Asked by: Jason McCartney (Conservative - Colne Valley)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what steps her Department is taking to consult on the future of Channel 4.
Answered by Julia Lopez - Minister of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
The government has consulted on the best ownership model to support Channel 4 as part of our review of the public service broadcasting ecosystem.
The public consultation ran for 10 weeks before closing on 14 September. We received around 60,000 responses.
We are analysing every response to make sure we come to an informed decision on whether a change of ownership is the best way to secure Channel 4’s future.
Asked by: Jason McCartney (Conservative - Colne Valley)
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 adequacy of online gambling protections provided by gambling companies for (a) known frequent gamblers and (b) other online users.
Answered by John Whittingdale
Keeping gambling fair and open and free from crime, and protecting children and vulnerable people from being harmed or exploited are priorities for the government and key licensing objectives for the Gambling Commission. The Commission requires all operators to monitor gambling activity and to intervene where a customer may be at risk of harm. It has consulted on tightening its rules on customer interaction for online operators and will publish a response and next steps in the summer.
The government launched its Review of the Gambling Act 2005 on 8 December with the publication of a Call for Evidence. As part of the broad scope of the Review, we called for evidence on the effectiveness of our regulatory system, including protections for online gamblers and the Gambling Commission's powers and resources. We aim to publish a white paper by the end of the year.
Asked by: Jason McCartney (Conservative - Colne Valley)
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 effectiveness of the Gambling Commission in reducing gambling-related harms.
Answered by John Whittingdale
Keeping gambling fair and open and free from crime, and protecting children and vulnerable people from being harmed or exploited are priorities for the government and key licensing objectives for the Gambling Commission. The Commission requires all operators to monitor gambling activity and to intervene where a customer may be at risk of harm. It has consulted on tightening its rules on customer interaction for online operators and will publish a response and next steps in the summer.
The government launched its Review of the Gambling Act 2005 on 8 December with the publication of a Call for Evidence. As part of the broad scope of the Review, we called for evidence on the effectiveness of our regulatory system, including protections for online gamblers and the Gambling Commission's powers and resources. We aim to publish a white paper by the end of the year.
Asked by: Jason McCartney (Conservative - Colne Valley)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what specific steps his Department will take to enforce restrictions on online advertising of products high in fat, sugar and salt.
Answered by Caroline Dinenage
In 2019 and 2020, the Government consulted on proposals to further restrict HFSS advertising on TV and online. We will be publishing the government response to the consultation shortly, which will set out the future policy direction for both TV and online HFSS advertising.
In the 2020 consultation we proposed that the day-to-day responsibility for applying HFSS advertising restrictions be given to the Advertising Standards Authority, recognising their expertise and experience in regulating advertising. Following the current regulatory regime, we propose that breaches would be resolved in line with current ASA policy of responding to individual complaints and promoting voluntary cooperation with the restriction.
If this approach failed or advertisers were committing repeated or severe breaches relating to HFSS marketing material, they would face stronger penalties through a statutory backstop. We would envisage that the backstop regulator would have powers to issue civil sanctions, including the ability to issue fines.
We want to ensure that the enforcement powers of the statutory regulator are designed and used in a way that incentivises compliance and allows for rapid remedial action. The Government will implement any new HFSS advertising restrictions across both online and TV simultaneously by the end of 2022, as outlined in the Tackling Obesity policy published on 27 July 2020.
Asked by: Jason McCartney (Conservative - Colne Valley)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, with reference to plans to restrict online advertising of products High in Fat, Sugar and Salt (HFSS), whether online platforms are planned to be held legally responsible under statutory rules for making sure that HFSS food and drink advertising does not appear.
Answered by Caroline Dinenage
The government will shortly publish its response to consultations held in 2019 and 2020 which set out proposals to ban HFSS advertisements being shown on TV before 9pm, and for further statutory measures to restrict HFSS advertising online.
The response will set out the Government’s approach to online liability and enforcement.
Asked by: Jason McCartney (Conservative - Colne Valley)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what steps he is taking to promote and support brass bands.
Answered by Lord Vaizey of Didcot
This Government continues to recognise the important place that brass bands have in British culture and their local communities. Before the end of the last Parliament, the Treasury confirmed that the new orchestra tax relief will be available to the full range of orchestras, including large brass bands. Orchestra tax relief will be available from April 2016.Asked by: Jason McCartney (Conservative - Colne Valley)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what oversight he has of the allocation of the Arts Council England's funding to other organisations.
Answered by Lord Vaizey of Didcot
Funding decisions are made by Arts Council England, without Government input. Ministers establish the strategic priorities for ACE’s spending in each Spending Round and regularly meet with Arts Council England.
Asked by: Jason McCartney (Conservative - Colne Valley)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, if he will bring forward legislative proposals to increase the penalties available for repeat offenders against the law relating to nuisance calls.
Answered by Lord Vaizey of Didcot
Further legislation is not necessary, as both the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) and the Office of Communications (Ofcom) can issue substantive monetary penalties of up to £500,000 and £2 million respectively to any organisation that deliberately continues to contravene the regulations.
Asked by: Jason McCartney (Conservative - Colne Valley)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, how many companies were fined more than once for making nuisance calls by (a) the Information Commissioner's Office and (b) Ofcom in each of the last three years.
Answered by Lord Vaizey of Didcot
The Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) and the Office of Communications (Ofcom) have issued monetary penalties totalling more than £1.9 million since January 2012 for nuisance calls, however no company has been issued with a monetary penalty more than once by either ICO or Ofcom for making nuisance calls.
Asked by: Jason McCartney (Conservative - Colne Valley)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, how many companies were fined for making nuisance calls by (a) the Information Commissioner's Office and (b) Ofcom in each of the last three years.
Answered by Lord Vaizey of Didcot
The number of monetary penalties issued for making nuisance calls by the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) and the Office of Communications (Ofcom) in each of the last three years is set out in the table below. Also, both the ICO and Ofcom take informal enforcement action to ensure that companies about whom they have concerns are brought into compliance more quickly. From January 2013 - June 2014, ICO engaged with over 20 organisations, which were responsible for making nuisance calls and as a result recorded substantial reductions in complaints for five of these organisations. Ofcom's informal action against 25 organisations making silent and abandoned phone calls has resulted in complaints linked to the telephone numbers used by 22 of those organisations stopping or reducing significantly, while three cases are ongoing. The power to issue monetary penalties of £500,000 for ICO came into force in January 2012, whilst Ofcom's power to issue a monetary penalty of £2 million became effective in October 2010.
Year | 2011 | 2012 | 2013 | Total |
ICO* | - | 1 | 3 | £360,000 |
Ofcom | - | 2 | 1 | £1,560,000 |
*ICO has also issued monetary penalties to two companies for SMS spam text messages in 2012 and 2013