Asked by: Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to support innovation, and research and development, in the creative sector during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Answered by Baroness Barran - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
This Government recognises the significant contribution that the creative industries make to innovation and research and development. That is why, as part of the Government’s Creative Industries Council, chaired by the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport and the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, there is a specific working group that focuses on this issue. Ministers have been in regular contact with the Creative Industries Council during the COVID-19 pandemic.
In addition, on 6th May, the Government’s Arts and Humanities Research Council announced a major new campaign ‘Boundless Creativity’, backed by the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport. This campaign will pioneer new ways in which culture can thrive in a digital age by working with the UK’s leading arts organisations and creative businesses to create ambitious and ground-breaking projects to speed up the development of new and exciting ways of engaging, entertaining and educating audiences, not just in the UK, but around the globe.
Asked by: Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of Facebook's plans to introduce encrypted messages across its messaging applications.
Answered by Baroness Barran - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The UK Government is in favour of strong encryption: it is critical to protect UK citizens’ data online and billions of people use it every day for a range of services including banking, commerce and communications.
Facebook’s encryption proposals as they stand would have a serious impact on the vital work Facebook currently does to tackle the most serious illegal content and activity on its platform, including child sexual exploitation and abuse and terrorism.
Under the new Online Harms legislation, a duty of care will make platforms take more responsibility for the safety of their users, and tackle harm caused by content or activity on their services.
Facebook should not implement end-to-end encryption across its messaging services without ensuring that there is no reduction to user safety and without including a means for law enforcement to obtain lawful access to the content of communications. We are committed to working with Facebook to ensure it meets its responsibility to keep users safe, and those conversations are in progress.
Asked by: Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of rugby league in England and Wales.
Answered by Baroness Barran - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
Data from Sport England’s Active Lives Adults and Children and Young People Surveys indicates that:
Through Sport England, since 2017, government has to date invested nearly £11m in grassroots rugby league, including investment in the Rugby Football League Ltd, together with investment in specific community rugby league projects.
Over this time period, Sport England has invested a further £9.1m in multi-sport projects where rugby league is one of the sports benefitting.
The government is investing up to £15m towards the hosting of the 2021 Rugby League World Cup, and up to £10m in grassroots facilities to help drive a legacy from the event.
Sport is a devolved matter and Sport Wales has responsibility for supporting grassroots rugby league in Wales.
Asked by: Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what plans they have to require think tanks based in the UK to be transparent about their funding sources.
Answered by Baroness Barran - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
It has not proved possible to respond to this question in the time available before Dissolution. Ministers will correspond directly with the Member.
Asked by: Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what support they are giving to women’s and girl’s (1) football, and (2) cricket.
Answered by Viscount Younger of Leckie - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
We are determined to get more girls and women playing sport, something we set out in our sport strategy, Sporting Future. There are excellent initiatives that already exist to encourage women to take up sport and physical activity. For example Sport England’s This Girl Can campaign has been developed to get women and girls moving, regardless of shape, size and ability.
Sport England are investing in a series of programmes and initiatives to increase participation amongst women and girls in football and cricket. This includes £10m between 2017/21 in the Football Association to help support their aspiration to double the number of women and girls’ affiliated teams to 12,000 by 2020. Sport England are also investing £9m in the England and Wales Cricket Board over between 2017 and 2021, much of which will be used to promote greater participation of women and girls in cricket. This includes a suite of flexible cricket formats to strengthen the pathway from beginner through to performance level, linked to the This Girl Can campaign.
The broadcasting of sporting events such as this year’s FIFA Women’s World Cup will continue to showcase women’s sport and inspire the next generation.
Asked by: Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what support they are giving to sustaining libraries in England.
Answered by Viscount Younger of Leckie - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
Local authorities in England have a statutory duty to provide a comprehensive and efficient library service. It is for individual local authorities to decide how best to provide a public library service that meets local needs within their available resources. DCMS works across central and local government to encourage investment in libraries to ensure they can continue to support the delivery of local and national priorities and needs.
The DCMS funded Libraries Taskforce was established, by DCMS and the Local Government Association, to devise and implement the “Libraries Deliver” strategy which helps support and reinvigorate the public library service in England. It works with sector partners to advocate for libraries and to share and promote good practice to help libraries better serve their communities.
Arts Council England, the development agency for libraries, funded by DCMS, is providing total financial support of £1.6 million per annum to seven libraries’ organisations through its National Portfolio 2018 to 2022. DCMS has also provided direct funding support to library services in England, including a £2.6 million programme to support the installation or upgrade of wifi in public libraries in England, as well as £3.9m for the Libraries: Opportunities for Everyone fund, to support innovative library service activity to benefit disadvantaged people and places in England.