Asked by: Kim Leadbeater (Labour - Batley and Spen)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, when the National Youth Guarantee funds will become available.
Answered by Nigel Huddleston - Financial Secretary (HM Treasury)
DCMS received £560 million to deliver the National Youth Guarantee over the Spending Review period.
The first phase of the Youth Investment Fund saw £12 million spent in financial year 21/22 in key levelling up areas, which has provided funding for over 400 youth organisations. Funding was used for a wide range of equipment to assist with youth activities, as well as capital improvements that will reduce overheads and running costs. Phase Two will fund the construction or redevelopment of up to 300 youth facilities, targeting investment in left-behind areas, where young people have the greatest need and lowest provision. £368 million has been allocated to Phase Two, which will open for bids in summer 2022.
DCMS also funds the National Citizen Service (NCS) which is running a range of activities during the 2022 summer holidays, providing access to adventures away from home, skills development, engaging in local community projects and volunteering opportunities for thousands of young people across the country. NCS has already received £72 million this year and will receive around £100 million in the following two years. Additionally, DCMS has already signed a grant agreement with The Duke of Edinburgh’s Award scheme for £4.2 million, enabling them to offer every state secondary school in England the chance to participate, in collaboration with the Department for Education.
Finally DCMS has committed £6 million to the #iwill fund, fully matched by the National Lottery Community Fund, to support tens of thousands more youth volunteering opportunities.
Further funding to tackle Uniformed Youth waiting lists will begin to be released later this year.
Asked by: Kim Leadbeater (Labour - Batley and Spen)
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 12 July 2022 to Question 30208 on Youth Organisations: Kirklees, what assessment her Department has made of the potential role of scouting in the National Youth Guarantee scheme.
Answered by Nigel Huddleston - Financial Secretary (HM Treasury)
The National Youth Guarantee is this government’s commitment that by 2025 every young person will have access to regular clubs and activities, adventures away from home and volunteering opportunities.
As part of the National Youth Guarantee funding we intend to launch a Uniformed Youth Fund later this year to increase access to Uniformed Youth groups across the country. The fund will allow organisations such as the Scouts to increase provision in areas with unmet demand, improving the wellbeing of young people and helping them to develop skills for life and work.
Asked by: Kim Leadbeater (Labour - Batley and Spen)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, for what reason youth organisations in Kirklees have been unable to access the Youth Investment Fund; and what central funding is available to support facilities for organisations assisting young people aged 11-18 in Kirklees.
Answered by Nigel Huddleston - Financial Secretary (HM Treasury)
The Government recognises the vital role that youth services and activities play in improving the life chances and wellbeing of young people. The Government has committed to a National Youth Guarantee: that by 2025, every young person will have access to regular clubs and activities, adventures away from home and opportunities to volunteer. This will be supported by a three year £560 million investment in youth services, reflecting young people's priorities and addressing the inconsistencies in national youth spending, with a firm focus on levelling up. The Youth Investment Fund is a geographically targeted fund levelling up access to youth services in those areas that need it the most. Ministerial decisions on eligibility criteria were taken on the basis of high quality, robust and publicly available data, details of which are available on the gov.uk website here. Kirklees did not meet the eligibility criteria for the Youth Investment Fund. However, through the National Youth Guarantee DCMS will fund a range of youth programmes across England, such as the National Citizen Service (NCS) and The Duke of Edinburgh’s Award, as well as volunteering programmes through the #iwill Fund and tackling uniformed youth waiting lists, all of which the young people of Kirklees can benefit from.
Asked by: Kim Leadbeater (Labour - Batley and Spen)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, whether her Department has made a recent assessment of the potential implications of amending the charity lottery annual sales limit.
Answered by Nigel Huddleston - Financial Secretary (HM Treasury)
Society lottery sales and prize limits were last increased in July 2020 when the annual sales limit was raised from £10 million to £50 million. We published a review of the impact of these changes in March 2022 (link). The review considered evidence on the annual sales limit, and found that the increase had allowed some operators to move to a single licence and reduce costs. The review concluded that more data was necessary to fully measure the impact of the 2020 changes, and that therefore further policy changes were not necessary at this time.
My officials will continue working with the Gambling Commission, as part of its regulatory role, to keep the sector under review.
Asked by: Kim Leadbeater (Labour - Batley and Spen)
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 adequacy of provisions in the Online Safety Bill that cover physical harm caused by online trolling in relation to (a) epileptic seizures, (b) facial injuries, (c) concussions and (d) broken bones.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Online Safety Bill has robust provisions in place to protect people from physical harm caused by online trolling. The Bill requires services in scope to have systems and processes to tackle illegal content on their services. This includes any illegal online abuse which crosses the criminal threshold.
The largest companies will also need to keep their promises to adult users by taking action against harmful content that is prohibited under their terms of service. All services likely to be accessed by children will also need to protect children from harmful or inappropriate content. Where relevant, platforms will have to address content that poses a material risk of significant physical or psychological harm to an appreciable number of adults or children.
We are also ensuring that criminal law captures a range of harms online. Clause 150 in the Bill, the harmful communications offence, will criminalise the sending of messages with the intention to cause serious distress without a reasonable excuse. This new offence will capture people sending flashing images to known sufferers of epilepsy with the intention of causing harm that amounts to serious distress. In addition, the Ministry of Justice is carefully considering the Law Commission’s recommendation for a standalone offence for epilepsy trolling. The Government will set out its full response to the Law Commission’s report, later this year.
Asked by: Kim Leadbeater (Labour - Batley and Spen)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what assessment she has made of the adequacy of existing avenues of consumer redress for people in disputes with gambling operators.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
Our Review of the Gambling Act 2005 is taking a close look at the effectiveness of the regulatory framework and whether further protections are needed to ensure that all those who choose to gamble can do so safely. As part of its broad scope, the Review is looking at the suitability of existing consumer redress arrangements and we called for evidence on whether changes are needed to better support individuals who feel they have been treated unfairly or harmed by gambling operators in breach of their social responsibility obligations. We will publish a White Paper outlining our conclusions and proposals in the coming weeks.
Asked by: Kim Leadbeater (Labour - Batley and Spen)
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 ensure that girls have equal access to football in schools.
Answered by Nigel Huddleston - Financial Secretary (HM Treasury)
The Government is absolutely committed to supporting girls’ sport at every opportunity including pushing for greater participation. The Government is looking forward to hosting the rescheduled women’s UEFA European Championships in 2022. The tournament's National Promotion Programme will help to deliver on the Football Association’s commitment to ensure equal access for all girls to play football in school and clubs.
Other activities to inspire more women and girls to take up the sport include signposting to women’s and girls’ participation opportunities, a pre-tournament nation-wide ‘activity’ challenge for all ages and backgrounds and a pre-tournament host city Roadshow. In addition, as part of the Spending Review, £205 million of funding for grassroots football and multi-sport facilities was announced, which will help to contribute to ensuring girls across the country have the football facilities they need in their community, including in schools.
Asked by: Kim Leadbeater (Labour - Batley and Spen)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what recent assessment she has made of the potential merits of making the misuse of (a) personal details or (b) corporate details a police recordable crime.
Answered by Julia Lopez - Minister of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
The Data Protection Act 2018 (DPA) contains a number of criminal offences relating to the misuse of personal data. They include, at section 170, the unlawful obtaining, disclosing, or retaining personal data without the consent of the data controller; and at section 171, the re-identification of de-identified personal data without a lawful reason.
The penalties for these offences are set out in section 196 of the DPA. A person who is convicted is liable to an unlimited fine in the courts. Under section 199 of the DPA, these offences are recordable which means that those committing such offences will have a criminal record on conviction.
The ICO has a range of enforcement powers under the DPA to tackle the unlawful processing of personal data, including the power to require organisations to stop risky processing activities or serve civil monetary penalties. Details of the ICO’s enforcement activity can be found on its website.
In addition to offences under the DPA, there are a number of other recordable criminal offences relating to the misuse or theft of personal data and company information, which can be prosecuted in certain circumstances. They include offences under the Computer Misuse Act 1990, the Theft Acts and the Fraud Act 2006.
Asked by: Kim Leadbeater (Labour - Batley and Spen)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what assessment she has made of the adequacy of protection in the Online Safety Bill for people with epilepsy from the purposeful sending of flashing images online.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
We are protecting people with epilepsy online through a review of criminal law and the Online Safety Bill.
Following a recommendation by the Law Commission in its review of existing criminal law for harmful communications, we will introduce new offences into law through the Online Safety Bill. This includes the harm-based communications, false communications and threatening communications offences. The harm-based offence will capture epilepsy trolling where it meets the criminal threshold. We are also continuing to consider the remaining recommendations, including a standalone offence for epilepsy trolling.
The Online Safety Bill will require services in scope to have robust systems and processes to tackle illegal content on their services. This includes the harms-based offence and any other illegal online abuse which provokes epilepsy seizures.
Asked by: Kim Leadbeater (Labour - Batley and Spen)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, with reference to her Department’s policy paper entitled Emerging Together: the Tackling Loneliness Network Action Plan, published in May 2021, for what reason disabled people and people with a learning disability are omitted; and what steps he is taking to tackle loneliness among people with a learning disability and help ensure they do not experience barriers to friendship and connection.
Answered by Nigel Huddleston - Financial Secretary (HM Treasury)
The Government remains committed to working across government departments and across society to tackle loneliness, including for disabled people and people with a learning disability.
The Tackling Loneliness Network Action Plan set out actions that the government and members of the Tackling Loneliness Network committed to take as part of delivering a connected recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic. The focus areas of the report were guided by members of the Tackling Loneliness Network, which includes organisations that work to support disabled people and people with a learning disability.
Many of the actions set out in the report aimed to support a wide range of groups at risk of loneliness, including disabled people and people with a learning disability. For example, the government set up a Tackling Loneliness Hub to enable organisations working to tackle loneliness to connect and share resources, including about the impact of loneliness on disabled people.
The Government has also specifically supported organisations working with disabled people and people with a learning disability to help them overcome loneliness. For example, through the COVID-19 Loneliness Fund, we provided grants to Sense, the Royal National Institute of Blind People, and Alzheimer’s Society. We have also provided grants through the Loneliness Engagement Fund to help organisations to carry out communications and engagement activity about loneliness with some of the groups most impacted by loneliness during COVID-19. We included disabled people as one of our priority groups to support through the Fund, and have provided grants to Mencap, the Royal National Institute of Blind People, and the British Deaf Association.