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Written Question
Museums and Galleries: Non-fungible Tokens
Thursday 11th January 2024

Asked by: Daniel Kawczynski (Conservative - Shrewsbury and Atcham)

Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what assessment she has made of the potential merits of the incorporation of Non-Fungible Tokens into cultural objects held by (a) the British Museum and (b) other museums to (i) confirm their authenticity and (ii) help prevent their theft.

Answered by Julia Lopez - Minister of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)

The Department for Culture, Media and Sport has not made a specific assessment of the merits of Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) in this context. The British Museum has noted that, due to the cost and resource requirements involved, and as they do not significantly mitigate risk, the Museum currently has no plans to adopt the use of NFTs in this way.


Written Question
Art Works: Non-fungible Tokens
Thursday 14th December 2023

Asked by: Daniel Kawczynski (Conservative - Shrewsbury and Atcham)

Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what assessment she has made of the implications for her policies of the incorporation of Non-Fungible Tokens into digital artworks to confirm their authenticity.

Answered by John Whittingdale

Although DCMS has not made a specific assessment of Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs), HMT looked at NFTs as part of its consultation on cryptoassets. Developments like NFTs may provide new opportunities, as well as challenges, and we are aware of private sector services offering NFT-based authentication for digital art.


Written Question
Tennis: Russia
Monday 14th March 2022

Asked by: Daniel Kawczynski (Conservative - Shrewsbury and Atcham)

Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, whether she will take steps to prevent Russian players participating at Wimbledon tennis tournament.

Answered by Nigel Huddleston - Financial Secretary (HM Treasury)

The Government strongly condemns Russia’s unprovoked, flagrant actions. Russia must not be allowed to exploit major sporting and cultural events on the world stage to seek to legitimise its illegal invasion of Ukraine.

That is why we brought together an international coalition to see what more we could do to increase the pressure on Putin’s regime, and issued a joint statement with 36 other nations calling on international sporting federations to endorse the principles that:

  • Russia and Belarus should not be permitted to host, bid for or be awarded any international sporting events.

  • Individual athletes selected by Russia and Belarus, administrators and teams representing the Russian or Belarusian state should be banned from competing in other countries, including those representing bodies, cities or brands that are effectively representing Russia or Belarus, such as major football clubs.

  • Wherever possible, appropriate actions should be taken to limit sponsorship and other financial support from entities with links to the Russian or Belarusian states.

The full statement is available here.

The issue of Russian or Belarussian individual sports persons participating in a truly neutral capacity - in the UK and overseas - adds further complexity, and our position will have the greatest impact if it is taken in line with other nations. We are engaging with national governing bodies, including the All England Lawn Tennis Club, and international counterparts in order to reach an agreed position that can be implemented as consistently as possible.


Written Question
BBC World Service: Hungary and Poland
Wednesday 9th March 2022

Asked by: Daniel Kawczynski (Conservative - Shrewsbury and Atcham)

Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, if she will make an assessment of the (a) balance of and (b) level of input from (i) Open Society Foundation and (ii) other NGOs on BBC World's coverage of (A) Poland and (B) Hungary.

Answered by Julia Lopez - Minister of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)

The Government recognises the vital role that the BBC, including the World Service, plays across the globe. However, the BBC is operationally and editorially independent from the government and the government cannot intervene in the BBC’s day-to-day operations, including its editorial decisions.

The BBC has a duty to deliver impartial and accurate news coverage and content under its Royal Charter. It is for the BBC Board to ensure the quality of all BBC’s content, and that BBC output meets the highest standards the public expects.




Written Question
BBC: Broadcasting
Thursday 25th November 2021

Asked by: Daniel Kawczynski (Conservative - Shrewsbury and Atcham)

Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what discussions she has had with the BBC on the operation of the convention of the Monarch’s office being shown footage intended to be broadcast by the BBC.

Answered by Julia Lopez - Minister of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)

The BBC is an independent body governed by the Royal Charter. It is operationally and editorially independent from the government, and the government cannot intervene in the BBC’s day-to-day operations.


Written Question
Broadcasting: Russia
Monday 13th September 2021

Asked by: Daniel Kawczynski (Conservative - Shrewsbury and Atcham)

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 review the broadcasting licences of Russian state-backed media outlets (a) RT and (b) Sputnik in relation to potential campaigns of misinformation.

Answered by John Whittingdale

The government takes the issue of misinformation and disinformation very seriously, especially when it affects UK audiences. Ofcom, the UK broadcasting regulator, is responsible for issuing television and radio broadcasting licences and ensuring licence holders are compliant with UK broadcast standards and licensing requirements.

Autonomous Non-Profit Organisation TV Novosti holds three UK television broadcasting licences, two for the provision of the RT service and one for the provision of the RT Europe service. Sputnik does not hold a UK broadcasting licence.

All Ofcom licensed services are required to comply with Ofcom’s Broadcasting Code. This requires that news is duly accurate and that factual programmes do not materially mislead the audience. Licensees must also abide by Ofcom’s ‘due’ impartiality requirements.


Written Question
Broadband: Voucher Schemes
Thursday 15th July 2021

Asked by: Daniel Kawczynski (Conservative - Shrewsbury and Atcham)

Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, for what reason his Department has recently changed the value of vouchers on the Community Fibre Partnership from the value that was originally agreed.

Answered by Matt Warman

Community Fibre Partnerships are an Openreach product that they use on our Gigabit Broadband Voucher Scheme (GBVS). Openreach operates the Community Fibre Partnership (CFP) Scheme all over the UK and they use this as an aggregation platform to gather initial contact details and ‘pledges’ (Openreach term) for communities who want to improve their broadband. The particular costings of a CFP scheme are determined by Openreach, but since the launch of the GBVS, Openreach has encouraged communities to use the voucher funding provided by the government to pay for the cost of installing the network to rural communities.

We are investing up to £210 million in vouchers over the next three years. The new voucher’s value matches that of our previous scheme, £1,500 for homes and £3,500 for businesses,which has already successfully transformed connectivity for communities across the country with 72,000 vouchers issued worth £137 million.

If you are referring to a particular project in your constituency my officials would be happy to investigate this for you, but in order to do so they would need a Pre-Registered Package (PRP) number associated with the voucher project.


Written Question
Sports: Coronavirus
Friday 23rd October 2020

Asked by: Daniel Kawczynski (Conservative - Shrewsbury and Atcham)

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 provide further support to individual sports clubs during the covid-19 outbreak.

Answered by Nigel Huddleston - Financial Secretary (HM Treasury)

The Government has provided unprecedented support to businesses through tax reliefs, cash grants and employee wage support, which many sport clubs have benefited from. Sport England’s Community Emergency Fund has also provided £210 million directly to support community sport clubs and exercise centres through this pandemic.

The Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport is working with HM Treasury on what can be done to provide further support since the decision was made to prevent fans returning to stadia from 1 October.


Written Question
Voluntary Organisations: Coronavirus
Thursday 22nd October 2020

Asked by: Daniel Kawczynski (Conservative - Shrewsbury and Atcham)

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 provide further financial support to organisations in the voluntary sector during the covid-19 outbreak.

Answered by John Whittingdale

The £750 million package offered unprecedented support to allow charities and social enterprises to continue their vital work in our national effort to fight coronavirus. This funding will continue to support this work over the winter.

We are not able to replace every pound of funding charities would have received this year, and many organisations will need to assess what measures they need to take. Information on the wider measures the government has made available and details on how to access the support can be found on gov.uk. The Charity Commission has also published guidance on gov.uk, which sets out how charities can get support for their staff, advice on use of reserves, and other potential issues.

We will continue to work with the charity and social enterprise sectors to assess emerging needs and how we can best support them during the COVID-19 pandemic and through recovery.

Ensuring charities can safely begin fundraising activities will be a crucial part of the sector’s recovery. DCMS has worked closely with its sectors to publish guidance relating to COVID-19. This includes practical guidance and resources from the Fundraising Regulator and Chartered Institute of Fundraising supporting charities to safeguard the public, staff and volunteers as they plan to return to fundraising activities in a safe and responsible way. This can be viewed at;

https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/guidance-for-dcms-sectors-in-relation-to-coronavirus-covid-19


Written Question
Fundraising: Coronavirus
Thursday 22nd October 2020

Asked by: Daniel Kawczynski (Conservative - Shrewsbury and Atcham)

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 provide further support to organisations in the fundraising sector during the covid-19 outbreak.

Answered by John Whittingdale

The £750 million package offered unprecedented support to allow charities and social enterprises to continue their vital work in our national effort to fight coronavirus. This funding will continue to support this work over the winter.

We are not able to replace every pound of funding charities would have received this year, and many organisations will need to assess what measures they need to take. Information on the wider measures the government has made available and details on how to access the support can be found on gov.uk. The Charity Commission has also published guidance on gov.uk, which sets out how charities can get support for their staff, advice on use of reserves, and other potential issues.

We will continue to work with the charity and social enterprise sectors to assess emerging needs and how we can best support them during the COVID-19 pandemic and through recovery.

Ensuring charities can safely begin fundraising activities will be a crucial part of the sector’s recovery. DCMS has worked closely with its sectors to publish guidance relating to COVID-19. This includes practical guidance and resources from the Fundraising Regulator and Chartered Institute of Fundraising supporting charities to safeguard the public, staff and volunteers as they plan to return to fundraising activities in a safe and responsible way. This can be viewed at;

https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/guidance-for-dcms-sectors-in-relation-to-coronavirus-covid-19