Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Julie Elliott and Matt Warman

Thursday 1st July 2021 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (Matt Warman)]

The shared rural network will eliminate the partial notspots across huge swathes of the country, particularly in Yorkshire and the Humber; it will take the region from 95% to 99% coverage from at least one operator, and from 81% to 90% coverage from all four operators. I know how hard my hon. Friend has been working on this issue, and I look forward to working with him to continue that progress.

[Julie Elliott (Sunderland Central) (Lab) [V]]

May I take this opportunity to wish the Sunderland Empire in my constituency a happy 114th birthday? The Government boast free trade deals with 17 countries, each having different rules, making the situation almost as hard as it is with countries with which we do not have trade deals. When are the Government going to sort this out and get a deal to allow our artists, musicians, truckers and support staff to tour across Europe properly, and save this industry before it is too late?

Online Pornography: Age Verification

Debate between Julie Elliott and Matt Warman

Thursday 17th October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Matt Warman]

My hon. Friend is of course completely right. It is a critically urgent issue, but it is also critically urgent that we get it right, and I do think that we can make that progress by doing it in a way that is comprehensive, in line with the online harms agenda. However, I am not seeking to make age verification line up with that timescale. We will do this aspect of the policy as quickly as we possibly can, and I honestly look forward to working with her on that.

[Julie Elliott (Sunderland Central) (Lab)]

I am very shocked at this U-turn by the Government. The framework that had been created to support section 3 of the Digital Economy Act 2017 was robust: it was a platform to start protecting children from online harm. Why can it not continue in parallel with the online harms legislation being developed? The two are not incompatible. The Government have a choice—they start protecting children now from online pornography or they leave them exposed.

[Matt Warman]

The hon. Lady is right that the framework was potentially a start, but I think that we can do better. We have a duty to present a coherent set of regulations rather than introduce something that would have been, as she puts it, a start, but would not have gone as far as we can and that would overall, I think, be seen as something that we would have had to fundamentally reform and review once we had put it in the context of the online harms agenda. I understand where she is coming from—I really do—but I honestly believe that by doing this more slowly we will make a better impact overall.