Asked by: Adam Afriyie (Conservative - Windsor)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what assessment she has made of the potential impact of a ban on gambling advertising and sponsorship on the international competitiveness of the horse racing industry.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Government recognises the contribution that horse racing makes to our sporting culture and in particular to the rural economy.
The Gambling Act Review is wide-ranging and aims to ensure that the regulation of gambling is fit for the digital age. We will publish a White Paper setting out our conclusions and next steps in the coming weeks, with appropriate consideration of impacts being made at all stages.
Asked by: Adam Afriyie (Conservative - Windsor)
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 adequacy of the pace of full-fibre rollout in (a) Wraysbury, (b) Eton, (c) Old Windsor and (d) Windsor constituency.
Answered by Matt Warman
Wraysbury, Eton, Old Windsor and the Windsor constituency fall within areas that are commercially active. Currently 95.5% of the constituency of Windsor have access to Superfast broadband, which is only slightly below the UK average of 96.7%.
An Openreach Superfast contract has been completed to increase the provision of full-fibre broadband to residents and businesses in Windsor. A Gigaclear contract is also in progress and moving forwards, having previously been held up by a wayleave for Windsor Great Park.
Windsor constituents have made use of the national Gigabit Broadband Voucher Scheme too, having applied for 52 vouchers worth more than £102k. Up to £210 million is available through the new UK Gigabit Voucher, launched on 8 April for any eligible homes or businesses.
Following the launch of Project Gigabit in March, the government will begin the roll out of gigabit-capable broadband to hard-to-reach places in the UK. East Berkshire is part of Lot 26 in phase 2 and Building Digital UK will begin a rolling Open Market Review (OMR) process from June 2021 to give us a national view of commercial build plans for the following three years.
Telecoms providers will be asked to provide existing and planned coverage at an individual premise level and we will use this information, following appropriate due diligence, to create a complete picture of forecast gigabit-capable infrastructure coverage for the UK. The OMR process will validate and update existing maps to account for any amendments to existing coverage and/or plans for broadband infrastructure.
The OMR will be followed by a Public Review to ensure that the views of anyone involved in network building are captured and considered. This will be publicised via Gov.uk and the local authority website.
Asked by: Adam Afriyie (Conservative - Windsor)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what progress has been made on the rollout of full-fibre broadband in (a) Wraysbury, (b) Eton, (c) Old Windsor and (d) Windsor constituency.
Answered by Matt Warman
Wraysbury, Eton, Old Windsor and the Windsor constituency fall within areas that are commercially active. Currently 95.5% of the constituency of Windsor have access to Superfast broadband, which is only slightly below the UK average of 96.7%.
An Openreach Superfast contract has been completed to increase the provision of full-fibre broadband to residents and businesses in Windsor. A Gigaclear contract is also in progress and moving forwards, having previously been held up by a wayleave for Windsor Great Park.
Windsor constituents have made use of the national Gigabit Broadband Voucher Scheme too, having applied for 52 vouchers worth more than £102k. Up to £210 million is available through the new UK Gigabit Voucher, launched on 8 April for any eligible homes or businesses.
Following the launch of Project Gigabit in March, the government will begin the roll out of gigabit-capable broadband to hard-to-reach places in the UK. East Berkshire is part of Lot 26 in phase 2 and Building Digital UK will begin a rolling Open Market Review (OMR) process from June 2021 to give us a national view of commercial build plans for the following three years.
Telecoms providers will be asked to provide existing and planned coverage at an individual premise level and we will use this information, following appropriate due diligence, to create a complete picture of forecast gigabit-capable infrastructure coverage for the UK. The OMR process will validate and update existing maps to account for any amendments to existing coverage and/or plans for broadband infrastructure.
The OMR will be followed by a Public Review to ensure that the views of anyone involved in network building are captured and considered. This will be publicised via Gov.uk and the local authority website.
Asked by: Adam Afriyie (Conservative - Windsor)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, if he will publish the evidential basis for the (a) closure of covid-secure outdoor sporting venues and (b) restriction of (i) tennis, (ii) golf and (ii) swimming lessons; and what assessment he has made of the potential effect of those restrictions on the health and wellbing of people who use those facilities.
Answered by Nigel Huddleston - Financial Secretary (HM Treasury)
Sports and physical activity are incredibly important for our physical and mental health, and are a vital weapon against coronavirus. That’s why we made sure that people could exercise at least once a day even during the height of lockdown - and why we opened up grassroots sport and leisure facilities as soon as it was safe to do so.
Nobody wanted to be in the position of having to introduce further National Restrictions. However as the Prime Minister said, with the virus spreading faster than expected we cannot allow our health system to be overwhelmed. Therefore, from Thursday 5 November until Wednesday 2 December indoor and outdoor leisure will need to close. The National Restrictions are designed to get the R rate under control through limiting social contact and reducing transmissions.
In order for these measures to have the greatest impact, we will all need to sacrifice doing some things that we would otherwise like to do, for a short period of time. We have not introduced further exemptions because when you unpick at one activity the effectiveness of the whole package is compromised. As soon as we're in a position to start lifting restrictions, grassroots sports will be one of the first to return.
Asked by: Adam Afriyie (Conservative - Windsor)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, whether he plans to update the content of the Cyber Essentials programme.
Answered by Margot James
An independent academic evaluation of the effectiveness of Cyber Essentials found that its security controls work well to mitigate the vast majority of Internet-based threats. These security controls are kept under continual review. The primary objective for Cyber Essentials is to help all organisations mitigate cyber security risks, especially small and medium-sized organisations. The Government continues to work to ensure Cyber Essentials has the greatest impact for the majority of the target audience and is currently developing the scheme to ensure a) the journey to certification is as simple as possible, and b) the technical controls remain fit for purpose in the ever-changing cyber threat landscape.
Asked by: Adam Afriyie (Conservative - Windsor)
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 the Cyber Essentials programme.
Answered by Margot James
An independent academic evaluation of the effectiveness of Cyber Essentials found that its security controls work well to mitigate the vast majority of Internet-based threats. These security controls are kept under continual review. The primary objective for Cyber Essentials is to help all organisations mitigate cyber security risks, especially small and medium-sized organisations. The Government continues to work to ensure Cyber Essentials has the greatest impact for the majority of the target audience and is currently developing the scheme to ensure a) the journey to certification is as simple as possible, and b) the technical controls remain fit for purpose in the ever-changing cyber threat landscape.
Asked by: Adam Afriyie (Conservative - Windsor)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, how many businesses have been certified under (a) Cyber Essentials and (b) Cyber Essentials Plus.
Answered by Margot James
At the end of April 2019 the total number of Cyber Essentials certificates awarded to organisations was 26,712. Of these, (a) 21,948 were awarded at Cyber Essentials level and (b) 4,764 were awarded at Cyber Essentials Plus level.
Asked by: Adam Afriyie (Conservative - Windsor)
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 announce which projects will be run by DLT Field Labs to test the potential of distributed ledger technologies.
Answered by Margot James
As was announced at Budget 2018, the Digital Catapult will test the potential of their Field Labs concept, a small experimental trial of Distributed Ledger Technology, working with businesses, investors, and regulators, in a range of areas. We anticipate the first Field Labs will focus on the construction sector and the management of goods in ports.
The Digital Catapult, while receiving significant long-term funding from the government, is an independent private sector entity. The specific arrangements of the Field Labs, including their participants, focuses, and timing, are therefore a commercial and private decision for the management of the Digital Catapult to take, and we expect it to set out further details in due course.
Asked by: Adam Afriyie (Conservative - Windsor)
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 effect of the April 2017 reforms to the Horserace Betting Levy on (a) horse-racing and (b) the public purse.
Answered by Tracey Crouch
In April 2017, the Government implemented reforms to the Horserace Betting Levy which made it a requirement for offshore operators to pay the Levy for the first time.
The Horserace Betting Levy Board, which collects the Levy, estimates that the reformed Levy will generate c.£85m in 2017/18. This would represent an increase of c.£20m compared to receipts from bookmakers in 2016/17 under the old system. The actual Levy yield for 2017/18 will only be known after the end of the financial year. Increased receipts from the Levy have already allowed an additional £9.7m of investment in grassroots prize money, contributing to record prize money of £160m in 2018.
The Levy is collected from bookmakers and distributed in line with the statutory purposes in support of horseracing, and so has no direct effect on the public purse.
Asked by: Adam Afriyie (Conservative - Windsor)
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 reduce digital exclusion.
Answered by Margot James
We are committed to tackling digital exclusion and the UK Digital Strategy, published in March 2017, describes the steps we are taking across government.
These include establishing the Digital Skills Partnership which brings together stakeholders from the private, public and charity sectors to join efforts to help people increase their digital skills at all levels. It will also build upon the 4 million pledges of free digital skills training opportunities that our corporate partners pledged as part of the Digital Strategy of which more than 2 million have already been delivered; introducing fully-funded basic digital skills training for adults lacking these vital skills from 2020. Adults will have the opportunity to take improved basic digital courses based on new national standards setting out the basic digital skills needed to participate effectively in the labour market and day–to-day life. We will consult on these new standards in the autumn; using the 3000 libraries across England to provide a trusted network of accessible locations with trained staff and volunteers, free Wi-Fi, computers, and other technology as well as Assisted Digital access to a wide range of digital public services where individuals are unable for whatever reason to access these services independently.
These initiatives will build on the significant investment Government already makes in basic digital skills training through the Adult Education offer, the budget for which is being devolved to ensure decisions on skills provision are made at a local level. Government also funds the Future Digital Inclusion programme managed by the Good Things Foundation and delivered through the 5,000 strong Online Centres network. To date this programme has supported over 800,000 adult learners to develop their basic digital skills, many of whom are socially excluded.