Asked by: Angela Smith (Liberal Democrat - Penistone and Stocksbridge)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, whether and how Ofcom’s assessment of whether mobile providers have achieved their 90 per cent target for land mass coverage by the end of 2017 will be made public.
Answered by Matt Hancock
Ofcom is responsible for enforcing spectrum licence obligations and it plans to publish its assessment of whether mobile providers have met their licence obligations once it has assessed their compliance in early 2018.
Asked by: Angela Smith (Liberal Democrat - Penistone and Stocksbridge)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, whether Ofcom’s assessment of whether mobile providers have achieved their 90 per cent target for land mass coverage by the end of 2017 will be published; and if she will make a statement.
Answered by Matt Hancock
Ofcom plans to publish its assessment of whether Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) have met their licence obligations once it has assessed MNO compliance in early 2018.Asked by: Angela Smith (Liberal Democrat - Penistone and Stocksbridge)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what steps her Department plans to take to publicise whether mobile providers meet the target for broadband coverage of 90 per cent of UK land mass by the end of 2017.
Answered by Matt Hancock
The regulator Ofcom is responsible for assessing and enforcing the compliance of Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) with their licence obligations to provide voice and text coverage to at least 90% of the UK landmass, alongside Telefonica's (O2's) licence obligation to provide 4G coverage to 98% of the UK population by the end of 2017. Ofcom will assess on the MNOs' compliance in early 2018. It is also a matter for Ofcom to report whether the MNOs met these obligations and it can issue fines to MNOs that fail to meet their licence obligations.
Asked by: Angela Smith (Liberal Democrat - Penistone and Stocksbridge)
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 whether mobile providers will reach the target of providing voice and text services to more than 90 per cent of the UK landmass by the end of 2017.
Answered by Matt Hancock
The regulator Ofcom is responsible for assessing and enforcing the compliance of Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) with their licence obligations to provide voice and text coverage to at least 90% of the UK landmass, alongside Telefonica's (O2's) licence obligation to provide 4G coverage to 98% of the UK population by the end of 2017. Ofcom will assess on the MNOs' compliance in early 2018. It is also a matter for Ofcom to report whether the MNOs met these obligations and it can issue fines to MNOs that fail to meet their licence obligations.
Asked by: Angela Smith (Liberal Democrat - Penistone and Stocksbridge)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what penalties will be enacted if mobile providers do not achieve coverage of 90 per cent of UK landmass coverage by the end of 2017.
Answered by Matt Hancock
The regulator Ofcom is responsible for assessing and enforcing the compliance of Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) with their licence obligations to provide voice and text coverage to at least 90% of the UK landmass, alongside Telefonica's (O2's) licence obligation to provide 4G coverage to 98% of the UK population by the end of 2017. Ofcom will assess on the MNOs' compliance in early 2018. It is also a matter for Ofcom to report whether the MNOs met these obligations and it can issue fines to MNOs that fail to meet their licence obligations.
Asked by: Angela Smith (Liberal Democrat - Penistone and Stocksbridge)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what progress the Government has made on increasing funding for greyhound welfare from gambling operators since publication of the Government response to the Second Report of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, Session 2015-16, on Greyhound welfare, HC 478.
Answered by Tracey Crouch
The betting and greyhound industries should work together and that contributions from betting should reflect the total income generated by the sport.
While there have been a number of discussions between the two industries on this issue since the publication of the Committee’s report, I was disappointed to hear that no further commitments to increase funding have yet been made.
I will be raising this matter again with the betting industry and making my views clear.
Asked by: Angela Smith (Liberal Democrat - Penistone and Stocksbridge)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, whether his Department plans to establish a statutory levy on greyhound racing to help support the welfare of retired greyhounds.
Answered by Tracey Crouch
I recently wrote to the betting industry to underline the importance that the government attaches to the existing voluntary agreements between betting and greyhound racing through which funding is provided towards areas including animal welfare.
The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) is currently undertaking a review of the effectiveness of the Welfare of Racing Greyhounds Regulations 2010. In addition, the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (EFRA) Parliamentary Select Committee is undertaking an inquiry into greyhound welfare to feed into Defra’s review. My Department has submitted written evidence to EFRA and we will want to consider any recommendations put forward by them as part of Defra’s review of the 2010 Regulations.