Asked by: Chris Evans (Labour (Co-op) - Caerphilly)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, whether her Department has undertaken research into the prevalence of chronic traumatic encephalopathy in (a) professional athletes and (b) recreational players of sport.
Answered by Stephanie Peacock - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Culture, Media and Sport)
The safety, wellbeing and welfare of everyone taking part in sport is absolutely paramount. National Governing Bodies are responsible for the regulation of their sports, and for ensuring that appropriate measures are in place to protect participants from harm. The Department for Culture, Media and Sport continues to engage with relevant stakeholders to help ensure the safety of all participants in sport.
The Sports Concussion Research Forum, established by DCMS and chaired by the Medical Research Council, part of UK Research and Innovation, published its independent report into the key research questions in this important area in September 2024 - https://www.ukri.org/publications/concussion-in-sport/
The Government remains committed to working with sports stakeholders to build on the positive work that is already taking place to mitigate the causes and effects of concussion in sport.
Asked by: Chris Evans (Labour (Co-op) - Caerphilly)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what steps her Department is taking to prevent online violent images being used as a form of cyber bullying.
Answered by Damian Collins
The Online Safety Bill will require all in-scope platforms to assess and mitigate the risk of illegal content appearing on their sites, or of their sites being used to facilitate illegal activity. All in-scope platforms will need to design their services to prevent exposure to illegal content and will need to set out in their terms of service how individuals will be protected from illegal content online. In-scope platforms will also need to ensure that they quickly take down illegal content once it has been reported or they become aware of its presence on their services.
Platforms which are likely to be accessed by children will also need to assess the risks their service poses for children, including from harms such as cyberbullying and content depicting or encouraging violence, put in place measures to protect them, and monitor these to ensure they are keeping children safe on their services.
Users will be able to report abuse, and should expect to receive an appropriate response from the platform.
If major platforms don’t fulfil their own standards to keep people safe, they could face an investigation and enforcement action.
Asked by: Chris Evans (Labour (Co-op) - Caerphilly)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what steps her Department is taking to remove violent images of assault from online sites.
Answered by Damian Collins
The Online Safety Bill will require all in-scope platforms to assess and mitigate the risk of illegal content appearing on their sites, or of their sites being used to facilitate illegal activity. All in-scope platforms will need to design their services to prevent exposure to illegal content and will need to set out in their terms of service how individuals will be protected from illegal content online. In-scope platforms will also need to ensure that they quickly take down illegal content once it has been reported or they become aware of its presence on their services.
Platforms which are likely to be accessed by children will also need to assess the risks their service poses for children, including from harms such as cyberbullying and content depicting or encouraging violence, put in place measures to protect them, and monitor these to ensure they are keeping children safe on their services.
Users will be able to report abuse, and should expect to receive an appropriate response from the platform.
If major platforms don’t fulfil their own standards to keep people safe, they could face an investigation and enforcement action.
Asked by: Chris Evans (Labour (Co-op) - Caerphilly)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what steps her Department is taking to prevent violent images of assault being (a) uploaded, and (b) distributed on online sites.
Answered by Damian Collins
The Online Safety Bill will require all in-scope platforms to assess and mitigate the risk of illegal content appearing on their sites, or of their sites being used to facilitate illegal activity. All in-scope platforms will need to design their services to prevent exposure to illegal content and will need to set out in their terms of service how individuals will be protected from illegal content online. In-scope platforms will also need to ensure that they quickly take down illegal content once it has been reported or they become aware of its presence on their services.
Platforms which are likely to be accessed by children will also need to assess the risks their service poses for children, including from harms such as cyberbullying and content depicting or encouraging violence, put in place measures to protect them, and monitor these to ensure they are keeping children safe on their services.
Users will be able to report abuse, and should expect to receive an appropriate response from the platform.
If major platforms don’t fulfil their own standards to keep people safe, they could face an investigation and enforcement action.
Asked by: Chris Evans (Labour (Co-op) - Caerphilly)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, whether she has had sight of the independent QC-led review into the conduct of the Professional Footballer’s Association; and whether her Department plans to take any actions as a result of that review.
Answered by Nigel Huddleston - Shadow Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport
The Professional Footballers’ Association (PFA) is a trade union and has private membership. It is for the relevant National Governing Body of sport to take action in this area, but the government will take a keen interest in the findings.
We will continue to work closely with these bodies across the sports sector more broadly to ensure that appropriate measures are in place to protect participants from harm.