Asked by: Clive Lewis (Labour - Norwich South)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what steps his Department is taking to respond to the collapse of Football Index.
Answered by John Whittingdale
The Gambling Commission has suspended the licence of BetIndex Ltd, the operators of Football Index, and a live investigation is ongoing. The Secretary of State and I have met the Gambling Commission twice to receive urgent reports and are monitoring the situation very closely. Further information, including an update on the status of customer funds, can be found on the Commission’s website: https://www.gamblingcommission.gov.uk/news-action-and-statistics/news/2021/BetIndex-update.aspx
It is a condition of a gambling operating licence that customers should be able to withdraw funds from their accounts. The Commission acted to suspend BetIndex’s licence on learning that the operator planned to freeze access to funds. Operators who hold customer funds must tell customers whether funds are protected in event of insolvency and the level of the protection offered. Football Index provides a medium level of customer funds protection, which means customer funds are kept in accounts separate from business accounts, and arrangements are made to ensure assets in the customer accounts are distributed to customers in the event of insolvency.
The government has launched a Review of the Gambling Act 2005 and has called for evidence on a range of issues across the sector, including the powers and resources of the Gambling Commission. The call for evidence closes on 31 March, and we will be led by the evidence received.
Asked by: Clive Lewis (Labour - Norwich South)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, if he will support a public inquiry into Football Index.
Answered by John Whittingdale
The Gambling Commission has suspended the licence of BetIndex Ltd, the operators of Football Index, and a live investigation is ongoing. The Secretary of State and I have met the Gambling Commission twice to receive urgent reports and are monitoring the situation very closely. Further information, including an update on the status of customer funds, can be found on the Commission’s website: https://www.gamblingcommission.gov.uk/news-action-and-statistics/news/2021/BetIndex-update.aspx
It is a condition of a gambling operating licence that customers should be able to withdraw funds from their accounts. The Commission acted to suspend BetIndex’s licence on learning that the operator planned to freeze access to funds. Operators who hold customer funds must tell customers whether funds are protected in event of insolvency and the level of the protection offered. Football Index provides a medium level of customer funds protection, which means customer funds are kept in accounts separate from business accounts, and arrangements are made to ensure assets in the customer accounts are distributed to customers in the event of insolvency.
The government has launched a Review of the Gambling Act 2005 and has called for evidence on a range of issues across the sector, including the powers and resources of the Gambling Commission. The call for evidence closes on 31 March, and we will be led by the evidence received.
Asked by: Clive Lewis (Labour - Norwich South)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, whether it is Government policy to make the Centre for Data Ethics and Innovation an independent, statutory body.
Answered by John Whittingdale
The Centre for Data Ethics and Innovation (CDEI) was set up in 2018 to provide the government with independent, expert advice on the measures needed to enable safe, ethical and innovative uses of AI and data-driven technologies. In light of the emerging National Data Strategy, the Digital Strategy and evolution of the wider institutional landscape, the Government is considering what the Centre’s future functions should be, which will inform decisions on its future status.
Asked by: Clive Lewis (Labour - Norwich South)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what steps he is taking to prevent young people from becoming addicted to gambling.
Answered by Mims Davies - Shadow Minister (Women)
Preventing children and other vulnerable persons from being harmed by gambling is a priority for government and a core licensing objective for the Gambling Commission.
Operators offering gambling services to people in Great Britain must have a licence from the Gambling Commission and must have effective policies and procedures designed to prevent underage gambling. Where there is a failure to do so, the Gambling Commission has shown it is willing to act using the range of powers to act at its disposal.
The Gambling Commission has taken action to strengthen protections for young people. In May this year it introduced stricter age and identity verification controls, requiring all consumers to be age verified before they are able to deposit money or access free-to-play demo games. Government has also worked positively with five major operators resulting in commitments to using online technology where available to target gambling adverts away from people showing signs of problem gambling behaviour. They will also further share further data with to protect problem gamblers from experiencing further harm.
From September 2020, health education will be compulsory for all pupils in state-funded primary and secondary schools. This will cover education on online harms, including the risks related to online gambling. The non-statutory Personal, Social, Health and Economic (PSHE) programme of study, published by the PSHE Association, includes teaching about gambling and its psychological and financial impact. GambleAware, an independent charity which funds services to help to reduce gambling harms, is working with the PSHE Association to develop resources for schools to promote resilience and raise awareness around risk-taking and gambling.
Asked by: Clive Lewis (Labour - Norwich South)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what discussions he has had with the Secretary of State for Education on teaching digital skills in schools.
Answered by Margot James
Ministers have regular discussions with their Cabinet colleagues on a wide range of issues, including on digital skills. Department of Digital, Culture, Media and Sport and Department of Education officials work together on the Digital Skills Partnership Computing in Schools Group which aims guide industry to maximise the benefits of their initiatives to support the teaching of computing in schools.
Asked by: Clive Lewis (Labour - Norwich South)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what recent progress he has made in commissioning the National Citizen Service 2.0.
Answered by Mims Davies - Shadow Minister (Women)
The Recommissioning Programme is midway through its procurement of all Network Partners who will be delivering the NCS programme from 2020 onwards. All bids for those Management, Delivery and Recruitment Partners have been received, with their evaluation on track and due to complete end-March. The NCS Trust plan to award contracts in July 2019.
Asked by: Clive Lewis (Labour - Norwich South)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, whether he has made a recent assessment of the potential merits of changing the rules on prominence to support public service broadcasters on digital platforms.
Answered by Margot James
The Government recognises the value and importance of high quality public service content and the need for this to be widely accessible to viewers. That is why under the Digital Economy Act 2017 the Government required Ofcom to publish a report which looks at the ease of finding PSB content across all platforms.
Ofcom has consulted on proposed changes to the linear EPG Code and how the prominence regime may need to change to ensure public service content remains accessible regardless of how consumers are accessing it. That consultation closed in October 2018 and we look forward to their findings in due course.
Asked by: Clive Lewis (Labour - Norwich South)
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 is taking to ensure that human biases are not replicated in artificial intelligence technologies used in public services.
Answered by Margot James
In June 2018, the Government published the Data Ethics Framework that sets out clear principles for how data should be used in the public sector. The framework helps government maximise the value of data whilst also setting a high level of requirements for transparency and accountability when developing or deploying new data technology.
The Government also recently set up the Centre for Data Ethics and Innovation to provide independent, expert advice on the measures needed to enable and ensure safe, ethical and innovative uses of AI and data-driven technologies. One of the Centre's first projects will investigate the potential for bias in decisions made using algorithms. An interim update on these projects is expected in the summer. This work will play an important role in promoting and ensuring fairness and the ethical use of data to deliver maximum benefits for society.