Asked by: Carla Lockhart (Democratic Unionist Party - Upper Bann)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, if she will make an assessment of the potential impact of broadcasting regulations on the impartiality of news coverage in Northern Ireland.
Answered by Stephanie Peacock - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Culture, Media and Sport)
The regulation of due impartiality in broadcast news is a matter for the independent regulator Ofcom.
Asked by: Carla Lockhart (Democratic Unionist Party - Upper Bann)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, if she will make an estimate of the number of underage people that use (a) gambling apps and (b) online gambling.
Answered by Stuart Andrew - Shadow Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport
The Gambling Commission’s ‘Young People and Gambling’ report has measured gambling behaviour in children since 2014. The latest edition for 2023 can be found here.
Asked by: Carla Lockhart (Democratic Unionist Party - Upper Bann)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, how much funding from the Tampon Tax Fund has been allocated to (a) England, (b) Scotland, (c) Wales and (d) Northern Ireland in each of the last two years.
Answered by Stuart Andrew - Shadow Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport
In 2020/21 and 2021/22, the Tampon Tax Fund was allocated between each administration using the Barnett formula.
| 2020/21 | 2021/22 |
England | £11,995,000 (inc £150k administration costs ) | £9,000,000 (inc £150k administration costs ) |
Wales | £905,000 | £675,000 |
Scotland | £1,570,000 | £1,181,250 |
Northern Ireland | £530,000 | £393,750 |
Total | £15,000,000 | £11,250,000 |
Asked by: Carla Lockhart (Democratic Unionist Party - Upper Bann)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, how many applications from groups and organisations in Northern Ireland for funding from the Tampon Tax Fund have been received in each of the last two years; and how many and what proportion of those applications were successful.
Answered by Stuart Andrew - Shadow Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport
The 2021/22 round of the Tampon Tax Fund (TTF) received six applications from organisations delivering solely in Northern Ireland. Of these, two did not meet eligibility criteria. Of the remaining four, one bid was successful in being awarded funding.
There were no applications to the 2020/21 round of Tampon Tax funding from organisations delivering solely in Northern Ireland.
The minimum application threshold was also reduced for the 2021/22 round of TTF to £350,000 specifically to enable more bids from organisations in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
Asked by: Carla Lockhart (Democratic Unionist Party - Upper Bann)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what recent progress her Department has made on bringing forward a Media Bill.
Answered by Julia Lopez
The Media Bill was announced in the Queen’s Speech in May 2022. The Government will introduce this legislation when Parliamentary time allows.
Asked by: Carla Lockhart (Democratic Unionist Party - Upper Bann)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, whether instructions on how to take your own life will be considered illegal content that assists suicide in the new online safety regime.
Answered by Chris Philp - Shadow Home Secretary
Encouraging or assisting suicide is illegal. Any website publishing illegal suicide content is already breaking the law.
Under the Online Safety Bill, all platforms in scope will need to tackle and remove illegal material online.
Asked by: Carla Lockhart (Democratic Unionist Party - Upper Bann)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what discussions officials in her Department have had with representatives of social media platforms on tackling the use of anonymous accounts to abuse people.
Answered by Chris Philp - Shadow Home Secretary
Officials have regular meetings and discussions with social media platforms on a range of issues, including the use of anonymous accounts.
The Online Safety Bill will require companies in scope to manage the risk of online anonymous abuse. Companies will need to remove and limit the spread of illegal content and prevent children from harmful abuse. Major platforms will also need to set out clearly what legal content is acceptable for adult users on their services and enforce their terms and conditions consistently and transparently. This applies whether a user is anonymous or not.
If platforms fail in their duties under the Bill, they will face tough enforcement action including fines of up to 10% of global annual qualifying turnover.
The draft Bill has been subject to pre-legislative scrutiny by a Joint Committee which reported its recommendations on 14 December. We are considering the Committee’s report and will introduce the Bill as soon as possible.
Asked by: Carla Lockhart (Democratic Unionist Party - Upper Bann)
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 is taking to encourage and promote participation in sport by children and young people with autism.
Answered by Nigel Huddleston
As set out in the government’s recent autism strategy (“The National Strategy for Autistic Children, Young People and Adults: 2021 to 2026”), the government is working to enable more people, including autistic children and young people, to be physically active.
Sport England, the government arm’s length body for community sport, launched its new strategy, “Uniting the Movement”, in January 2021. In line with this, they are working to tackle the inequalities and barriers that exist within sport and physical activity, and to unlock the benefits of being active for everyone, regardless of background or ability. As part of this effort, Sport England will be working with key partners to engage autistic people at all levels and in all forms of sport and physical activity, including across volunteering and coaching.
The Department for Education also recently announced funding for “Inclusion 2024”, being led by the Youth Sport Trust, which will improve physical education and school sport for young people with special educational needs and disabilities in thousands of schools across England.
Asked by: Carla Lockhart (Democratic Unionist Party - Upper Bann)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what representations her Department has made to TikTok, the social networking service, in relation to videos posted on that platform that target teachers with abuse; and what steps she plans to take in the Online Safety Bill to help tackle that issue.
Answered by Chris Philp - Shadow Home Secretary
Online abuse is unacceptable and the government is liaising with TikTok on how it is protecting its users in this matter.
Under the draft Online Safety Bill, companies in scope will need to minimise and remove illegal content including criminal online abuse targeted at teachers.
Major platforms will also need to address legal but harmful content for adults.These companies will have to set out clearly what legal content is acceptable on their platforms and enforce their terms and conditions consistently and transparently.
If platforms fail in their duties under the Bill, they will face tough enforcement action including fines of up to 10% of global annual qualifying turnover.
Asked by: Carla Lockhart (Democratic Unionist Party - Upper Bann)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what steps she is taking to strengthen child protection measures in the draft Online Safety Bill.
Answered by Chris Philp - Shadow Home Secretary
The strongest protections in the draft Online Safety Bill are for children. Services in scope will need to prove children are not accessing their service, or they will need to conduct a child safety risk assessment and provide safety measures for child users. Those safety measures will protect children from inappropriate and harmful content.