Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Eddie Hughes and Margot James

Thursday 4th July 2019 Commons Chamber

[Margot James]

The localness guidelines were published as recently as October last year, so I think it would be premature to announce a review of their impact, but I can reassure the hon. Gentleman that they were welcomed by both commercial and community radio stations. Ofcom has received about 700 expressions of interest in the small-scale DAB multiplexes for which we legislated last month. We hope to be able to complete that legislation by the end of the year so that Ofcom will be able to start issuing licences to hundreds of community radio stations up and down the country. I think that we will see a great growth in this fantastic sector.

[Eddie Hughes (Walsall North) (Con)]

12. What steps he is taking to ensure that the 2022 Commonwealth Games in Birmingham benefit (a) neighbouring boroughs and (b) Walsall.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Eddie Hughes and Margot James

Thursday 31st January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Margot James]

Our Department’s priority is to make sure that new-build properties and developments are all built with full fibre, wherever possible. If I have not answered the rest of the hon. Gentleman’s question with regard to the impact on the rest of the technology, I would be happy to write to him.

[Eddie Hughes (Walsall North) (Con)]

10. What steps his Department is taking to ensure that the UK remains a world leader in the field of artificial intelligence.

[The Minister for Digital and the Creative Industries (Margot James)]

The UK is a world leader in AI. Our AI and data grand challenge, as part of the industrial strategy, is a major collaboration, with up to £950 million of industry and government funding driving measures for innovation, and attracting and retaining global talent to maintain our position as a global leader in AI.

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[Eddie Hughes]

Thank you, Mr Speaker. What assurance can the Minister give me that work to develop AI is being co-ordinated across not just government, but the whole public sector?

[Margot James]

We have established an Office for Artificial Intelligence across the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport. Its job is to encourage strong dialogue between Departments and the wider public sector, including academia. For example, The Alan Turing Institute’s specialist public sector AI unit is involved in this process.

Digital Economy

Debate between Eddie Hughes and Margot James

Monday 17th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[Margot James]

I must congratulate the Women and Equalities Committee on its extremely valuable work in this area. It exposed some very concerning issues and backed up its recommendations with evidence. Although the regulations do not touch on the viewing of pornography in public places, we have heard the recommendation of the Committee and what my hon. Friend has just said about that problem. That might be an indirect way of making such material accessible to the very children and young people whom the regulations are designed to help.

[Eddie Hughes (Walsall North) (Con)]

I understand that, in 2015, Ofcom said that that was the pivotal time when we switched from people viewing the internet on desktop computers to more people viewing it on handheld devices such as smartphones. The potential for people to view such things inadvertently in public, which has been identified by my hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford (Vicky Ford), has therefore increased dramatically, as has the potential for children to be exposed to it.

[Margot James]

I follow my hon. Friend’s logic. That was the conclusion that Ofcom reached. It is definitely worth considering the recommendation that he and my hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford (Vicky Ford) have made on reviewing the law on viewing pornography in a public place.

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[Margot James]

Age-verification providers will have to demonstrate that they have a foolproof system of identifying whether somebody is aged 18 or over. The sort of effective control mechanisms they are considering are credit cards, passports and driving licences—items that a lot of 18-year-olds will have at least one of. My hon. Friend rightly points out that a great deal of work is going on to improve age-verification systems. That is precisely because the sorts of items I have mentioned are, in general, only held by people who are aged 18 or over—with the exception of driving licences, which can be obtained at the age of 17.

For those reasons, it is much more difficult to ascertain how we can require age verification in other areas. For example, in the Data Protection Bill, we set the qualifying age at which someone can consent to a contract with a social media platform as 13, but it is very difficult for someone to prove that they are 13, because those items are normally held by people aged 18 or over.

[Eddie Hughes]

Should I be concerned by reports that a company called AgeID, which operates the ID verification system for Pornhub and YouPorn, is considering the idea of “porn passes”, which could be bought from a newsagent and would allow people to access porn online anonymously, so that they do not have the embarrassment of their credit cards being recorded against such a site?