Asked by: Darren Jones (Labour - Bristol North West)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, if her Department will take steps to ensure that reform to the UK’s data protection regime is aligned with public attitudes to data regulation.
Answered by Julia Lopez - Minister of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
In September 2021, the Government launched its consultation, “Data: A New Direction”.
This consultation ran for 10 weeks, closing on 19 November 2021 and received almost 3,000 responses. Responses were received from the Information Commissioner’s Office; organisations which represent a cross-section of the UK economy and society, and from overseas organisations.
During the consultation period, the Government engaged with a range of stakeholders, including over 40 roundtables with academia, tech and industry bodies, and consumer rights groups, providing a wide range of views.
The Government has carefully considered these responses and we will publish our response soon.
Furthermore, the CDEI recently published the findings from the first wave of its tracker survey. This will be a vital resource in seeking to understand public attitudes towards data and AI, and the conditions needed to create a trustworthy environment for data use.
Asked by: Darren Jones (Labour - Bristol North West)
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 work programme of the Global Partnership on Artificial Intelligence; what the UK's contribution is to that partnership; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Matt Warman
As a founding member, the UK has been a key part of the Global Partnership on AI (GPAI) and has helped drive this initiative forward.
● GPAI is progressing projects across its Working Groups; Data Governance, Innovation and Commercialisation, Future of Work, Responsible AI and AI and Pandemic Response.
● Initial reports can be found on the new GPAI website (https://gpai.ai/), as well as presentations from the first multi stakeholder summit in December 2020. Work is now focusing on a few key projects in each area.
● UK representatives have contributed their valuable inputs and expertise to these workstreams and a number of experts also sit on the multi-stakeholder Steering Committee, including the current co-chair Joanna Shields, CEO of BenevolentAI.
● GPAI also welcomed four new members in December 2020; Brazil, the Netherlands, Poland and Spain - and there is interest from multiple other countries to join in the future.
The UK looks forward to continuing work with international partners to ensure GPAI fosters responsible development of AI grounded in principles of human rights, inclusion, diversity, innovation and economic growth on a global level.
Asked by: Darren Jones (Labour - Bristol North West)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, how many officials in (a) his private office and (b) the wider Department have been allocated to the production and promotion of online content for use on social media in (a) 2018-19, (b) 2019-20 and (c) 2020-21.
Answered by Caroline Dinenage
Britain is fast becoming a digital-first nation. Roughly 96% of the UK households now have internet access with 66% of the population in the UK using social media.
With this monumental shift in media consumption habits, it is essential for a responsible government to pivot its communications strategy to be more digital-first, to inform and engage the general public on important policies.
Government communication runs across all channels including TV and radio advertising, out of home, digital and social media, print, direct channels such as letters, SMS and webinars, virtual and in-person activity, where needed and in full compliance with social distancing restrictions.
The DCMS News and Communications team leads on managing the department’s social media content as part of its day to day work, which includes a digital team of six that leads on creative content production across all of our corporate channels including online (for social media) and also offline, out of home and internal comms channels. This grew from a team of five people during 2018 to 2019. There are also two members of staff within Private Office who support on digital comms, as part of their wider roles.
Asked by: Darren Jones (Labour - Bristol North West)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what steps he has taken to help prevent aggressive cold calling of land owners by prospective buyers who contact landowners even though their land is not advertised for sale.
Answered by John Whittingdale
HM Land Registry, as required by statute, includes within the register of title for England and Wales, the name and contact address details for each proprietor of a registered property. This can include email addresses, if the proprietor chooses to provide one, but it does not hold telephone numbers.
For a prescribed fee, a copy of the register entries that relate to an individual registered property can be obtained. HM Land Registry does not offer free and open access to the data they hold about property ownership. It publishes its commitment to citizens’ privacy rights in a Personal Information Charter, which can be found here:
https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/land-registry/about/personal-information-charter#your-legal-rights
The Hon Member’s constituents should be aware that they have a number of rights under the UK’s data protection regime, including the right to object to their data being processed and the right to erasure of their data. If the contact numbers are being held by an organisation that processes personal information, that organisation must comply with the data protection principles.
If anyone is concerned about the handling of their data by any organisation, they should contact the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) for further advice or to make a complaint. The ICO can be contacted by telephone on 0303 123 1113 or through their live chat facility: https://ico.org.uk/global/contact-us/live-chat/. Further contact details are on the ICO website: https://ico.org.uk/global/contact-us/.
Asked by: Darren Jones (Labour - Bristol North West)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what plans his Department has to ensure that the rollout of high speed broadband includes areas of low speed broadband in urban areas as well as non-urban areas.
Answered by Matt Warman
The government is committed to delivering nationwide gigabit connectivity as soon as possible and more than one in three UK premises already have it. We are targeting a minimum of 85% gigabit-capable coverage by 2025 but will seek to accelerate rollout further to get as close to 100% as possible.
Our analysis suggests that the overwhelming majority of urban premises are within the most commercial 80% of the UK. In these areas, we expect that the private sector will deploy gigabit capable connectivity commercially, and address any remaining premises that have slow speeds. To support industry’s efforts, we continue to work quickly to incentivise investment and remove barriers to rollout, for example through the Telecommunications Infrastructure (Leasehold Property) Bill, which will make it easier for the industry to connect blocks of flats to high speed fixed and mobile technology.
In addition, we are proposing to invest £5 billion through our UK Gigabit programme to deliver gigabit connectivity to less commercial premises, including those with lower speeds currently. This programme will use a variety of interventions, including procurements, connecting public sector hubs and gigabit vouchers.
Asked by: Darren Jones (Labour - Bristol North West)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, how many officials in their Department were dedicated to their Department's responsibilities associated with the delivery of the Industrial Strategy in (a) 2017, (b) 2018, (c) 2019, (d) 2020 and (e) 2021.
Answered by John Whittingdale
The Industrial Strategy is a cross-government policy which comprises and drives a significant number of initiatives. These span a wide array of policy areas across 20 government departments and arm’s-length bodies.
The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) own the Government’s Industrial Strategy. As the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport contributes to delivery of the aims of the Industrial Strategy through existing workstreams rather than dedicated resource, it is not possible to provide the information requested.
Asked by: Darren Jones (Labour - Bristol North West)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, for what reasons group fitness classes are not permitted in areas under tier 3 covid-19 restrictions.
Answered by Nigel Huddleston - Financial Secretary (HM Treasury)
As the Prime Minister said on 23 November national restrictions ended on Wednesday 2 December, and gyms and sport facilities will reopen across all tiers. As set out in the COVID Winter Plan the decision to allocate tiers is based on a range of factors and will be reviewed every 14 days. In Tier 3 areas we have taken further measures to limit social interactions and therefore opportunities for the virus to spread.
Outdoor organised sport can resume, but the Government will advise against contact sports with a higher risk of transmission, although these can still go ahead for under 18s and disabled groups. Group activity and exercise classes indoors are also advised against.
Asked by: Darren Jones (Labour - Bristol North West)
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 protect vulnerable people from fraudulent cold calling.
Answered by John Whittingdale
Fraudulent calls can have significant and devastating impacts on people’s lives, particularly the most vulnerable in society. As well as being a nuisance, cold calling is the most common method used to initiate fraud, especially relating to pensions. That’s why the government has taken action to ban pension cold calling.
HM Treasury has introduced a ban on pension cold calling in order to reduce the chance of individual’s being enticed into fraudulent schemes.
Further to this, Home Office has collaborated with UK Finance to run the Take Five fraud awareness campaign. The campaign is designed to equip the public to challenge fraudulent approaches with confidence – be they face-to-face, on the telephone or online.
The Government continues to work on practical solutions to address nuisance and scam calls. DCMS have provided over £1 million in the last 3 years to the National Trading Standards for distribution of call blocking devices to vulnerable people. This funding helped to protect some of the most vulnerable in society from nuisance calls and scams, including those originating from overseas.
Asked by: Darren Jones (Labour - Bristol North West)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, if he will make an assessment of the effectiveness of covid-19 restrictions on sports which prevent adults from travelling between local authorities but enable coaches, umpires and under-18s to do so.
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 opened up grassroots sport and leisure facilities as soon as it was safe to do so.
You can travel in order to exercise across all tiers, however there is additional guidance for Tier 2 and Tier 3 areas which affects those living in the areas as well as those who wish to travel into the areas to take part in sporting activities. In tier 2: you should aim to reduce the number of journeys you make, where possible.
You are advised not to travel into or out of Tier 3 areas, including for sport, unless this is necessary to enable individual exercise (or exercise for people from the same household or support bubble). Where this is necessary (for example to access a green space for a run or cycle), you should only travel a short distance and stay as local as possible. Travel is also permitted where it is necessary to enable sport for disabled people, sport for educational purposes, or supervised sport and physical activity for under-18s, to take place, but should still be minimised and kept to short distances only. People can additionally travel for necessary work or voluntary purposes.
Asked by: Darren Jones (Labour - Bristol North West)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, whether the Government plans to issue guidance on the holding of public firework display events in England during the covid-19 outbreak; and whether the Government plans to make material revisions in relation to those events to its most recent general guidance on outdoor gatherings during the covid-19 outbreak.
Answered by Nigel Huddleston - Financial Secretary (HM Treasury)
Outdoor events - including firework display events - organised by businesses, charitable organisations, and public bodies are currently permitted provided event organisers follow all relevant Covid-19 Secure guidance, organisers and attendees adhere to all legal requirements including only allowing people to attend in groups of up to 6 people, and the event does not pose a risk to public health.
Industry guidance developed by the Events Industry Forum in collaboration with DCMS outlines the Covid-secure measures that events organisers must put in place in order to host an outdoor event, including a firework display.
Local Authorities are responsible for permitting or prohibiting large organised outdoor events from taking place in their local area. Decisions are made on a case-by-case basis, and Local Authorities should provide advice to businesses on how to manage events of this type if required.
We will keep the Outdoor Events guidance under review to determine whether further guidance should be provided as government measures to stop the spread of the virus change. The Events Industry Forum’s guidance for outdoor events can be found here: https://www.eventsindustryforum.co.uk/index.php/11-features/14-keeping-workers-and-audiences-safe-during-covid-19.