safety. Regulation will establish differentiated expectations on companies for illegal and legal but harmful content and activity. Importantly, it will also require companies to ensure a higher level of protection for children.
In scope services will need to ensure that illegal content is removed expeditiously and that the risk of it appearing is minimised by effective systems. For legal but harmful content accessed by adults, companies will be required to explicitly state what content and behaviour they deem to be acceptable on their sites and enforce this consistently and transparently. For children, companies will need to use a proportionate range of tools including age assurance, and age verification technologies to prevent them from accessing age-inappropriate content and to protect them from other harms. Further detail will be provided in the Full Government Response to the Online Harms White Paper which will be published this year.
Asked by: Chris Elmore (Labour - Ogmore)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what plans he has to progress funding for the UK Safer Internet Centre in 2021.
Answered by Caroline Dinenage
The government is committed to ensuring children are protected online and this remains at the heart of our online harms agenda, and wider government priorities. The government recognises the important role the UK Safer Internet Centre plays in improving online safety in the UK, particularly for children.
Officials engage regularly with the Centre, including on its funding position following the UK’s exit from the EU. The government has also written a letter in support of the Centre's application for further EU funding from the Connecting Europe Facility programme for 2021. We understand the Centre will know the outcome of this application shortly.
Asked by: Chris Elmore (Labour - Ogmore)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what plans the Government has to allocate funding to the UK Safer Internet Centre in 2021.
Answered by Caroline Dinenage
The government is committed to ensuring children are protected online and this remains at the heart of our online harms agenda, and wider government priorities. The government recognises the important role the UK Safer Internet Centre plays in improving online safety in the UK, particularly for children.
Officials engage regularly with the Centre, including on its funding position following the UK’s exit from the EU. The government has also written a letter in support of the Centre's application for further EU funding from the Connecting Europe Facility programme for 2021. We understand the Centre will know the outcome of this application shortly.
Asked by: Chris Elmore (Labour - Ogmore)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, whether he plans to provide additional financial support for people working in the creative industries in response to the covid-19 lockdown.
Answered by Caroline Dinenage
We recognise that the new national restrictions will have a significant impact on individuals working in the creative industries sector.
The Secretary of State announced an unprecedented £1.57 billion support package for the cultural sector which will benefit the creative industries by providing support to venues and many other cultural organisations to stay open and continue operating. So far, over £500m has been announced from the Culture Recovery Fund for over 2,000 organisations across England including venues, festivals and theatres. The Cultural Recovery Fund is devolved, Wales has received £59 million from the Fund under the Barnett formula.
The majority of cultural organisations applied to the Culture Recovery Fund setting out plans to deliver some activity before March 2021. Whilst most of that activity has been disrupted, we know many hope to restart this once the national restrictions end.
We have confirmed that there will be a full package of financial support in place, with the Job Retention Scheme extended until March 2021. Businesses can continue to apply for government-backed loans, and self-employed individuals can access the Self-Employed Income Support Scheme, which has been extended until April 2021. The CJRS and SEISS support has been made more generous, with individuals able to receive 80% of their current salary for hours not worked/average trading profits respectively.
We are continuing to meet with creative industries stakeholders to provide support and guidance for the sector during this time.
Asked by: Chris Elmore (Labour - Ogmore)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, when he plans to publish the Government’s response to the Competition and Markets Authority’s market study on Online Platforms and Digital Advertising.
Answered by Caroline Dinenage
Dynamic and competitive digital markets are key to creating a world-leading digital economy that works for businesses, consumers and society as a whole. The Government is grateful to the Competition and Markets Authority for their market study and is carefully considering their recommendations. A response will be published in due course. The Government has accepted, in principle, the six strategic recommendations from the Furman Review for unlocking competition in digital markets.
Asked by: Chris Elmore (Labour - Ogmore)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, with reference to the market study by the Competition and Markets Authority on Online Platforms and Digital Advertising, published in July 2020, whether the Government plans to implement a new pro-competition regulatory regime to tackle the market power of online platform companies.
Answered by Caroline Dinenage
Dynamic and competitive digital markets are key to creating a world-leading digital economy that works for businesses, consumers and society as a whole. The Government is grateful to the Competition and Markets Authority for their market study and is carefully considering their recommendations. A response will be published in due course. The Government has accepted, in principle, the six strategic recommendations from the Furman Review for unlocking competition in digital markets.
Asked by: Chris Elmore (Labour - Ogmore)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, with reference to the market study by the Competition and Markets Authority on Online Platforms and Digital Advertising, published in July 2020, whether the Government plans to set up a Digital Markets Unit to (a) enforce a code of conduct to ensure that online platforms with a position of market power do not engage in exploitative or exclusionary practices or those likely to reduce trust and transparency and (b) impose fines if necessary.
Answered by Caroline Dinenage
Dynamic and competitive digital markets are key to creating a world-leading digital economy that works for businesses, consumers and society as a whole. The Government is grateful to the Competition and Markets Authority for their market study and is carefully considering their recommendations. A response will be published in due course. The Government has accepted, in principle, the six strategic recommendations from the Furman Review for unlocking competition in digital markets.
Asked by: Chris Elmore (Labour - Ogmore)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, with reference to the news story, Chancellor sets out extra £750 million coronavirus funding for frontline charities, published on 8 April 2020, what assessment he has made of the potential merits of extending the six month deadline for charities to spend their proportion of funding in order to allocate that funding to where it will have the greatest effect.
Answered by John Whittingdale
Government is not planning to extend the timeframes for this funding to be spent based on the fact that this package is intended to provide short term funding in response to the immediate impacts of Covid-19.
Of the £750m, £200m has been allocated to the Coronavirus Community Support Fund, which is being distributed by The National Lottery Community Fund in England. This funding will help to maintain and enhance services for vulnerable people affected by the current crisis, where delivery organisations are experiencing income disruption and/or increased demand for their services.
How to apply: https://www.tnlcommunityfund.org.uk/funding/covid-19/learn-about-applying-for-emergency-funding-in-england
We have published clear and comprehensive guidance on the £750 million and how organisations can apply for it on Gov.uk. This guidance will be updated frequently: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/financial-support-for-voluntary-community-and-social-enterprise-vcse-organisations-to-respond-to-coronavirus-covid-19