Asked by: Alex Davies-Jones (Labour - Pontypridd)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent discussions she has had with (a) the devolved administration in Wales and (b) English local authorities on dementia diagnosis rates.
Answered by Neil O'Brien
There have been no recent discussions.
Asked by: Alex Davies-Jones (Labour - Pontypridd)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what discussions he has had with Cabinet colleagues on the potential impact of the increase in household bills on pet welfare.
Answered by Mark Spencer - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Government is actively considering the impact of rising bills on all aspects of people’s lives. Defra is in close contact with animal welfare organisations and meets them regularly to understand issues that are affecting the sector, including the impact of rising bills.
Asked by: Alex Davies-Jones (Labour - Pontypridd)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what proportion of reports about content or user accounts made to social media providers by Government units established to tackle disinformation resulted in action being taken by the social media providers in the last 12 months.
Answered by Damian Collins
The Government takes the issue of disinformation very seriously. The Counter Disinformation Unit team, based in DCMS, works to understand the scope, scale and reach of disinformation and works with a range of partners, including social media platforms, to tackle it.
The primary purpose of the team is not to spot every instance of disinformation across all social media platforms, but rather to understand overall trends and coordinated attempts to artificially manipulate the information environment. When the Unit does identify particular pieces of harmful content which may violate platforms’ terms of service these are referred to the relevant platform for consideration, who in turn decide what action to take.
As an operational matter it is not appropriate for the government to publicly provide details of content reported to platforms as doing so would give malign actors insight into our capabilities.
Asked by: Alex Davies-Jones (Labour - Pontypridd)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, how many times Government teams tackling disinformation have reported content or user accounts to social media providers in the past 12 months.
Answered by Damian Collins
The Government takes the issue of disinformation very seriously. The Counter Disinformation Unit team, based in DCMS, works to understand the scope, scale and reach of disinformation and works with a range of partners, including social media platforms, to tackle it.
The primary purpose of the team is not to spot every instance of disinformation across all social media platforms, but rather to understand overall trends and coordinated attempts to artificially manipulate the information environment. When the Unit does identify particular pieces of harmful content which may violate platforms’ terms of service these are referred to the relevant platform for consideration, who in turn decide what action to take.
As an operational matter it is not appropriate for the government to publicly provide details of content reported to platforms as doing so would give malign actors insight into our capabilities.
Asked by: Alex Davies-Jones (Labour - Pontypridd)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, with reference to the increase in the annual sales limit for society lotteries from £10 million to £50 million, if she will publish a breakdown of the distribution of overall returns to good causes across (a) England, (b) Wales, (c) Scotland and (d) Northern Ireland.
Answered by Damian Collins
The annual sales limit for society lotteries was increased from £10 million to £50 million in July 2020.
We published a review of the impact of these and other changes to society lottery sales and prize limits in March 2022 (link). Early indicators are positive, for example the increase in the annual sales limit has allowed some multiple licensed operators who previously had annual sales in excess of £10 million, to take advantage of the new limit to restructure and become single licence holders, and use the cost savings in doing so to increase good cause returns. The review concluded that it is too soon to reach any firm view on the impact of the changes, especially during a time that the effect of the Covid pandemic made any evaluation more difficult, given changes in consumer behaviour over this period which may have had a distorting effect. We want to see more data on annual growth of the sector to fully measure their impact. Since the review, the Gambling Commission has published further data which shows that the large society lottery sector is continuing to grow.
The Gambling Commission does not collect data on the location of beneficiaries of grant funding. Society lotteries are a helpful way of permitting non-commercial societies to fundraise for good causes. Funds raised by society lotteries are distributed within the stated purposes of that society, and it is for each operator to determine where the money raised is distributed. Larger lotteries may support local, national or international charities, but many others exist solely to support their own work, such as hospice lotteries.
Legislation regarding society lotteries in Northern Ireland is determined by the Northern Ireland Assembly.
Asked by: Alex Davies-Jones (Labour - Pontypridd)
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 effect of the increase in the annual sales limit for society lotteries from £10 million to £50 million on money returned to good causes.
Answered by Damian Collins
The annual sales limit for society lotteries was increased from £10 million to £50 million in July 2020.
We published a review of the impact of these and other changes to society lottery sales and prize limits in March 2022 (link). Early indicators are positive, for example the increase in the annual sales limit has allowed some multiple licensed operators who previously had annual sales in excess of £10 million, to take advantage of the new limit to restructure and become single licence holders, and use the cost savings in doing so to increase good cause returns. The review concluded that it is too soon to reach any firm view on the impact of the changes, especially during a time that the effect of the Covid pandemic made any evaluation more difficult, given changes in consumer behaviour over this period which may have had a distorting effect. We want to see more data on annual growth of the sector to fully measure their impact. Since the review, the Gambling Commission has published further data which shows that the large society lottery sector is continuing to grow.
The Gambling Commission does not collect data on the location of beneficiaries of grant funding. Society lotteries are a helpful way of permitting non-commercial societies to fundraise for good causes. Funds raised by society lotteries are distributed within the stated purposes of that society, and it is for each operator to determine where the money raised is distributed. Larger lotteries may support local, national or international charities, but many others exist solely to support their own work, such as hospice lotteries.
Legislation regarding society lotteries in Northern Ireland is determined by the Northern Ireland Assembly.
Asked by: Alex Davies-Jones (Labour - Pontypridd)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether any teachers of politics and citizenship in England have made formal complaints to his Department on the need for public officials to uphold the standards of public life since 2010.
Answered by Will Quince
This information is not readily available and could only be obtained at disproportionate cost.
Asked by: Alex Davies-Jones (Labour - Pontypridd)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to the Answer of 8 March 2021 to Question 162716 on Adoption, what recent steps his Department has taken to make the Houghton Report publicly available; and what his planned timetable is for making that report available.
Answered by Will Quince
The department commits to making the Houghton Report publicly available within the next six weeks.
Asked by: Alex Davies-Jones (Labour - Pontypridd)
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 UK sanctions relating to Russia on the Gambling Commission's decision to award Allwyn Entertainment as the preferred operator to run the National Lottery from 2024; and if she will make a statement.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
The competition to award the licence to operate the 4th National Lottery licence (4NL) is run by the Gambling Commission. The National Lottery Act 1993 stipulates that the Commission can only grant a licence to operate the National Lottery if it is satisfied that the proposed licensee is a fit and proper person. In this context, the Commission carried out appropriate vetting checks on all the applicants to the 4NL competition and is now carrying out further vetting checks on Allwyn as the Commission’s preferred applicant to operate 4NL. The Commission does not have any plans at present to list the names of those individuals subject to vetting checks.
The Gambling Commission has taken steps to assure itself that no applicant to the 4NL competition is or is likely to be impacted by the sanctioning of entities and individuals listed in the Consolidated List of Financial Sanctions Targets in the UK.
Asked by: Alex Davies-Jones (Labour - Pontypridd)
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 30 March 2022 to Question 147120, if she will publish the names of the Qualifying Direct Shareholders at Allwyn who are currently undergoing BPSS checks.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
The competition to award the licence to operate the 4th National Lottery licence (4NL) is run by the Gambling Commission. The National Lottery Act 1993 stipulates that the Commission can only grant a licence to operate the National Lottery if it is satisfied that the proposed licensee is a fit and proper person. In this context, the Commission carried out appropriate vetting checks on all the applicants to the 4NL competition and is now carrying out further vetting checks on Allwyn as the Commission’s preferred applicant to operate 4NL. The Commission does not have any plans at present to list the names of those individuals subject to vetting checks.
The Gambling Commission has taken steps to assure itself that no applicant to the 4NL competition is or is likely to be impacted by the sanctioning of entities and individuals listed in the Consolidated List of Financial Sanctions Targets in the UK.