Asked by: Gill Furniss (Labour - Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what plans he has for social media reform.
Answered by Caroline Dinenage
The Government is firmly committed to making the UK the safest place to be online.
The Full Government Response to the Online Harms White Paper consultation, published in December 2020, sets out expectations on tech companies, including social media providers, to keep their users safe online. This includes a proposed legal duty of care on companies and the appointment of a new communications regulator, Ofcom, to ensure that new laws are enforced.The Full Government Response will be followed by legislation, which will be ready later this year.
Asked by: Gill Furniss (Labour - Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough)
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 limit or stop the spreading of extremist materials on social media.
Answered by Caroline Dinenage
The Full Government Response to the Online Harms White Paper consultation, published in December 2020, sets out expectations on companies to keep their users safe online. This includes a proposed statutory duty of care on companies and the appointment of Ofcom as the regulator to ensure that new laws are enforced.
Under the new framework, all companies in scope will need to tackle the spread of illegal content and protect children. In addition, high risk and high reach social media platforms will need to set clear terms and conditions about content that is legal but harmful to adults, such as extremist materials, and enforce those terms consistently, transparently and effectively.
Asked by: Gill Furniss (Labour - Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough)
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 effect on public health of misinformation and conspiracy theories on covid-19 on social media platforms.
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 in March 2020 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.
Throughout the pandemic, we have been working closely with social media platforms to help them to quickly identify and respond to potentially harmful content on their platforms, including unfounded conspiracy theories, in line with their terms and conditions, and to promote Government and NHS messaging.
Asked by: Gill Furniss (Labour - Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough)
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 support theatres in tier three local covid alert level areas.
Answered by Caroline Dinenage
In Tier 3 areas, indoor and outdoor performing arts venues, such as theatres, concert halls and music venues will be closed to audiences. However, training, rehearsals and performances without an audience for broadcast or recording purposes may continue. Drive-in venues will remain open to performances with audiences. Outdoor performing arts activity can still take place in line with the restrictions laid out in the Performing Arts Guidance, if not in an outdoor venue. The Performing Arts guidance covers both professional and non-professional activity and events.
We know that the introduction of venue closures in Tier 3 areas will affect some scheduled shows around the country. However we know that a number of venues are adapting their performances to broadcast without audiences. We have updated the performing arts guidance to enable all forms of performing arts activity to go ahead where it is safe for them to do so.
The Government continues to work with the cultural sector to bring back more and more performances and fuller audiences when it is safe to do so.
We have committed to a review of the Tiers on 16 December.
Asked by: Gill Furniss (Labour - Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what recent assessment he has made of the financial sustainability of libraries.
Answered by Caroline Dinenage
My department has not undertaken a recent assessment of the financial sustainability of public libraries in England.
The most recent assessment was the National Audit Office report published in 2018 on the Financial sustainability of local authorities for the Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government - https://www.nao.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/Financial-sustainabilty-of-local-authorites-2018.pdf
The Government is providing local councils with unprecedented support during the pandemic with a £4.3 billion package, including £3.7 billion which is not ringfenced and £600 million to support social care providers. This is part of a wider package of almost £28 billion which the Government has committed to support local areas, with funding going to councils, businesses and communities. The 2020 Spending Review will look at pressures facing the sector and provide them with the certainty they need to aid financial planning.
Asked by: Gill Furniss (Labour - Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough)
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 an updated timetable for the phased return of business events, music concerts, crowds in sporting events and other cultural events as covid-19 lockdown restrictions are eased.
Answered by Nigel Huddleston - Financial Secretary (HM Treasury)
On 17 July, the Prime Minister announced that as long as the prevalence of COVID-19 remains around or below current levels into the Autumn, we will reduce easements on a number of sectors including those listed from 1 October. We have always been clear that easing lockdown restrictions depended on the prevalence of COVID-19. As with all aspects of the Government’s response to Covid-19, our decisions have been and will continue to be based on scientific evidence and public health assessments.
From 15 August, audiences adhering to social distancing were able to return to live indoor theatres, music and performance venues. This is the fourth stage of the performing arts roadmap and we continue to work with the sector on how we can achieve the final stage of the roadmap, indoor performances with fuller audiences. Exhibition and conference centers were allowed to show small groups of up to 30 people with social distancing requirements to view the facilities and plan future events and to enable government-backed pilots to take place.
The Government also announced that a small number of sporting events and business events will be used to pilot the safe return of spectators and attendees through September– with the ambition to reopen competition venues for sports fans and venues for business events, with social distancing measures in place, from 1 October, subject to the covid situation.
We have worked closely with events stakeholders through both the Visitor Economy and Events & Entertainment Working Groups to develop Covid-19 Secure reopening guidance for the business events industry. We continue to meet with the Events Industry Senior Leaders Advisory Panel to discuss the specific issues facing the industry.
Asked by: Gill Furniss (Labour - Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough)
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 providing sector-specific support for cultural and leisure facilities unable to open during the covid-19 outbreak.
Answered by Caroline Dinenage
On 5 July, DCMS announced a major £1.57 billion support package for key cultural organisations to help them through the coronavirus pandemic. This funding will provide targeted support to organisations across a range of sectors, including performing arts and theatres, museums and galleries, heritage sites, live music venues and independent cinema. We want this package to support organisations across the cultural, heritage and creative sectors, and will publish further detailed guidance as soon as possible in July.
The income scheme announced on Thursday 2 July by the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, aims to support local authorities who have incurred irrecoverable loss of income from sales, fees and charge which they had reasonably budgeted for. Further guidance will follow on the principle of the scheme.
Asked by: Gill Furniss (Labour - Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
What assessment he made of the potential merits of enabling theatres to reopen with social distancing measures on the same date as cinemas.
Answered by Caroline Dinenage
Cinemas were able to reopen on the 4th of July thanks to the guidance that was recently published.
We also recently published a 5-stage roadmap for reopening performing art venues - which are currently allowed to rehearse and broadcast shows without an audience.
We hope to move to stage 3 which will allow for outdoor performances, and stage 4, indoors with social distancing soon.
Asked by: Gill Furniss (Labour - Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what (a) guidance and (b) support he is providing to libraries to protect staff, volunteers and customers as they prepare to reopen on 4 July 2020.
Answered by Caroline Dinenage
Practical guidance for heads of library service and library staff to assist the reopening of physical library buildings in England from 4 July was published by Libraries Connected on Monday 29 June. The Libraries Connected Service Recovery Toolkit, developed in partnership with key library stakeholders and DCMS, will help libraries to reopen and to reintroduce their services gradually, in line with the latest public health advice. The toolkit is available at: https://www.librariesconnected.org.uk/resource/service-recovery-toolkit-june-2020-word.
Asked by: Gill Furniss (Labour - Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough)
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 stop the practice of customers continuing to be charged for the cost of their mobile handset after the cost of that handset has been paid off.
Answered by Margot James
The 2017 Conservative Manifesto committed to make billing for telecoms consumers fairer and easier to understand, including making it clear when consumers have paid off the cost of their mobile handset. On 26 September 2018, Ofcom published two proposals to ensure fairer, more transparent prices for mobile customers who pay for their handsets and airtime within the same contract. First, achieving greater transparency by, for example, requiring mobile firms to break down the cost of the different parts of the bundled mobile package a customer is purchasing. Second, a requirement for providers to introduce fairer tariffs, for example moving consumers of bundled mobile phone packages to SIM only contracts, at the end of the minimum contract period. The consultation closes on 7 November 2018 and further details can be viewed at: