Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Jo Stevens and Oliver Dowden

Thursday 1st July 2021 Commons Chamber

[Oliver Dowden]

I share my hon. Friend’s pride in the Union flag, because it unites us as a nation and a people. As he well knows, the Union flag is the national flag of the United Kingdom, and it is so called because it embodies the emblems of three countries united under one sovereign: the kingdoms of England, Wales, Scotland and, of course, Northern Ireland. It is quite extraordinary that the First Minister should describe it as vacuous symbolism by tea towel Tories. It really does show how out of touch he is with the people of Wales, and the Labour party is with the wider United Kingdom.

[Jo Stevens (Cardiff Central) (Lab)]

I remind the Secretary of State of the election results in Wales in May.

I too wish England all the best for the quarter finals. It was a fantastic game, and I look forward to a repeat of the performance in the quarter finals.

On 23 March, the Minister for Digital and Culture, when asked about Government-backed insurance for the live events industry, said that

“the decision is with the Treasury right now.”—[Official Report, 23 March 2021; Vol. 691, c. 309WH.]

We are three and a half months on, and there is silence from the Government. Can the Secretary of State say today whether the Government are going to underwrite time-limited insurance for live events? The industry just needs to know the answer—a straight yes or no, please.

[Oliver Dowden]

I very much understand the industry’s desire for insurance, and I have engaged with it. I have said all along that, as with film and TV insurance, the first step is to get all the other restrictions removed. We are making very good progress towards doing that on the 19th. At that point, if there is a market failure, namely that the commercial insurance providers cannot insure for that, we will look at whether we can extend insurance with some sort of Government-backed scheme. We are engaging extensively with the Treasury and other Government Departments to see what that might look like.

[Jo Stevens]

Festivals continue to be cancelled, even those scheduled for after 19 July, such as Womad, because the Government still have not published any guidance about sector reopening. They were forced into publishing the results of the events research programme last week after our urgent question, but they are also briefing to the press that nightclubs, for example, are going to reopen with no testing or proof of vaccine requirements. Businesses have had 15 long months of this chaos. The Secretary of State will not confirm insurance now and he will not publish guidance, so will he explain how festivals and live events scheduled for after 19 July can go ahead?

[Oliver Dowden]

As I have said previously, we are making very good progress towards 19 July. Given that the evidence is suggesting that despite rising infections, we are breaking the linkage to hospitalisations and deaths, I really do hope and expect that we will be able to have that full reopening from 19 July. We have always said that we would clarify and confirm that at least a week in advance, which would be by 12 July. Festivals have benefited from millions of pounds of wider support through the culture recovery fund, and, of course, at least one of our events research programme pilots is in relation to a festival.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Jo Stevens and Oliver Dowden

Thursday 20th May 2021 Commons Chamber

[Oliver Dowden]

Yes, our £1 billion shared rural network is eliminating mobile coverage notspots across the country, including in East Hampshire. Operators have already announced the first 333 upgrades and 54 new sites in England. We will shortly be announcing the next stage of the programme. Although I cannot give full details now, I very much expect this to contain more good news for my right hon. Friend’s constituents.

[Jo Stevens (Cardiff Central) (Lab)]

More than 3 million people participate in parkrun in England, and it plays a major role in the physical and mental wellbeing of participants. Parkrun has had legal permission to return since 29 March under the covid framework from the Government and Public Health England, but there is completely inconsistent decision making across authorities, and the situation is threatening parkrun’s future. As Great Britain Olympian Greg Rutherford has said:

“If we’re all allowed to go and pile into restaurants and pubs again why on earth would we not be allowed to run about outside?”

Will the Secretary of State give a clear, simple statement here today and say that local authorities and landowners need to recognise and accept the nationally approved framework and allow parkrun to start again?

[Oliver Dowden]

Yes. I completely share the hon. Lady’s frustration that this is not happening. I have discussed it with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, and he and I will shortly be sending a very clear message and signal in writing to local authorities about our expectation that those events should proceed.

[Jo Stevens]

I am delighted with the Secretary of State’s response and grateful for it.

Singing also makes a positive difference to the health of over 2 million people who sing in amateur choirs. The go-ahead was given for indoor rehearsals from Monday of this week, following step 3 of the roadmap, but on Tuesday, literally as conductors were on their way to rehearsals, late guidance was issued by DCMS limiting indoor rehearsals to just six people in total. This news was devastating to choir members but also to their conductors and directors, who lose their income because of it. I am afraid that confusing and contradictory communication is the hallmark of this Government. Last year it was the Secretary of State encouraging rehearsals for pantos that were never going to happen; this year it is choral concerts with no rehearsals. What is going on? Why the late guidance? Will the Secretary of State publish the evidence that led to his decision? Thank goodness his Department is getting an experienced director of communications, because he needs one.

[Oliver Dowden]

I share the frustration of many Members of this House that we have not been able to permit more people to participate in amateur choirs. I can tell the House and reassure Members that that decision was made on the basis of very clear public health guidance. Ultimately, the Prime Minister and I did not feel that we could contradict that public health guidance. Of course we published the guidance, and the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies recommendations are regularly published. I very much hope and expect that by step 4 —all going well, we will proceed with that on 21 June—we will be in a position to remove all legal limits on social contact and ease restrictions on large events and performances, including those that apply at step 3.

European Football Proposal

Debate between Jo Stevens and Oliver Dowden

Finance (No. 2) Bill: (Freeports (Stamp Duty Land Tax)) (Ways and Means) & Ways and Means resolution
Monday 19th April 2021 Commons Chamber

[Jo Stevens (Cardiff Central) (Lab)]

I thank the Secretary of State for advance sight of parts of his statement. This is a watershed moment for our national game, and this statement is welcomed, as is the chair of the review, but it is short on detail and on the urgency that this situation merits; fans will have noted that. The Secretary of State tweeted last night extolling the virtues of the football pyramid, but if anything exposed the Government’s lack of understanding of our broken football system, that tweet summed it up. Tory trickle-down economics does not work, and it especially does not work in football.

Football governance is broken, football finance is broken and football fans, whichever club we support, are ignored. The hedge fund owners and billionaires who treat football clubs like any of their other commodities have no care for the history of our football, for the role it plays in villages, towns and cities up and down our country, and especially for the fans who are the beating heart of it. They should understand their role as custodians, rather than cartel chiefs. The future of our national game and all our clubs depends on it.

Labour has repeatedly called for the reform of the governance and finances of football by the Government. Government intervention is needed to fix this broken system. That is why we pledged in all four of our manifestos going back to 2010 to take action, and it is why I and the shadow Sports Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Wirral South (Alison McGovern), repeatedly urged the Government to get on with their promised fan-led review of football—a promise that they made in 2019. It is nearly a year since our letter to the Sports Minister offering support and help with 16 questions that the review should focus on. We know that Members across the House have supported reform for the past 11 years of Conservative-led Governments, so it is time for the Government to get off the subs bench and show some leadership on the pitch, because we need reform of football.

It is not as if there has been a blockage in Parliament preventing the Government from taking action to sort out the problems. Former Conservative Sports Minister, the hon. Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Mrs Grant), has said:

“no one is speaking for the football world with the independence and authority needed to address the big issues.”—[Official Report, 26 January 2021; Vol. 688, c. 207.]

She is right. The former Conservative Chair of the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee, the hon. Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Damian Collins), has said:

“We should have long ago reformed the governance of football”.

He is right as well. The current Conservative Chair of the Select Committee, the hon. Member for Solihull (Julian Knight), has said:

“What’s needed is a fan-led review of football with real teeth and here we have more evidence to strengthen the case for it.”

I welcome the review, but why the long delay? Why create the vacuum that has allowed these super-league proposals the space and ability to become a reality? Eleven years have been wasted when a small amount of Government time could have been found to bring primary legislation to the House to sort out the problems. Instead, it has been all punditry and no progress on the pitch, and in that time, clubs and fans have suffered disasters. Fans in Bury know only too well the importance of reforming the way in which football is governed, and supporters in Liverpool, Edinburgh, Manchester, my city of Cardiff, Portsmouth and most football towns and cities have seen the damage done to clubs when profit outstrips the role of supporters in our game.

We are in a global pandemic and the owners of the six clubs behind this proposal think that now is the time to ride roughshod over their fans and endanger the future of football, on the back of a year when fans have been at the heart of supporting communities up and down the country. What a contrast! These proposals have been carved out behind closed doors without consultation with fans or players, and they have at their heart a plan that is anti-football—a super league from which teams can never be relegated and in which they are always guaranteed a place because of their wealth. That represents a fundamental attack on the integrity of sporting competitions.

It is very rare that an issue unites football fans and organisations across the rivalries and divides, but this super league proposal has managed to do just that. From supporters trusts and groups, including the Football Supporters’ Association, to the Professional Footballers’ Association, the Football Association, UEFA, the Premier League, the League Managers Association and the European Clubs Association—I could go on—it has been universally rejected as the greedy, obscene and selfish proposal that it is.

Let us act urgently. It is already too late for some clubs and their supporters, so I ask the Secretary of State when the review will be launched, what the terms of reference will be, who will take part and when it will report. What exactly will the Government do to stop the European super league decimating our national game? They should explore every option, and I hope that they will, whether that is a super-tax on revenue or investigating whether the proposal breaches the clear rules that govern markets and competition in this country.

For football fans up and down the country, our message is clear: Labour stands ready to do whatever it takes to stop this plan, and I hope that the Government will make exactly the same commitment.

[Oliver Dowden]

I thank the hon. Lady for her questions and I think hidden in there somewhere was a welcome for the approach the Government are taking and for the fan-led review.

The hon. Lady asks what we have been doing for the past year, and I will tell her a few of things we have been doing. We have been working to get football back behind closed doors, and we were one of the first leagues in Europe to achieve that. We acted to get a third of games free to view with Project Restart, including the first ever premier league games on the BBC. We acted to stop clubs going bust, with hundreds of millions of pounds through covid support schemes, and ensured that the big clubs looked after the smaller ones with the £250 million boost from the Premier League. We acted to keep football going through the pandemic, including through secure protocols to enable travel between the UK and elsewhere. Indeed, that was sometimes in the face of opposition from Labour, saying that we should stop the sport behind closed doors. Now, crucially, we are working to get fans back into stadiums. This weekend, Members will have seen that for the first time, which was very welcome, at the FA cup semi-finals. We are working and making good progress towards a further return of fans at stage 3 of the road map.

Alongside all that, we have continued to engage on the fan-led review. The Minister responsible for sport, my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Worcestershire (Nigel Huddleston), and I have engaged extensively with, to list a few names, Anton Ferdinand, Jordan Henderson, Karen Carney, the FA, the Premier League, the English Football League, the PFA, the national league, the Football Supporters’ Association, Kick It Out, Women in Football, David Bernstein and Gary Neville. The hon. Lady referred to my hon. Friends the Members for Folkestone and Hythe (Damian Collins) and for Maidstone and The Weald (Mrs Grant), and I have discussed the matter with them and with the Chair of the Select Committee. All this work has been essential in ensuring that we get to the point where we can launch the review today.

As I said in my statement, I would much rather that we had waited until fans were fully back and the game had been stabilised, but because of the actions that took place over this weekend we have launched the review now. The hon. Lady will have seen from my statement that it will be led by my hon. Friend the Member for Chatham and Aylesford. I hope that my hon. Friend will command support from both sides of the House; she was an excellent sports Minister, is a fan and is passionately committed to the game. We will shortly publish the terms of reference for the review and will work at speed. As the hon. Lady will have seen from my statement—I am happy to repeat it from the Dispatch Box—we will do whatever it takes to protect our game and we will examine every single option. We are doing that right now.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Jo Stevens and Oliver Dowden

Thursday 18th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Oliver Dowden]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend about the need for speed. As he will know, the shared rural network will see the Government and industry jointly investing over £1 billion to increase 4G coverage throughout the UK. On 5G, over 200 towns and cities already have 5G, and our ambition is for the vast majority to have it by 2027. In addition, as my hon. Friend has outlined, building on today’s welcome announcement from Ofcom, I will shortly be providing further details on our plans to make the UK giga-fit.

[Jo Stevens (Cardiff Central) (Lab)]

Over the last two weeks, we have seen an outpouring of grief over the death of Sarah Everard, and we have read and heard numerous accounts of women made to feel unsafe in their daily lives. The Secretary of State will know that words online often translate into actions offline. Last June, he said at the Dispatch Box that the online harms Bill, which was supposed to follow the White Paper published two years ago next month, would be introduced before the end of this parliamentary Session. We are still waiting. Does he accept that the continuing delay has left women and girls at risk for too long, and does he commit to measures to protect them online when he finally publishes the Bill?

[Oliver Dowden]

May I begin by welcoming the hon. Lady back to her rightful place in the Chamber? She is absolutely right to highlight the issue of online abuse of women. That is why our internet safety Bill will bring forward measures to help protect women online, including measures to enable them to better report abuse, and will also ensure that they should get appropriate responses from platforms. That could include, for example, the removal of harmful content, sanctions against offending users, or changes to processes and policies to support better protection. This is a real priority. We will bring forward the draft legislation at the beginning of the new parliamentary Session, and by the end of the year the full Bill will be before the House.

[Jo Stevens]

I thank the Secretary of State for his words. I know that he has a very well-publicised interest in the nation’s heritage, particularly in statues, telling museums and gallery experts how to do their jobs through the policy of “retain and explain”, so perhaps he can explain today what input his Department had into the Government’s legislation this week that provides for longer sentences for hitting statues than those that have been given for raping women.

[Oliver Dowden]

I really wish that Members in this House would take a more temperate approach towards this. The hon. Lady knows full well that the most serious violent and sexual offences, including grievous bodily harm with intent to rape, already carry a maximum sentence of life imprisonment. The purpose of what we are introducing in respect of statues is to help protect statues that have tremendous emotional value—for example, the Cenotaph and others—but that may have quite low financial value.

If it is now the Labour party’s position to oppose “retain and explain”—that may be the case; I have heard from the Leader of the Opposition that he thinks that some statues may need to come down—perhaps she could explain which statues she thinks should be removed from this country’s glorious heritage.

Online Harms Consultation

Debate between Jo Stevens and Oliver Dowden

Tuesday 15th December 2020 Commons Chamber

[Jo Stevens (Cardiff Central) (Lab)]

I thank the Secretary of State for advance sight of his statement. Let me start by saying that the Opposition welcome any moves to protect children and the vulnerable online. There are plenty of questions about gaps in the Government’s response relating to protecting children online, but the emphasis on children in this statement is very welcome.

We have been calling on the Government to introduce this legislation for almost two years. The publication of the online harms White Paper seems almost a lifetime ago. The legislation is long overdue, and I would like the Secretary of State to tell us when in 2021 the House can expect to see the Bill, because until it is on the statute book, the real harm that he just described, which has been able to flourish online through a lack of regulation, will continue. Ireland has already published its legislation. France has produced legislation dealing with hate speech. Germany has had legislation in place since 2018, and the European Commission is expected to publish its proposed Digital Services Act today.

The Secretary of State has said that the UK will lead the way with this legislation, but I am afraid that the response today is lacking in ambition. It feels like a missed opportunity. This is a once-in-a-generation chance to legislate for the kind of internet we want to see that keeps both children and adult citizens safe and allows people to control what kind of content they see online. Instead, the Government have been timid, or maybe the Secretary of State was persuaded by Sheryl Sandberg and Nick Clegg in his meeting with them last month to water down the original proposals. Social media platforms have failed for years to self-regulate. The Secretary of State knows that, everyone in this House knows that, and the public know that.

On legal but harmful material, why are companies being left to set their own terms and conditions and then judged on their own enforcement of those terms and conditions? It is exactly the wrong incentive. It will actively encourage less strict terms and conditions, so the platforms can more easily say that they are being properly enforced. When the Secretary of State says that companies will no longer be marking their own homework, I am afraid that he is wrong, because that is exactly what they will be doing.

The financial penalties described are welcome, but the Government have given in to big tech lobbying on criminal liability for senior executives for repeated breaches being properly built into the forthcoming legislation and implemented straight away. Rather, that will be left hanging to a possible future date through additional secondary legislation. Ireland’s legislation will include criminal sanctions rather than the vague threat that the Secretary of State has decided on. Will he explain what is to be gained by waiting? Never mind one last chance—repeat offenders have had chance after chance after chance.

The Secretary of State has referred to the novel concept of age assurance. Is that the same as age verification—the age verification that has been accepted by both the platforms and users as being unenforceable—or is it something different?



We know that online harms can easily become real harm. Encouragement and assistance of self-harm is one example, as the Secretary of State has mentioned. Harmful anti-vaccination disinformation impacting on public health is another. The Government have said today that they are asking the Law Commission to examine how criminal law will address the issue of encouragement or assistance of self-harm, but the Government could have asked the Law Commission to do that nearly two years ago when the White Paper was published. They have not done the hard work of deciding what should perhaps be illegal, which would have made their response today a better one.

There are also other notable absences from the response, including those on financial harm and online scams. This is a growing area of concern for millions of people across the United Kingdom, so why has this been ignored in the response? The Secretary of State has referred to failing public trust in tech. He says that he wants to rebuild it, but, sadly, today’s statement does not live up to that aspiration.

[Oliver Dowden]

I am rather sorry that the hon. Lady seems intent on seeing the negative in everything. This is a groundbreaking piece of legislation. Let me go through some of the points that she raises. She talks about our being timid in the face of tech lobbying. First of all, I can assure her that, although I have discussed end-to-end encryption in respect of national security issues, I have not discussed with Sheryl Sandberg or Nick Clegg any online harm provisions. That is simply not the case. Indeed I think that she will find from the reaction of some tech firms that they are struck by the scale of the fines that we are proposing. These would be some of the largest fines ever imposed. It is up to 10% of the global revenue of a company such as Facebook, which shows how enormous the maximum fine could be.

On criminal liability, I want tech firms to comply with this, and if they do not do so, they will face steep fines. If they still do not comply, Members should be in no doubt that their senior managers will face criminal sanction. We will take the power in this Bill—we will not have to come back to the House for primary legislation—and enact it through secondary legislation.

The hon. Lady asks about what we have been doing so far. We have taken many steps already to protect people online. For example, just a couple of months ago, the Information Commissioner’s age appropriate design code was put before Parliament. Today, alongside this full response to the White Paper, we are publishing, through the Home Office, an interim code of practice on online child sexual exploitation and abuse, and we will do so similarly in relation to terrorist content and activity online. We will expect tech firms to start complying with that now. It is clear what the Government’s intent is and if those firms fail to do so, we will have the powers through this legislation to ensure that that happens.

The hon. Lady asks about letting tech firms mark their own homework. We are empowering Ofcom to hold these tech firms to account. First of all, we will make sure that the terms and conditions are robust, and if they are not, those firms will face consequences. If they do not enforce those terms and conditions, they will face consequences, and this House will set out what those legal but harmful things are through secondary legislation. We will propose the sort of harms that those tech firms should guard against. Members of this House will be able to vote on them, and those firms will have to take action appropriately. I believe that this marks a significant step forward, and Opposition Members should welcome this important step in protecting children, particularly online.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Jo Stevens and Oliver Dowden

Thursday 10th December 2020 Commons Chamber

[Oliver Dowden]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to raise concerns about the management and cleanliness practices of sites owned by Britannia Hotels, and he has also raised them with me privately. I know that in November the Minister for Sport, Tourism and Heritage, my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Worcestershire (Nigel Huddleston) met them, and he was again in contact with them yesterday to raise those concerns. Of course, local authorities have appropriate powers to deal with this, but it is something I am taking a very close interest in.

[Jo Stevens (Cardiff Central) (Lab)]

This week, we learnt that a former Conservative DCMS Secretary, now the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, had to promise to be positive towards Mark Zuckerberg and his monopolistic company before Mr Zuckerberg would even agree to meet him in 2018. Has the current Secretary of State adopted the same approach in his meetings with Facebook executives during his tenure?

[Oliver Dowden]

I do not know what information the hon. Lady has been reading; if she is referring to the information released in the freedom of information request, that was certainly not how I read it. We have been taking a robust approach to social media companies. I have already met with Nick Clegg and Sheryl Sandberg about encryption, with the Home Secretary, and we continue to develop robust proposals for online harms, which we will announce very shortly.

[Jo Stevens]

I am pleased to hear that we will finally get the much-delayed online harms Bill to ensure that the regulator has the strength to tackle online child abuse comprehensively and ensure trust and transparency from online platforms—including, of course, Facebook; Instagram, which is owned by Facebook; and WhatsApp, which is also owned by Facebook—as standard, as the Secretary of State has promised. However, we have heard this week that the Bill has been watered down and will not include criminal penalties for senior tech executives after multiple breaches. Will the Secretary of State assure the House that he will not put his relationship with powerful tech companies ahead of the safety of children and that criminal penalties will be included in the Bill?

Her Majesty the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee

Debate between Jo Stevens and Oliver Dowden

Thursday 12th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Jo Stevens (Cardiff Central) (Lab)]

Thank you, Mr Speaker; I very much welcome the statement and the announcement that you just made. I thank the Secretary of State for setting out the terms of his statement, published last night, and I join him in his desire to look forward with optimism to this celebration.

We warmly welcome the good news that Her Majesty’s platinum jubilee will be recognised by an extra bank holiday, as I am sure do many people up and down the country. The Secretary of State’s reference in his newspaper article today to the celebration in 2012 of the London Olympic games evokes for many of us a much happier time—one when we all came together to celebrate and mark our shared values. We all look forward to a time when we can have street parties, watch live performances, listen to live music and be together. Those are all things whose absence is so keenly felt at the moment.

Of course, 2022 is already shaping up to be a big year of celebration, with the centenary of the BBC and the hosting of the Commonwealth games in Birmingham. It is in very large part due to the Queen herself that we see the success of the Commonwealth as a group of nations working together, despite huge differences and the historical context from which it was formed. We look forward to hearing more about the plans to make these celebrations bring together our whole United Kingdom, as well as the Commonwealth, as we get nearer to 2022.

The numerous qualities displayed by Her Majesty throughout her long reign of dedicated service—in particular, her incredible work ethic, her kindness and her patience—represent the very best of our values as a country. As we live through one of the most difficult periods of her reign, it was a source of comfort to millions when the Queen addressed the nation earlier this year. Her promise that “We will meet again,” echoing the words made popular by Dame Vera Lynn, who sadly passed away this year, were especially poignant for millions of people for whom the Queen has been a constant in their lives.

The Opposition echo the Secretary of State’s hopes that the country will emerge from this dark period in time for these celebrations and that they may be a way to mark a new optimism for our future as we reflect on the great changes that have taken place over the past 70 years.

[Oliver Dowden]

I thank the hon. Lady for her contribution, and I am very glad that we will be able to proceed with this on a cross-party basis. She was absolutely right to highlight also the centenary of the BBC, which will of course take place in 2022, and Her Majesty’s role in the Commonwealth and, indeed, the comfort that Her Majesty gave the entire nation in the darkest days of the coronavirus. This in turn, in 2022, will be our opportunity to thank her for all she has given the nation.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Jo Stevens and Oliver Dowden

Thursday 5th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Oliver Dowden]

I share my hon. Friend’s desire for that to happen, and I know what a champion of Wicksteed Park he is. As he will know, the park received almost £250,000 from the heritage emergency fund in June and almost £250,000 from the culture recovery fund in October; that was on top of other awards totalling £2.7 million over the past couple of years.

[Jo Stevens (Cardiff Central) (Lab)]

Does the Secretary of State have a plan for live music and other live performances reopening fully—stage 5 of the route map after 2 December? Will he give an indicative date to allow businesses to plan ahead and take the decisions they need to in order to allow our world-class creative professionals to get back to what they do best?

[Oliver Dowden]

The hon. Lady raises a very important point. There are three main elements to it. First, I very much hope that socially distanced performances will be able to return once we are through this lockdown period. Secondly, we are providing support throughout the covid crisis through the culture recovery fund, and hundreds of millions of pounds have gone to that sector. Thirdly, I very much want to give that date for return. At the moment, I hope that the hon. Lady will appreciate that it is very difficult to give an accurate date, given the wider context. I want to be able to do that as soon as we can.

[Jo Stevens]

The Government knew on 21 September—nearly seven weeks ago—that a national lockdown was necessary to slow the spread of the virus, so why did the Secretary of State encourage cinemas, theatres, venues and other organisations to spend large sums of money on preparing, resourcing and marketing loss-making, reduced capacity productions, knowing that almost all of them would have to close for an extended period of time?

[Oliver Dowden]

As the hon. Lady will know, we sought to have a regionally based approach, and that was working. Ultimately, though, we could not sustain it, so we had to have this period of lockdown. I am hopeful and confident that once that period of lockdown ends, those productions will be able to continue. I note that we have ensured that rehearsals for them can continue behind closed doors during this lockdown period, which was not the case previously.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Jo Stevens and Oliver Dowden

Thursday 24th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Oliver Dowden]

We are all looking forward enormously—I certainly am—to the Commonwealth games 2022, which will form part of a wonderful year of celebrations in 2022 alongside the festival of the United Kingdom and, of course, Her Majesty the Queen’s platinum jubilee. There are exciting plans for the Commonwealth games, but those will coincide with festival UK 2022, and those plans are progressing well, most recently with the launch of a research and development competition earlier this month. We really want to bring together the greatest minds and the brightest talents from science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics to apply to find the 10 most creative and innovative ideas. I encourage my hon. Friend and, indeed, Members from both sides of the House to encourage people from their constituencies to apply for it.

[Jo Stevens (Cardiff Central) (Lab)]

Eighteen months ago, the Government promised world-leading legislation to finally tackle online harms, promising that Britain would be the safest place in the world to be online. Last week, I met again with Ian Russell, the father of Molly Russell, who—as the Secretary of State will know—took her own life at the age of 14 after accessing and receiving more and more curated online content about suicide methods and self-harm online. Mr Russell and many other stakeholders told me they have real concerns, not just about the absence of the promised legislation, but that it is being watered down and will not include regulation relating to legal but harmful content like that which led to Molly’s death. Can the Secretary of State reassure them and the House that legal but harmful content will be within the scope of the Bill when it eventually appears?

[Oliver Dowden]

Yes. The short answer is that it will; it will be covered by the duty of care. We continue to work on our full response to the Online Harms White Paper consultation and we will be publishing that this year, with a view to having the legislation at the beginning of next year. Indeed, shortly after this session in the House I will be meeting victims to discuss those proposals further.

[Jo Stevens]

I thank the Secretary of State for that welcome answer. Another area of legal but harmful content online is covid misinformation; conspiracy theorists and anti-vaxxers continue to flood social media platforms, 24/7. This morning, a University College London study reports that more than one in five of the public are unlikely to accept a vaccine, amid widespread misinformation about side effects and profiteering. With increased infection rates, new restrictions and winter approaching, people are going to be spending more time online, exposed to this harmful misinformation. His Department leads the counter-disinformation unit, but there is no information available about its resourcing, performance or impact. The public see a Government who have lost control of the virus and of public health communication, so what is he doing to reverse that?

[Oliver Dowden]

Clearly, I do not accept the hon. Lady’s characterisation, which is a little overblown, but she rightly raises the point about the risks associated with disinformation should we succeed in achieving the vaccine, which of course all parts of government are working tirelessly towards. I am well aware of the challenge of misinformation about the vaccine and I have discussed it with the Health Secretary. The Minister for Digital and Culture, my hon. Friend the Member for Gosport (Caroline Dinenage), is working intensively at ministerial level and is engaging with social media companies to ensure we have the necessary measures in place to deal with any misinformation, should it arise at the time of a vaccine.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Jo Stevens and Oliver Dowden

Thursday 9th July 2020 Commons Chamber

[Oliver Dowden]

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend, who has campaigned tirelessly on this point and raised it frequently with me. I also pay tribute to the gyms themselves, which have engaged very constructively with us to overcome some of the hurdles, and I hope to be able to make an announcement imminently on this issue. As I have said previously, the aim has always been to get gyms back by mid-July.

[Jo Stevens (Cardiff Central) (Lab)]

The Chancellor rightly focused on jobs in his statement yesterday, but according to the Creative Industries Federation, freelancers make up 47% of the workforce. As the House has heard this morning from a number of hon. Members, millions of freelancers have been excluded from Government schemes and left without support for four long months, and they face the prospect of many more months without income. Will any of the money that the Secretary of State announced on Monday go to freelancers? If so, exactly when will they receive it?

[Oliver Dowden]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right to highlight the importance of freelancers. That is why, alongside the job retention scheme—the furlough scheme—there were also announcements for the self-employed, and tens of thousands of the self-employed have been able to access it.

In respect of the scheme I announced earlier this week, I would have hoped that the hon. Lady, having campaigned on this issue so tirelessly, would have started by welcoming this package and, indeed, joined the dozens of organisations that have welcomed it, and I am happy to share a dossier on that. The key thing for freelancers is to protect those institutions so that they can return as those reopen in the future. That is what this package achieves.

[Jo Stevens]

I will take that as a no, then.

The Government’s failure to create a fully functioning test, track and isolate system has damaged public confidence, and the last thing the country needs now is another public health crisis. Earlier this week, the Centre for Countering Digital Hate published a report exposing how big tech companies such as Facebook and Google have profited from an anti-vaccination industry that has grown to 58 million followers during the covid crisis. Polling by YouGov showed that 31% of Britons polled do not plan to have a covid vaccination when one becomes available and that social media use and vaccine refusal are linked. When is the Secretary of State going to put public health and safety before the interests of the big tech companies profiting on the back of a global pandemic and publish the online harms Bill?

[Oliver Dowden]

I have great respect for the hon. Lady, but that is a gross mischaracterisation of the Government’s priorities, given that we were the first Government to commit to bringing forward online harms legislation, and I have set out the timetable for doing that. However, she is absolutely right to highlight the concerns around anti-vax. Not only have we stood up the counter-disinformation unit, but I am working with ministerial colleagues in the Department and across Government to co-ordinate our work on anti-vax, in preparation for the situation where, I hope, we will have a vaccine available.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Jo Stevens and Oliver Dowden

Thursday 4th June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Oliver Dowden]

I thank my hon. Friend for his question. He is absolutely right to highlight the huge role played by volunteers and, indeed, the wider third and voluntary sector, and I join him in marking Volunteers’ Week. One of the big things we have done is provide £750 million to support charities and, indeed, just a couple of weeks ago I announced the start of the coronavirus community support fund, which provides £200 million for small and medium-sized charities. That went live on 22 May.

[Jo Stevens (Cardiff Central) (Lab)]

Our valuable cultural sector is starting to collapse. It will be one of the last to reopen, and its desperate pleas for Government support have been ignored. Tens of thousands of workers excluded from the job retention scheme and the self-employed scheme have been completely ignored, but we then had a tiny glimmer of hope just over two weeks ago, when the commission for cultural recovery and renewal was announced, but since that date there has been silence. There is no information about participants in the working groups, no terms of reference, nothing on what has been or is being discussed and considered to help the sector, no timescales—nothing. This is yet another example of poor communication adding to the plummeting levels of trust and confidence in the Government. So, I ask the Secretary of State: why the complete lack of transparency?

[Oliver Dowden]

I do not really recognise the hon. Lady’s characterisation. First, we have announced the members of the overall cultural renewal taskforce, but the important thing is the groups that sit underneath it, which provide the specific guidance. I am happy to run through all those groups and write to the hon. Lady subsequently, but just to give her a flavour, they include one on recreation and leisure, one on tourism, one on sport and one on library services. The point of each of those is to provide the guidance to help us open as rapidly as possible, consistent with the public health guidance. That is why I was delighted that at the beginning of this week, we announced that high-end film and TV could resume. The hon. Lady is absolutely right to highlight the need to support the cultural sector. I have engaged extensively with people from across the cultural sector and we are working to see what we can do to support them.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Jo Stevens and Oliver Dowden

Monday 27th April 2020 Commons Chamber

[The Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (Oliver Dowden)]

Charities provide so much compassion and care to the most vulnerable in our country, and that role has never been more important than it is right now. In order to ensure that charities can continue their vital work in our national effort to fight the coronavirus, we announced a package of grants worth £750 million, alongside all the measures that my right hon. Friend the Chancellor has already announced to support charities. That recognises the unique role of the sector in helping us through this crisis and bouncing back on the other side.

[Jo Stevens (Cardiff Central) (Lab) [V]]

I thank the Secretary of State for his very kind welcome. He will know that, after 10 years of the hollowing out of public services through austerity, it is many charities that are providing frontline public services to the most vulnerable people at the greatest risk during the national response to covid. Although I welcome the support that he has announced, he also knows, because the charities sector has told him, that it is nowhere near enough, representing just 20% of their usual income during a 12-week period. They, and we, want to hear an explicit commitment from him that further funding will be announced before it is too late and charities go to the wall. Vulnerable people are relying on them for support and the Government must not let them down. Can he guarantee that?

[Oliver Dowden]

I thank the hon. Lady for her question. We will, of course, do everything that we can to support charities. It is worth noting that we have ensured, through the Department for Culture, Media and Sport in discussions with the Treasury, that charities can access all the existing schemes. For example, they can benefit from VAT deferral, they can use the remaining business rate relief—they already get 80% relief; they can now get 100%—and they can furlough staff.

In addition, the measures have been designed to help the frontline. However, it is not just the £750 million that the Government have provided. There is huge work across philanthropic institutions—for example, £100 million from Barclays—not to mention what great charitable fundraising efforts, such as those of Captain Tom, have provided for the nation.