Asked by: Jim Shannon (Democratic Unionist Party - Strangford)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what steps she is taking to prevent access to porn websites by school-age boys.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
The strongest protections in the draft Online Safety Bill are for children.
The draft Bill covers many the most visited pornography sites, social media platforms, video-sharing sites, forums and via search engines - thereby capturing many of the sites through which children access pornography. Under our proposals, companies in scope will need to put in place technologies such as age verification to prevent children accessing pornography or demonstrate that the approach they are taking delivers the same level of protection for children.
The Joint Committee scrutinising the Bill is expected to report by 10th December and the government will introduce the Bill as soon as possible thereafter.
Asked by: Jim Shannon (Democratic Unionist Party - Strangford)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what steps she is taking to encourage premier league football players to be vaccinated against covid-19.
Answered by Nigel Huddleston - Financial Secretary (HM Treasury)
As per the statement to the house of 28th November, our vaccines remain our best line of defence against this virus. I welcome the increase in take up of vaccination amongst Premier League players. We encourage everyone - including footballers - to take up the offers of vaccination, and of boosters, for which many more millions of people are eligible following JCVI changes.
Asked by: Jim Shannon (Democratic Unionist Party - Strangford)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what steps she is taking to regulate online dating services to prevent fraud and abuse.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
Online dating services are in scope of the Online Safety Bill. This means that they will have to put in place measures to protect their users from harmful content facilitated via user-generated content, including fraud and abuse. Dating sites will have to assess the risk of harm to their users, and then take steps to mitigate and tackle that risk.
Asked by: Jim Shannon (Democratic Unionist Party - Strangford)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, if he will take steps to tighten restrictions on gambling advertising in the UK.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
All gambling advertising, wherever it appears, is subject to strict controls on content and placement. Gambling operators and their affiliates must abide by the advertising codes issued by the Broadcast Committee of Advertising Practice (BCAP) and the Committees of Advertising Practice (CAP). In addition, the gambling industry has its own gambling advertising code – The Gambling Industry Code for Socially Responsible Advertising which includes additional requirements, for example, a 9pm television advertising watershed for most forms of gambling and ensuring advertising is targeted only at those over 25 years old on social media.
The Government launched its Review of the Gambling Act 2005 with the publication of a Call for Evidence which closed on 31 March. As part of the wide scope of this review we called for evidence on the potential benefits or harms of allowing licensed gambling operators to advertise. The Call for Evidence received approximately 16,000 submissions from a broad range of interested organisations and individuals. We are considering the evidence carefully and will publish a White Paper outlining conclusions and next steps in due course. The Government is also looking more broadly at how online advertising is regulated through the Online Advertising Programme, which will be launching a public consultation in the coming months.
Asked by: Jim Shannon (Democratic Unionist Party - Strangford)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what recent discussions he has had with social media companies on preventing the exposure of underage children to harmful material.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
Preventing children’s exposure to harmful material is a priority for the government. Under our proposals in the Online Safety Bill, social media companies will be required to assess the risks of children being exposed to harmful content on their services and implement effective safety measures to protect them. They will also have to ensure that only children who are old enough are able to access their service.
The government continues to engage with a wide range of stakeholders as the Bill goes through pre-legislative scrutiny. Details of Ministerial meetings are published quarterly on the Gov.uk website.
Asked by: Jim Shannon (Democratic Unionist Party - Strangford)
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 implications for his policies of PaddyPowerBetfair's introduction of a £500 monthly cap on losses for younger customers.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
We welcome recent steps taken by industry to raise standards and increase protections for customers, including PaddyPower/Betfair’s introduction of its £500 cap and the Betting & Gaming Council’s codes of conduct on high value customer schemes and online game design.
The government and the Gambling Commission are continuing work to consider protections in online gambling. Earlier this year, the Gambling Commission launched a consultation and call for evidence on the steps remote operators should be required to take to identify and protect customers at risk of harm, including on issues to do with affordability. It received over 13,000 responses and the Commission has published an interim update on its website outlining next steps.
The government launched its Review of the Gambling Act 2005 in December with the publication of a Call for Evidence which received 16,000 responses. The Review will be wide-ranging and evidence-led, and aims to make sure that the regulation of gambling is fit for the digital age. We are considering all evidence carefully and will publish a white paper outlining any conclusions and proposals for reform in due course.
Asked by: Jim Shannon (Democratic Unionist Party - Strangford)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, whether he has had recent discussions with social media representatives in the UK on tackling social media users who make death threats towards politicians.
Answered by Caroline Dinenage
Ministers and officials regularly meet with a range of stakeholders, including from social media companies, on matters relating to online safety. The government published the draft Online Safety Bill in May. It will give online platforms new legal duties to tackle abuse and other harmful content on their services.
Asked by: Jim Shannon (Democratic Unionist Party - Strangford)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what discussions he has had with the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care on bringing forward legislative proposals to reduce brain injuries in sport.
Answered by Nigel Huddleston - Financial Secretary (HM Treasury)
The Government, with the assistance of Laurence Geller CBE as ministerial adviser, is currently reviewing the issue of concussion in sport and I will report later this year on the steps that the Government intends to take.
The safety, wellbeing and welfare of everyone taking part in sport is absolutely paramount. The Government remains committed to working with sports to build on the positive work that is already taking place.
Asked by: Jim Shannon (Democratic Unionist Party - Strangford)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, if he will make an assessment of the potential merits of bringing forward legislative proposals to restrict social media sites promoting the use of online gambling.
Answered by John Whittingdale
All gambling advertising, wherever it appears, is subject to strict controls on content and placement. Gambling operators and their affiliates must abide by the advertising codes issued by the Broadcast Committee of Advertising Practice (BCAP) and the Committees of Advertising Practice (CAP). Following work with the Gambling Commission, the industry has committed to make better use of advertising technology to target adverts away from children online and on social media. The sixth edition of the Gambling Industry Code for Socially Responsible advertising, which came into force this month, requires operators to ensure advertising is targeted only at those over 25 years old on social media and to age-gate operator YouTube channels and content.
The government launched its Review of the Gambling Act 2005 with the publication of a Call for Evidence which closed on 31 March. As part of the wide scope of this review we called for evidence on the potential benefits or harms of allowing licensed gambling operators to advertise, including via social media and affiliate marketing. The Call for Evidence received approximately 16,000 submissions from a broad range of interested organisations and individuals. We are considering the evidence carefully and intend to publish a White Paper outlining conclusions and next steps by the end of the year.
Following a call for evidence last year, the government has also been considering how online advertising is regulated through its Online Advertising Programme. We will be consulting on this issue later this year.
Asked by: Jim Shannon (Democratic Unionist Party - Strangford)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, with reference to the Answer of 8 March 2021 to Question 159303, what jurisdictions are included in the non-GB category of statistics on industry gross gambling yield that are collected by the Gambling Commission.
Answered by John Whittingdale
All operators who supply gambling to customers in Great Britain must be licensed by the Gambling Commission. Its jurisdiction also extends to online operators who supply gambling to customers outside Great Britain, if the equipment with which they do so is located in this country, and gross gambling yield from these activities is recorded as non-GB GGY. That category also includes GGY which any GC-licensed operator has derived from supplying gambling to customers in other jurisdictions which either allow it to operate there by virtue of its GB licence, or do not have specific legal requirements relating to online gambling. The Commission does not collect granular data on the jurisdictions from which this GGY is derived.