Asked by: Martyn Day (Scottish National Party - Linlithgow and East Falkirk)
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 29 April 2021 to Question 187228 on Gambling: Internet, what the Gambling Commission’s timescale is for publishing an interim update on progress and next steps in relation to its consultation and call for evidence on Remote Customer Interaction.
Answered by John Whittingdale
The Gambling Commission’s consultation and call for evidence on Remote Customer Interaction closed on 9 February and received over 13,000 responses. The Commission is reviewing that evidence and will publish an interim update on progress and to set out next steps in due course.
Asked by: Martyn Day (Scottish National Party - Linlithgow and East Falkirk)
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 25 February 2021 to Question 155211 on Gambling: Advertising, what discussions his Department has had with relevant stakeholders on changes in the level of gambling advertising broadcast on television since March 2020.
Answered by John Whittingdale
As set out in answer to Question 155211, the government does not hold data on the volume of broadcast gambling advertising. The Advertising Standards Authority has published figures on levels of exposure to advertising, including gambling advertising, during the first national lockdown, a period when television viewing significantly increased. This data does not allow for an assessment of trends throughout the period since March 2020.
The Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport engages regularly with a wide variety of stakeholders and receives many representations on issues related to gambling and gambling regulation.
We launched the Review of the Gambling Act 2005 on 8 December with the publication of a Call for Evidence. As part of the wide scope of that Review, we have called for evidence on the benefits or harms of allowing gambling operators to advertise.
Asked by: Martyn Day (Scottish National Party - Linlithgow and East Falkirk)
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 25 February 2021 to Question 155211 on Gambling: Advertising, what representations his Department has received on changes in the level of gambling advertising broadcast on television since March 2020.
Answered by John Whittingdale
As set out in answer to Question 155211, the government does not hold data on the volume of broadcast gambling advertising. The Advertising Standards Authority has published figures on levels of exposure to advertising, including gambling advertising, during the first national lockdown, a period when television viewing significantly increased. This data does not allow for an assessment of trends throughout the period since March 2020.
The Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport engages regularly with a wide variety of stakeholders and receives many representations on issues related to gambling and gambling regulation.
We launched the Review of the Gambling Act 2005 on 8 December with the publication of a Call for Evidence. As part of the wide scope of that Review, we have called for evidence on the benefits or harms of allowing gambling operators to advertise.
Asked by: Martyn Day (Scottish National Party - Linlithgow and East Falkirk)
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 25 February 2021 to Question 155211 on Gambling: Advertising, what information his Department holds on changes in the level of gambling advertising broadcast on television since March 2020.
Answered by John Whittingdale
As set out in answer to Question 155211, the government does not hold data on the volume of broadcast gambling advertising. The Advertising Standards Authority has published figures on levels of exposure to advertising, including gambling advertising, during the first national lockdown, a period when television viewing significantly increased. This data does not allow for an assessment of trends throughout the period since March 2020.
The Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport engages regularly with a wide variety of stakeholders and receives many representations on issues related to gambling and gambling regulation.
We launched the Review of the Gambling Act 2005 on 8 December with the publication of a Call for Evidence. As part of the wide scope of that Review, we have called for evidence on the benefits or harms of allowing gambling operators to advertise.
Asked by: Martyn Day (Scottish National Party - Linlithgow and East Falkirk)
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 25 February 2021 to Question 155211 on Gambling: Advertising, if he will make an assessment of trends in the amount of gambling advertising broadcast on television since March 2020.
Answered by John Whittingdale
As set out in answer to Question 155211, the government does not hold data on the volume of broadcast gambling advertising. The Advertising Standards Authority has published figures on levels of exposure to advertising, including gambling advertising, during the first national lockdown, a period when television viewing significantly increased. This data does not allow for an assessment of trends throughout the period since March 2020.
The Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport engages regularly with a wide variety of stakeholders and receives many representations on issues related to gambling and gambling regulation.
We launched the Review of the Gambling Act 2005 on 8 December with the publication of a Call for Evidence. As part of the wide scope of that Review, we have called for evidence on the benefits or harms of allowing gambling operators to advertise.
Asked by: Martyn Day (Scottish National Party - Linlithgow and East Falkirk)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, whether his Department has made an assessment of the effect of the media representation of obesity on the stigma associated with living with overweight or obesity.
Answered by Caroline Dinenage
The Government’s ‘Tackling obesity: empowering adults and children to live healthier lives’ sets out an ambitious strategy for reducing obesity and includes ensuring the use of appropriate language when associated with unhealthy weight.
In January The Minister of State for Digital and Culture provided evidence to the Women and Equalities Select Committee concerning how media representations can contribute to poor body image. Ministers and officials in my department are committed to reviewing this issue as part of the Online Advertising Programme Review, later this year.
My department also works closely with the Advertising Standards Authority to ensure advertising presenting misleading, exaggerated and irresponsible content is taken down. In 2019 the Advertising Standards Association enhanced their standards through the inclusion of a new rule prohibiting negative gender stereotypes. Ads which pressure the audience to conform to an idealised gender-stereotypical body shape or physical features are likely to breach this rule.
Asked by: Martyn Day (Scottish National Party - Linlithgow and East Falkirk)
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 ensure that forthcoming legislative proposals on preventing children's exposure to pornographic content online apply equally to all pornographic websites accessible by children.
Answered by Caroline Dinenage
Protecting children is at the heart of our online harms agenda, and wider government priorities. Under our proposals, social media, websites, apps and other services which host user-generated content or facilitate online user interaction (including video and image sharing, commenting and live streaming) will be subject to a duty of care, giving them new responsibilities towards their users. The online harms regime will capture both the most visited pornography sites and pornography on social media, therefore covering the vast majority of sites where children are most likely to be exposed to pornography.
We expect companies to use age assurance or age verification technologies to prevent children from accessing services which pose the highest risk of harm to children, such as online pornography. We are working closely with stakeholders across industry to establish the right conditions for the market to deliver age assurance and age verification technical solutions ahead of the legislative requirements coming into force.
Asked by: Martyn Day (Scottish National Party - Linlithgow and East Falkirk)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what assessment his Department has made of the content labelling provisions on sites hosting user-generated content such as YouTube; and if he will ask platforms to ensure the effectiveness of their content labelling.
Answered by Caroline Dinenage
The regulation of video sharing platforms by Ofcom came into force on 1 November 2020. UK-established video sharing platforms must now take appropriate measures to protect the public, including minors, from illegal content and harmful material. Although Youtube is not in scope of UK regulation, as its European headquarters is not in the UK, UK-established video sharing platforms may adopt content labelling as an appropriate measure. However they are not obliged to do so.
Under the future online harms regulatory framework, which will be introduced in the online safety legislation that we will be bringing forward later this year, all companies in scope of the new framework will need to have appropriate systems and processes in place to protect users. Any instances of advertising on sites hosting user-generated content, such as YouTube, must be obviously identifiable to meet the provisions of the regulator, the Advertising Standards Association.
DCMS will review how online advertising is regulated later in the year, to ensure standards about the placement and content of advertising can be effectively applied and enforced online so that consumers have limited exposure to harmful or misleading advertising.
Information about the call for evidence can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/online-advertising-call-for-evidence/online-advertising-call-for-evidence
We will continue to engage with industry to encourage platforms to adopt appropriate content labelling.
Asked by: Martyn Day (Scottish National Party - Linlithgow and East Falkirk)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, whether his Department has made an assessment of whether Netflix’s best practice adoption of trusted BBFC ratings has encouraged other major streaming services to also adopt the BBFC’s ratings; and if he will encourage those services to do so.
Answered by Caroline Dinenage
As the designated body for age classification of film content, the Government has great trust in the British Board of Film Classification’s (BBFC) best practice age ratings.
While adoption of the BBFC’s age ratings by online platforms is currently voluntary, we welcome their usage by Video on Demand platforms. We were particularly pleased to see Netflix announce on 1 December 2020 that they have become the first platform to achieve complete coverage of their content under the BBFC’s ratings.
With it being such a recent development, the Government has not made any specific assessment of the impact of Netflix’s actions upon other streaming services. We will of course continue to engage with industry to encourage other platforms to adopt the BBFC’s ratings across all of their content, and will keep the evidence for legislation in this area under review in the coming years.
Asked by: Martyn Day (Scottish National Party - Linlithgow and East Falkirk)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, whether the amount of gambling advertising that is broadcast on television has increased since March 2020.
Answered by Nigel Huddleston - Financial Secretary (HM Treasury)
The Chief Medical Officer is clear that being physically active is important to long-term health and crucial for keeping people healthy. Sports and physical activity, including the use of gyms, have been shown to treat, manage and prevent a range of conditions including heart disease, cancers, diabetes, stress, depression or anxiety. It can also bring communities together and tackle issues such as loneliness. That’s why we have continued to make sure that people can exercise throughout the national and the local tiered restrictions.
Sport England’s Active Lives Adult and Children surveys provide information not only on activity levels but also on social outcomes such as physical and mental wellbeing too. The latest reports can be found here.
Furthermore, last month Sport England published its new strategy Uniting the Movement which sets out their 10 year vision to transform lives and communities through sport and physical activity. The strategy seeks to tackle the inequalities we have seen in sport and physical activity and provide opportunities to people and communities that have traditionally been left behind, helping to remove barriers to activity.
On Monday 22 February, the Prime Minister announced a roadmap out of the current lockdown in England. Step 2 will take place no earlier than 12 April and as part of this indoor leisure (including gyms) for individual use will reopen. Step 3 will take place no earlier than 17 May and as part of this exercise classes can resume. This will be subject to social contact limits.