Asked by: Damian Hinds (Conservative - East Hampshire)
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 extent of (a) misinformation and (b) disinformation on social media on the covid-19 outbreak to date; who the originators of the most widespread messages are; and what assessment he has made of the motivations behind such messages.
Answered by Caroline Dinenage
The Government takes the issue of disinformation very seriously. During the Covid-19 pandemic, it continues to be vitally important that the public has accurate information about the virus, and DCMS is leading work across Government to tackle disinformation.
That is why we stood up the Counter Disinformation Unit up on 5 March to bring together cross-Government monitoring and analysis capabilities. The Unit’s primary function is to provide a comprehensive picture of the extent, scope and impact of disinformation and misinformation regarding Covid-19 and to work with partners to ensure appropriate action is taken.
Misinformation and disinformation can come from a range of sources, however it would not be appropriate for us to provide a running commentary on the amount of misinformation or disinformation seen to date. Throughout the pandemic, we have been working closely with social media platforms to quickly identify and help them respond to potentially harmful content on their platforms, including removing harmful content in line with their terms and conditions, and promoting authoritative sources of information.
Asked by: Damian Hinds (Conservative - East Hampshire)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what assessment his Department has made of the potential merits of implementing the recommendation in the Duty of Care in Sport independent report to Government by Baroness Tanni Grey-Thompson, published in April 2017, that the Government should create a sports ombudsman or sports duty of care quality commission, with powers to hold national governing bodies to account for the duty of care they provide to all athletes, coaching staff and support staff.
Answered by Nigel Huddleston - Shadow Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport
It is important that the systems elite sports have for dealing with concerns about athlete welfare are as effective as possible, regardless of whether any new service - be that an ombudsman or a different model - is developed. All sports and clubs should have appropriate procedures in place, and when formal channels have been exhausted and a matter remains unresolved, investigations should be conducted independently through an appropriate organisation such as Sport Resolutions UK.
The Code for Sports Governance came into force around the same time as the Duty of Care report was published in April 2017. This imposes clear requirements on all funded sports organisations to have appropriate whistleblowing and safeguarding policies and procedures in place. In addition, UK Sport have proactively worked to strengthen the existing systems, structures and responsibilities for dispute resolution within the high performance system, and introduced numerous measures in the 12 months following the report’s publication. These actions included mandating an independent element in discipline and grievance procedures, establishing a dedicated integrity unit, and introducing an annual Culture Health Check survey that monitors athlete welfare and enables issues to be picked up and addressed.
My department will continue to work closely with UK Sport and keep this issue under review, looking to strengthen provision wherever necessary.
Asked by: Damian Hinds (Conservative - East Hampshire)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
What steps her Department is taking to improve (a) broadband and (b) mobile phone coverage in rural areas.
Answered by Matt Warman
The government’s £200m Rural Gigabit Connectivity programme is already supporting rollout of gigabit broadband in rural areas.
The government has also pledged £5bn of funding for Gigabit broadband in the ‘hardest to reach’, predominantly rural, areas of the UK.
The government announced in-principle support in October 2019 for the Mobile Network Operators’ Shared Rural Network proposal. It aims to collectively increase 4G mobile coverage throughout the United Kingdom to 95% by 2025.