Asked by: Baroness Brady (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to ensure that social media companies address the racist abuse of footballers.
Answered by Baroness Barran - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The Culture Secretary and Sports Minister recently led a roundtable discussion with current and former players from the Premier League, English Football League (EFL), Women’s Super League (WSL) and Women’s Championship, which discussed online racist abuse and players’ perspectives on tackling discrimination in the game.
We are clear that the online racist abuse of football players is unacceptable. We must do all we can to tackle it. We are taking steps through the online harms regulatory framework to ensure that online abuse, whether anonymous or not, is addressed. Under a new legal duty of care, companies will need to remove and limit the spread of illegal content, including illegal online abuse. All companies will need to take swift and effective action against such content.
Companies providing high-risk, high-reach services will also need to undertake regular risk assessments to identify legal but harmful material on their services. These companies will need to set clear terms and conditions which explicitly state what categories of legal but harmful material they accept (and do not accept) on their service. Companies will need to enforce these terms and conditions consistently and transparently and could face enforcement action if they do not. The Online Safety Bill, which will give effect to the regulatory framework, will be ready this year.
Asked by: Baroness Brady (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to stop online (1) trolling, (2) harassment, and (3) cyberbullying; and what measures are in place to protect victims of such abuse.
Answered by Baroness Barran - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The Online Harms White Paper sets out our plans for world-leading legislation to make the UK the safest place in the world to be online. We intend to establish in law a new duty of care on companies towards their users, overseen by an independent regulator. The duty of care will ensure companies have appropriate systems and processes in place to deal with harmful content on their services to keep their users safe. Compliance with this duty of care will be overseen by an independent regulator, which will have a range of enforcement powers.
Alongside the White Paper, the government published the Social Media Code of Practice. This voluntary guidance sets out actions that the Government believes social media platforms should take to prevent bullying, insulting, intimidating and humiliating behaviours on their sites.
Government has also asked the Law Commission to conduct a second phase of its review of the legal framework around abusive and offensive communications online. This will make specific recommendations for legal reform and is due to report in early 2021. Alongside this, the Law Commission will also consider whether co-ordinated harassment by groups of people online could be more effectively dealt with by the criminal law.
Asked by: Baroness Brady (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what progress they have made in ensuring the continuation of the provision of free TV licences for over-75s.
Answered by Baroness Barran - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The Digital Economy Act 2017 provides that the future of the concession is the responsibility of the BBC, not of the government.
The Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport recently met with the Chairman of the BBC Board and the Director-General of the BBC and asked them to do more to help those affected by its decision.
Asked by: Baroness Brady (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the number of girls aged between 14 and 18 years old who stop participating in sports in and outside school; and what steps they intend to take to actively encourage such girls' participation in sports.
Answered by Lord Ashton of Hyde
The first set of data from Sport England’s world-leading Active Lives: Children and Young People survey was released in December 2018. It shows that only 10% of girls in years 9-11 (13-16) are reaching the Chief Medical Officers’ guidance of 60 minutes of physical activity every day. Levels of activity for girls aged over 16 are captured by the Active Lives (adult) survey, which has a slightly different methodology and so cannot be directly compared. Both surveys are available on Sport England’s website.
Government is committed to addressing the gender gap in physical activity levels for boys and girls, including the drop-off in engagement from primary to secondary school. It is important that girls have access to the right sporting opportunities, both in and out of school.
This is something government committed to tackle in the Sporting Future strategy. This will also be addressed as part of the new School Sport and Activity Action Plan which will be published in the spring.