Asked by: Daisy Cooper (Liberal Democrat - St Albans)
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 (a) YouTube and (b) other social media companies about whether their harmful or dangerous content policies should be extended to cover content including (i) breaking and entering and (ii) vandalism to personal property.
Answered by Chris Philp - Shadow Home Secretary
Ministers and officials have regular meetings and discussions with a wide range of stakeholders, including YouTube, on a variety of issues, including dangerous content. Details of Ministerial meetings are published quarterly on the GOV.UK website.
The draft Online Safety Bill sets out proposals to impose a new duty of care on tech companies to tackle illegal and harmful content on their services. Companies such as Youtube will have to identify and remove illegal content and protect children from harmful or inappropriate content.
The big social media companies, such as YouTube, will also need to keep their promises to users by taking action against harmful content that is prohibited under their terms of service. Under the new laws, their terms of service will need to cover content that could cause significant physical or psychological harm to users.
Asked by: Daisy Cooper (Liberal Democrat - St Albans)
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 Historic England on the preservation of significant Roman ruins including those at Eastfield in North Yorkshire.
Answered by Caroline Dinenage
Roman ruins of national importance may be protected by the Secretary of State as Scheduled Monuments. Before doing so, he consults Historic England.
In the case of the currently unscheduled ruins discovered at Eastfield, Historic England has negotiated with Keepmoat Homes, the developer, to secure their short-term preservation as part of public open space within the ‘Capella’ housing scheme. Once the core area of the ruins is clearly defined and reburied, the Secretary of State will consider the case for designating them as a Scheduled Monument in order to help secure their protection and long-term preservation.
Asked by: Daisy Cooper (Liberal Democrat - St Albans)
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 proposals to tackle the online advertising of products that are high in fat, sugar and salt to ensure equivalence between traditional broadcasting platforms and online content providers.
Answered by Caroline Dinenage
The Government published on 24 June 2021 its response to the 2019 and 2020 consultations on introducing restrictions for high fat, salt and sugar (HFSS) advertising across TV and online. The response outlined our intentions to introduce a 9pm TV watershed for HFSS products and a restriction of paid-for HFSS advertising online. These restrictions are being legislated for in the Health and Care Bill currently in Parliament. The restrictions are intended to come into force at the end of 2022.
The Government will appoint Ofcom as the statutory regulatory authority who will then be able to appoint a day-to-day regulator to carry out frontline regulation. Enforcement of advertising standards by front-line and statutory regulators is an arrangement already established for broadcast advertising. In order to ensure that HFSS advertising policy is proportionate and there is parity across media, we will introduce the same enforcement arrangement online.
Asked by: Daisy Cooper (Liberal Democrat - St Albans)
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 Advertising Standards Agency on making digitally altered images of a human body or body part in advertisements clearly labelled as such for consumers.
Answered by Caroline Dinenage
The ASA’s existing rules on social responsibility and misleading advertising are already applied to advertising of cosmetic interventions and advertising featuring digitally altered images.
The ASA held a public consultation on cosmetic interventions in 2020 and are following this up with a call for evidence on body image this year. The Government will remain closely in touch with the ASA as they undertake this consultation. The government will be launching the Online Advertising Programme (OAP) later this year which will explore how to address harms in the content and placement of advertising online, and to ensure the regulatory regime for the online advertising ecosystem is coherent, clear and effective. As part of this work, the Government will be considering whether any additional measures should be brought forward to address body image concerns.
Asked by: Daisy Cooper (Liberal Democrat - St Albans)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, whether it is his policy to require all user generated content on social media that has been filtered or altered to be identifiable as such.
Answered by Caroline Dinenage
The government does not require all filtered or altered content to be identifiable as such on social media.
However, the Online Safety Bill will impose new duties on social media companies to address the harm that may be caused by user-generated content, including altered or filtered content, on their services. These duties will apply to illegal content and other content that may have a serious adverse physical or psychological impact on children and, in the case of the largest social media companies, on adults.
The Government has committed to publishing the Online Media Literacy Strategy which will complement the regulatory regime to support online safety. The Strategy will empower users with the skills and knowledge they need to make safer and more informed decisions online. This will include promoting critical thinking skills, and understanding that the online environment is not always reflective of reality.
Asked by: Daisy Cooper (Liberal Democrat - St Albans)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what the legal position is that informed the decision to exclude fans who were (a) under 18 years old, (b) vulnerable adults and (c) pregnant from the World Snooker Championship that took place at Sheffield Crucible Theatre from 17 April to 3 May 2021.
Answered by Nigel Huddleston - Shadow Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport
The Ministerial Direction for the World Snooker Championships relaxed a number of Covid restrictions, including rules on capacity limits culminating in up to 4,000 people at an indoor seated venue for the Final.
For each pilot event a Public Sector Equality Duty impact assessment was carried out to consider the impact of this scientific study on groups with protected characteristics, including under 18s, those with disabilities, and pregnant people.
Under 18s were excluded from the World Snooker Championship as participants were asked to consent on the basis of the increased risk of COVID 19 transmission due to the relaxation of some risk mitigation factors (social distancing and capacity limits). It was considered that the disproportionate impact on under 18s not attending was justified.
It was considered that those defined as Clinically Extremely Vulnerable, including those who are disabled or pregnant may have been more at risk where the restrictions on social distancing and capacity limits were removed. The Science Board agreed that given the nature of the pilot programme it would not be possible to permit clinically vulnerable people to safely participate. The disproportionate impact of clinically vulnerable people not attending was considered justified on the basis that the policy only applies to pilot events in the programme.
Throughout the Events Research Programme (ERP) processes have been reviewed and adapted. After the World Snooker Championship, following stakeholder consultation and feedback from a number of disability groups, the ERP Science Board reviewed the approach of the ERP with respect to Clinically Extremely Vulnerable individuals attending pilot events. The current position is that the decision to attend an ERP pilot event lies with the individual. All attendees are required to fill out a consent form as part of the sign up process for the research programme. This takes into account the increased risk of COVID 19 transmission due to the relaxation of some risk mitigation factors (including removing social distancing).
Although those under the age of 16 may be competent to agree to provide consent to medical treatment (known as Gillick competence), the Programme's Science Board has recommended that most ERP events will not allow under 16s.
Asked by: Daisy Cooper (Liberal Democrat - St Albans)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what assessment he has made of the proportion of savings made in rent reductions as a result of the 2017 changes to the Electronic Communications Code that have been reinvested into telecommunications infrastructure in rural areas.
Answered by Matt Warman
There has been no formal assessment of rent reductions received by site providers since the 2017 reforms came into effect. We were clear at the time the 2017 legislation was introduced that the changes would take time to achieve their intended effect, not only because the market would require time to adapt, but also because case law would need to be developed and the new provisions would not be immediately applied to existing agreements.
The government has committed a record £5 billion of funding through Project Gigabit to ensure hard to reach communities in rural areas are not behind and get access to world class broadband infrastructure. This has already started to be deployed and is not waiting for the end of the commercial rollout, building on the half a million rural homes and businesses already given coverage through our support.
In addition the government is investing £1 billion alongside the major mobile operators in the Shared Rural Network programme. This will mean that all four mobile network operators will provide 95 per cent combined coverage across the whole of the UK by the end of 2025, delivering strong 4G coverage irrespective of what network provider people use.
Asked by: Daisy Cooper (Liberal Democrat - St Albans)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, how many site owners who lease their land to telecommunications companies for infrastructure have seen their rents reduced by more than 40 per cent as proposed by the Government's Impact Assessment accompanying the 2017 Electronic Communications Code.
Answered by Matt Warman
The Impact Assessment that accompanied the 2017 reforms did not propose a 40% reduction in rents. The 40% figure estimate referred to in the Impact Assessment was drawn from a report by independent economic analysts (Nordicity). The Impact Assessment made clear the difficulty of predicting the exact amount by which rents would fall, given the fact that the price paid for rights to install digital infrastructure is, in the first instance, a matter for private negotiation between operators and site providers.
Government’s aim was to reduce the cost of deployment, including the amounts paid for access to land, overall. We have not completed a formal assessment on average rent reductions since the 2017 reforms came into effect and therefore cannot comment on what the average rent reductions have been.
Asked by: Daisy Cooper (Liberal Democrat - St Albans)
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 representatives of (a) the British Tenpin Bowling Association and (b) other stakeholders on the financial viability of bowling alleys.
Answered by Nigel Huddleston - Shadow Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport
DCMS officials have engaged extensively with visitor economy stakeholders throughout the pandemic and will continue to meet with representatives from across the sector. I met with representatives of the Tenpin Bowling Proprietors Association on 28 January to discuss the financial impact on bowling alleys.
Bowling centre operators can continue to access the Government’s comprehensive support package - including the extended furlough and self-employed support schemes, new grant schemes, as well as various government-backed loans.
Alongside a range of other measures to support leisure and hospitality, the Government will continue to provide eligible retail, hospitality and leisure properties in England with 100% business rates relief from 1 April 2021 to 30 June 2021. This will be followed by 66% business rates relief for the period from 1 July 2021 to 31 March 2022.
Asked by: Daisy Cooper (Liberal Democrat - St Albans)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what assessment he has made of the potential merits of requiring telecoms suppliers to offer their best value tariffs to existing customers when they reach the end of introductory fixed price deals.
Answered by Matt Warman
The Government has recently strengthened Ofcom’s telecoms consumer protection powers. In February 2020, Ofcom introduced new rules to ensure that customers receive important information about their communications service when their contract is due to end.
As the contract end date approaches, providers must inform their customers on: the date their contract ends; the services currently provided and the price paid; any changes to the service and price paid at the end of this period; and information about the notice period required to terminate the contract. Providers must also include information on prices available to other customers, such as new customers. This is to ensure that customers do not have to negotiate in order to find out what their provider’s best price is, and means people can see if they are losing out and whether to switch provider.