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 2020 to Question 1977, how the new statutory functions of Ofcom relating to online harms will be funded and resourced.

The Online Harms White Paper outlined that in order to recoup both the implementation costs and running costs of the online harms regulator, the government is considering fees, charges or a levy on companies whose services are in scope. This could fund the full range of the regulator’s activity. The government intends the new regulator to become cost neutral to the public sector.