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Written Question
Broadband: Rural Areas and Small Businesses
Tuesday 13th April 2021

Asked by: Fiona Bruce (Conservative - Congleton)

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 improve broadband provision for (a) isolated rural areas and (b) small business owners operating from their homes in (i) Congleton constituency and (ii) England.

Answered by Matt Warman

The government is committed to gigabit capable broadband to everyone in the UK by stimulating investment, busting barriers and driving competition. The UK is on track for one of the fastest rollouts in Europe and for half of all households to have access to gigabit speeds by the end of the year. It is a huge leap forward from 2019, when it was just one in ten.

The government is investing £5 billion in Project Gigabit to ensure that gigabit capable broadband reaches all communities across the UK. Further detail on our approach is set out in our Project Gigabit - Phase One Delivery Plan published on 19 March 2021, including using subsidised procurements to extend gigabit broadband coverage and providing up to £210m to fund a new voucher from the Gigabit Broadband Voucher Scheme and up to £110m to connect rural GP surgeries, libraries and schools.

We will begin a national Open Market Review by July 2021 for telecoms providers to give us a picture of where the market plans to invest in gigabit networks over the next three years and to confirm where we need to intervene so places are not left out.

4,000 premises in Cheshire will also benefit from access to gigabit capable broadband as a result of a £4.5million investment under the Superfast Broadband programme that was agreed in December 2020.

For those in the most isolated areas, where the costs of delivering broadband rise exponentially, the government has issued a Call for Evidence for users and suppliers to share their current experiences, needs and views. We are also asking suppliers to provide further information on technologies coming to market that may support delivery of improved broadband to these locations.


Written Question
Exercise: Congleton
Monday 30th November 2020

Asked by: Fiona Bruce (Conservative - Congleton)

Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, whether group exercise classes will be permitted to take place indoors from the end of the November 2020 lockdown period in Congleton constituency provided that social distancing is enforced.

Answered by Nigel Huddleston - Financial Secretary (HM Treasury)

As announced on Thursday 26 November, Cheshire will be placed into Tier 2 of coronavirus restrictions when the national lockdown ends on 2 December. Under Tier 2 you must not socialise with anyone you do not live with or who is not in your support bubble in any indoor setting, whether at home or in a public place.

Organised outdoor sport, and physical activity and exercise classes can continue. However, organised indoor sport, physical activity and exercise classes will only be permitted if it is possible for people to avoid mixing with people they do not live with (or share a support bubble with). There are exceptions for indoor disability sport, sport for educational purposes and supervised sport and physical activity for under-18s, which can take place with larger groups mixing.

Further guidance will be published shortly.


Written Question
Pornography: Internet
Tuesday 29th September 2020

Asked by: Fiona Bruce (Conservative - Congleton)

Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, if he will ask the Information Commissioner's Office to investigate instances of pornographic websites using children's browsing history data to promote pornographic content to those users.

Answered by John Whittingdale

Providers of online services which are likely to be accessed by children are required by UK data protection legislation to ensure that children’s data is processed fairly, lawfully and transparently. They should not be sharing data with third parties unless there are compelling reasons to do so, taking account of the best interests of the child.

The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has issued a code of practice on Age Appropriate Design, which offers guidance for organisations on complying with the legislation, including the privacy standards that should be adopted where they are offering online services to children. The code can be viewed on the ICO’s website at:

https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/guide-to-data-protection/key-data-protection-themes/age-appropriate-design-a-code-of-practice-for-online-services/

Online services that do not comply with the legislation, should be reported to the ICO which may, in turn, consider enforcement action.


Written Question
Pornography: Internet
Monday 21st September 2020

Asked by: Fiona Bruce (Conservative - Congleton)

Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, further to the Answer of 21 July 2020 to Question 75251, what assessment he has made of the level of risk that commercial pornographic websites will cease to allow user generated content if that would bring those websites within scope of a duty of care in potential future online harms legislation.

Answered by Caroline Dinenage

Details of how the online harms legislation will apply to pornography sites, will be published later this year in the Full Government Response to the Online Harms White Paper consultation.


Written Question
Pornography: Internet
Monday 21st September 2020

Asked by: Fiona Bruce (Conservative - Congleton)

Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, further to the Answer of 21 July 2020 to Question 75251, whether his Department holds data on which of the fifty most accessed commercial pornography sites in the UK (a) allow user generated content and (b) require payment to access all of the content on their website.

Answered by Caroline Dinenage

Details of how the online harms legislation will apply to pornography sites, will be published later this year in the Full Government Response to the Online Harms White Paper consultation.


Written Question
Pornography: Internet
Monday 21st September 2020

Asked by: Fiona Bruce (Conservative - Congleton)

Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, whether the Government will reconsider implementing Part 3 of the Digital Economy Act 2017 in response to the court case brought by several age verification companies, claim number CO/206/2020.

Answered by Caroline Dinenage

I am unable to discuss any ongoing cases against the department.

The Government is committed to ensuring that children are protected from accessing harmful content online.Details of how the online harms legislation will apply to pornography sites, will be published later this year in the Full Government Response to the Online Harms White Paper consultation.


Written Question
Pornography: Internet
Thursday 17th September 2020

Asked by: Fiona Bruce (Conservative - Congleton)

Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, pursuant to the Answer of 21 July 2020 to Question 75251 what proportion of commercial pornography sites (a) allow user-generated content and (b) place (i) all, (ii) some and (iii) none of their pornographic content behind a paywall.

Answered by Caroline Dinenage

Details of how the online harms legislation will apply to pornography sites, will be published later this year in the Full Government Response to the Online Harms White Paper consultation.


Written Question
Pornography: Internet
Thursday 17th September 2020

Asked by: Fiona Bruce (Conservative - Congleton)

Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, pursuant to the Answer of 21 July 2020 to Question 75251, if he will place in the Library a copy of his Department’s analysis of commercial pornographic websites that require payment.

Answered by Caroline Dinenage

Details of how the online harms legislation will apply to pornography sites, will be published later this year in the Full Government Response to the Online Harms White Paper consultation.


Written Question
Pornography: Internet
Wednesday 16th September 2020

Asked by: Fiona Bruce (Conservative - Congleton)

Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, pursuant to the Answer of 21 July 2020 to Question 75251 on pornography, what plans he has to publish the Government's analysis of pornography sites.

Answered by Caroline Dinenage

Details of how the online harms legislation will apply to pornography sites, will be published later this year in the Full Government Response to the Online Harms White Paper consultation.


Written Question
Broadband: Hassall
Thursday 23rd July 2020

Asked by: Fiona Bruce (Conservative - Congleton)

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 help ensure that OpenReach connect properties and businesses in the Hassall Parish Council area that are yet to have fibre connections installed.

Answered by Matt Warman

The Connecting Cheshire programme, which covers Cheshire East, Cheshire West and Chester, Halton and Warrington Borough Councils, have launched a new procurement
exercise at the end of June, under the BDUK Superfast Programme banner. The available funding through this procurement is £4.5m targeting the remaining premises within the area that are currently without a superfast broadband connection. Until the procurement activity is concluded in the Autumn it isn't possible to confirm which supplier could be awarded a contract or which premises will benefit from this activity.

Hassall Parish Council and other rural areas can benefit from the Rural Gigabit Connectivity Programme. The Government wants to ensure nationwide coverage of gigabit capable broadband as soon as possible. Many addresses in the Hassall Parish Council may be eligible for the Rural Gigabit Voucher Scheme, which is delivered by many suppliers in the area, including Openreach.

The Government has also announced that it will invest a further £5 billion to provide gigabit-capable networks in the hardest to parts of the UK. This funding will focus on connecting more rural and remote areas but, alongside this, the Government is also taking action to reduce the barriers to deployment, and make it cheaper and easier for operators, including BT Openreach, to roll out broadband commercially.

Finally, some addresses may be eligible to request an improved connection under the Universal Service Obligation. BT is the designated Universal Service Provider for all areas
the UK, apart from Hull. The USO provides every UK household with the legal right to request a broadband connection that provides download speeds of at least 10Mbps and an upload speed of at least 1Mbps, where this is not already available or is not due to be made available within a year through a publicly funded intervention.