Asked by: Daniel Kawczynski (Conservative - Shrewsbury and Atcham)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what assessment she has made of the potential merits of the incorporation of Non-Fungible Tokens into cultural objects held by (a) the British Museum and (b) other museums to (i) confirm their authenticity and (ii) help prevent their theft.
Answered by Julia Lopez - Shadow Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology
The Department for Culture, Media and Sport has not made a specific assessment of the merits of Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) in this context. The British Museum has noted that, due to the cost and resource requirements involved, and as they do not significantly mitigate risk, the Museum currently has no plans to adopt the use of NFTs in this way.
Asked by: Daniel Kawczynski (Conservative - Shrewsbury and Atcham)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what assessment she has made of the implications for her policies of the incorporation of Non-Fungible Tokens into digital artworks to confirm their authenticity.
Answered by John Whittingdale
Although DCMS has not made a specific assessment of Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs), HMT looked at NFTs as part of its consultation on cryptoassets. Developments like NFTs may provide new opportunities, as well as challenges, and we are aware of private sector services offering NFT-based authentication for digital art.
Asked by: Daniel Kawczynski (Conservative - Shrewsbury and Atcham)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, whether she will take steps to prevent Russian players participating at Wimbledon tennis tournament.
Answered by Nigel Huddleston - Shadow Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport
The Government strongly condemns Russia’s unprovoked, flagrant actions. Russia must not be allowed to exploit major sporting and cultural events on the world stage to seek to legitimise its illegal invasion of Ukraine.
That is why we brought together an international coalition to see what more we could do to increase the pressure on Putin’s regime, and issued a joint statement with 36 other nations calling on international sporting federations to endorse the principles that:
Russia and Belarus should not be permitted to host, bid for or be awarded any international sporting events.
Individual athletes selected by Russia and Belarus, administrators and teams representing the Russian or Belarusian state should be banned from competing in other countries, including those representing bodies, cities or brands that are effectively representing Russia or Belarus, such as major football clubs.
Wherever possible, appropriate actions should be taken to limit sponsorship and other financial support from entities with links to the Russian or Belarusian states.
The full statement is available here.
The issue of Russian or Belarussian individual sports persons participating in a truly neutral capacity - in the UK and overseas - adds further complexity, and our position will have the greatest impact if it is taken in line with other nations. We are engaging with national governing bodies, including the All England Lawn Tennis Club, and international counterparts in order to reach an agreed position that can be implemented as consistently as possible.
Asked by: Daniel Kawczynski (Conservative - Shrewsbury and Atcham)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, if she will make an assessment of the (a) balance of and (b) level of input from (i) Open Society Foundation and (ii) other NGOs on BBC World's coverage of (A) Poland and (B) Hungary.
Answered by Julia Lopez - Shadow Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology
The Government recognises the vital role that the BBC, including the World Service, plays across the globe. However, the BBC is operationally and editorially independent from the government and the government cannot intervene in the BBC’s day-to-day operations, including its editorial decisions.
The BBC has a duty to deliver impartial and accurate news coverage and content under its Royal Charter. It is for the BBC Board to ensure the quality of all BBC’s content, and that BBC output meets the highest standards the public expects.
Asked by: Daniel Kawczynski (Conservative - Shrewsbury and Atcham)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what discussions she has had with the BBC on the operation of the convention of the Monarch’s office being shown footage intended to be broadcast by the BBC.
Answered by Julia Lopez - Shadow Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology
The BBC is an independent body governed by the Royal Charter. It is operationally and editorially independent from the government, and the government cannot intervene in the BBC’s day-to-day operations.
Asked by: Daniel Kawczynski (Conservative - Shrewsbury and Atcham)
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 review the broadcasting licences of Russian state-backed media outlets (a) RT and (b) Sputnik in relation to potential campaigns of misinformation.
Answered by John Whittingdale
The government takes the issue of misinformation and disinformation very seriously, especially when it affects UK audiences. Ofcom, the UK broadcasting regulator, is responsible for issuing television and radio broadcasting licences and ensuring licence holders are compliant with UK broadcast standards and licensing requirements.
Autonomous Non-Profit Organisation TV Novosti holds three UK television broadcasting licences, two for the provision of the RT service and one for the provision of the RT Europe service. Sputnik does not hold a UK broadcasting licence.
All Ofcom licensed services are required to comply with Ofcom’s Broadcasting Code. This requires that news is duly accurate and that factual programmes do not materially mislead the audience. Licensees must also abide by Ofcom’s ‘due’ impartiality requirements.
Asked by: Daniel Kawczynski (Conservative - Shrewsbury and Atcham)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, for what reason his Department has recently changed the value of vouchers on the Community Fibre Partnership from the value that was originally agreed.
Answered by Matt Warman
Community Fibre Partnerships are an Openreach product that they use on our Gigabit Broadband Voucher Scheme (GBVS). Openreach operates the Community Fibre Partnership (CFP) Scheme all over the UK and they use this as an aggregation platform to gather initial contact details and ‘pledges’ (Openreach term) for communities who want to improve their broadband. The particular costings of a CFP scheme are determined by Openreach, but since the launch of the GBVS, Openreach has encouraged communities to use the voucher funding provided by the government to pay for the cost of installing the network to rural communities.
We are investing up to £210 million in vouchers over the next three years. The new voucher’s value matches that of our previous scheme, £1,500 for homes and £3,500 for businesses,which has already successfully transformed connectivity for communities across the country with 72,000 vouchers issued worth £137 million.
If you are referring to a particular project in your constituency my officials would be happy to investigate this for you, but in order to do so they would need a Pre-Registered Package (PRP) number associated with the voucher project.