Oral Answers to Questions

Julie Elliott Excerpts

Thursday 11th April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Michael Ellis]

I always want to ensure that all constituent parts of the United Kingdom are involved in these matters, as they of course are in fact as well as in law. I think that I have already written to the Secretary of State—the letter will be signed today—but we will certainly bear in mind what the hon. Gentleman says.

[Julie Elliott (Sunderland Central) (Lab)]

3. What recent steps he has taken to tackle fake news and disinformation online.

[The Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (Jeremy Wright)]

On Monday, my Department, in conjunction with the Home Office, published the Online Harms White Paper, which sets out our plans for a new regulatory framework for online harms underpinned by an independent regulator. As part of that framework, the regulator will publish a code of practice to ensure that platforms take proportionate steps to tackle the issue of disinformation and other forms of online manipulation.

[Julie Elliott]

I thank the Secretary of State for that answer. I also welcome the White Paper. The Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee, on which I serve, took a lot of information on the threat to our democracy; the White Paper is not silent on that, but it is not very talkative about it. Will he outline what steps the Government plan to take to protect our democracy?

[Jeremy Wright]

The hon. Lady is right: it is an important area. The Select Committee has done very good work in drawing attention to it. As I made clear on Monday in my statement to the House, we should not see the Online Harms White Paper as the only part of the Government’s response in this area; there will be other important components to it. One of those that will cover the area that she describes will be the work that the Cabinet Office is doing, which I hope we will see very shortly.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jeremy Wright]

My hon. Friend will know that in relation to the cultural development fund, five local areas will receive a share of £20 million. We believe that that is hugely important for the reasons that she gives. We expect it to create more than 1,300 new jobs across the country and, as she rightly says, to boost tourism and inward investment.

[Julie Elliott (Sunderland Central) (Lab)]

T5. The roll-out of broadband has been patchy to say the least, with some people getting duplication and some getting no coverage at all. What steps will the Government take to ensure that the roll-out of superfast fibre optic broadband does not have the same problems?