Asked by: Rosie Cooper (Labour - West Lancashire)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, whether volunteers from St John Ambulance are eligible for the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee medal.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
To qualify for The Queen’s Platinum Jubilee Medal recipients must be in an eligible public sector role in a frontline emergency service accessed via a call to the 999 emergency telephone number or equivalent, and this does not include St John Ambulance volunteers.
Asked by: Rosie Cooper (Labour - West Lancashire)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, when he plans to respond to the letter from the hon. Member for West Lancashire, of 21 May 2021, on fan ownership of football clubs, reference ZA56528.
Answered by Nigel Huddleston - Financial Secretary (HM Treasury)
A reply was sent to the Hon member of 10 June. Since receiving this PQ my department has written to the Hon Member twice (23 July and 24 August) to attempt to confirm receipt.
Asked by: Rosie Cooper (Labour - West Lancashire)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
What steps he is taking to make further financial support available to the events industry in response to the extension of covid-19 lockdown restrictions.
Answered by Nigel Huddleston - Financial Secretary (HM Treasury)
The events industry makes a valuable contribution to the UK economy, and the Government is committed to supporting the sector’s recovery.
We have provided an additional £700 million to support local and national arts, culture and sports institutions as they reopen, that’s on top of the £1.57 billion Culture Recovery Fund, bringing our total support for sports and culture to over £2 billion, with around £600 million yet to be distributed.
Asked by: Rosie Cooper (Labour - West Lancashire)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what steps his Department is taking to support the promotion of physical activity among young people.
Answered by Nigel Huddleston - Financial Secretary (HM Treasury)
The Government is committed to ensuring that all children and young people have the best opportunities to engage in sport and physical activity. Our Sporting Future strategy sets out how important it is for all children to have a good experience of sport and physical activity while they are young.
The Government’s arm’s-length body, Sport England, has invested over £190 million into physical activity for children and young people over 2016-2021, including programmes such as the £40 million Families Fund, which encourages low-income families with children to do sport and physical activity together. Initiatives such as the Studio You video platform, funded by Sport England and powered by This Girl Can, are also encouraging more teenage girls to be active.
The Government’s School Sport and Activity Action Plan (jointly published by the Department for Education, Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, and Department for Health and Social Care in July 2019) sets out a commitment to ongoing collaboration to support the delivery of high-quality PE lessons and to ensure that sport and physical activity are an integral part of both the school day and after-school activities. This is supported by £320 million per year through the PE and sport premium. More recently, the Government has hosted roundtables on how to take support for young people even further, and has committed to updating the Government sport strategy, with children and young people central to this.
Asked by: Rosie Cooper (Labour - West Lancashire)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, when he plans to respond to the letter from the hon. Member for West Lancashire of 23 April 2021 on animal charities and graphic advertisements, reference ZA56307.
Answered by John Whittingdale
A response was issued on 10 June 2021 under the case reference MC2021/08554. We apologise for the delay in responding.
Asked by: Rosie Cooper (Labour - West Lancashire)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, when he plans to respond to the letter from the hon. Member for West Lancashire of 5 March 2021, on a rural broadband speeds, reference ZA55871.
Answered by Matt Warman
A response was issued on 26 April 2021 under the case reference MC2021/05151. We apologise for the delay in responding.
Asked by: Rosie Cooper (Labour - West Lancashire)
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 (a) Cabinet colleagues and (b) stakeholders on investment in fibre broadband in (a) West Lancashire constituency and (b) rural areas in the UK.
Answered by Matt Warman
The government is committed to gigabit capable broadband to everyone in the UK by stimulating investment, busting barriers and driving competition. The UK is on track for one of the fastest rollouts in Europe and for half of all households to have access to gigabit speeds by the end of the year. It is a huge leap forward from 2019, when it was just one in ten.
The government is investing £5 billion in Project Gigabit to ensure that gigabit capable broadband reaches all communities across the UK. Further detail on our approach is set out in our Project Gigabit - Phase One Delivery Plan published on 19 March 2021, including using subsidised procurements to extend gigabit broadband coverage and providing up to £210m to fund a new voucher from the Gigabit Broadband Voucher Scheme and up to £110m to connect rural GP surgeries, libraries and schools.
West Lancashire is in Phase 2 of the delivery plan. We will begin a national Open Market Review by July 2021 for telecoms providers to give us a picture of where the market plans to invest in gigabit networks over the next three years and to confirm where we need to intervene so places are not left out. Officials from Building Digital UK (BDUK) in DCMS are in regular contact with Lancashire County Council and other partners about the delivery plans for Lancashire.
Alongside the delivery plan, the government also launched a Call For Evidence for the Very Hard To Reach premises in the UK. The Barrier Busting Task Force also published an update of their work in a range of measures to support gigabit rollout.
Asked by: Rosie Cooper (Labour - West Lancashire)
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 streaming services’ content labelling provisions; and whether he has plans in place to ensure that platforms adopt ratings by the British Board of Film Classification.
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 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. This includes Netflix, who on December 1st announced that they have become the first platform to achieve complete coverage of their content under the BBFC’s ratings.
According to recent BBFC research, nearly nine in ten parents find BBFC age ratings on Netflix useful in helping them to choose content well for their family. To build on this success, we will continue to engage with industry to encourage other platforms to adopt the BBFC’s ratings, and will keep the evidence for legislation in this area under review.
Asked by: Rosie Cooper (Labour - West Lancashire)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what steps he is taking to protect children from harmful online content prior to the coming into force of online harms legislation; and if he will take steps to bring into force the requirement for age-verification on pornographic websites prior to that legislation.
Answered by Caroline Dinenage
The Government announced in October 2019 that it will not commence the age verification provisions of Part 3 of the Digital Economy Act 2017 and instead deliver these protections through our wider online harms regulatory proposals.
Under our online harms proposals, 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. 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. Taken together we expect this to bring into scope more online pornography currently accessible to children than would have been covered by the narrower scope of the Digital Economy Act.
We would encourage companies to take steps ahead of the legislation to protect children from harmful and age inappropriate content online, including 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.
In addition, Regulations transposing the revised Audiovisual Media Services Directive came into force on 1 November 2020 which require UK-established video sharing platforms to take appropriate measures to protect minors from harmful content. The Regulations require that the most harmful content is subject to the strongest protections, such as age assurance or more technical measures. Ofcom, as the regulatory authority, may take robust enforcement action against video sharing platforms which do not adopt appropriate measures.
Asked by: Rosie Cooper (Labour - West Lancashire)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what support is available for vulnerable gamblers to protect them from excessive online gambling during the covid-19 outbreak.
Answered by Nigel Huddleston - Financial Secretary (HM Treasury)
Gambling operators providing facilities to customers in Great Britain must be licensed by the Gambling Commission and must abide by its player protection requirements. In response to the Covid outbreak, the Commission issued additional guidance for online operators to mandate increased customer interactions, a ban on direct marketing of bonus offers or promotions to customers showing signs of vulnerability, and a ban on operators allowing customers to reverse decisions to withdraw winnings. Data published by the Gambling Commission in November found that since the first national lockdown began, the majority (86%) of those surveyed had gambled the same amount or less than they had previously.
Support and treatment services for people experiencing gambling problems have remained available throughout the Covid 19 period. These include the National Gambling Helpline and counselling services delivered by GamCare and other third sector providers, the NHS specialist gambling clinic in London and the NHS Northern Gambling Service. In April the Gambling Commission directed £8.8 million of regulatory settlement funds to commissioning charity GambleAware to support third sector treatment provision during Covid 19. Other avenues for support such as gambling self exclusion tools and opt-in gambling transaction blocks with banks have also remained available throughout the pandemic.
The government launched its Review of the Gambling Act 2005 on 8 December with the publication of a Call for Evidence. 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. The Call for Evidence will be open for 16 weeks until 31 March 2021, and further detail, including how to make a contribution, can be found at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/review-of-the-gambling-act-2005-terms-of-reference-and-call-for-evidence/review-of-the-gambling-act-2005-terms-of-reference-and-call-for-evidence.