Asked by: Karen Lumley (Conservative - Redditch)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what steps her Department is taking to enable parents and guardians to ensure children access age-appropriate materials on the internet.
Answered by Matt Hancock
We are introducing legislation through the Digital Economy Bill to require that pornographic material must not be made available online on a commercial basis without age verification, to restrict its access to under 18s.
Government works with the UK Council for Child Internet Safety to keep children and young people safe online. Bringing together industry, law enforcement, academia, charities and parenting groups, UKCCIS encourages good practice. It was a driving force in bringing in Family Friendly Filters, and has recently produced guidance for schools on sexting.
Government also works directly with the ISPs and social media companies to help protect children online.
Asked by: Karen Lumley (Conservative - Redditch)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what discussions she has had with non-governmental organisations on children's access to pornographic material.
Answered by Matt Hancock
My Department has had discussions with a variety of non-governmental organisations on children's access to online pornographic material including charities and support groups, IT sector, regulators, payments companies and advertisers, pornography providers and the tech industry.
Asked by: Karen Lumley (Conservative - Redditch)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, whether her Department has had discussions with the Department for Education on making schools hubs for sport in the community.
Answered by Tracey Crouch
Schools play an important role in the community, and ensuring that both school and community facilities are available and accessible is of mutual benefit to all.
Sport England’s Use Our Schools resource encourages more schools to open up their facilities for community use and to help those already open to stay open. To develop its insight into the way schools use the resource and share it with other schools, Sport England is measuring levels of take up and engagement and will publish these in an impact report. DCMS and Sport England are working with the Department for Education to ensure that schools are aware of the relevant guidance.
Asked by: Karen Lumley (Conservative - Redditch)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what steps her Department is taking to encourage young adults to engage in team sports in their local communities.
Answered by Tracey Crouch
Government is committed to getting more young people from all backgrounds engaging in sport and physical activity, including team sports. Last year government published a new strategy, 'Sporting Future', which sets out a number of important actions that will ensure that all young people can benefit from engagement in sport and physical activity
Sport England will be investing in team sports through its new programmes designed to support the people who regularly play sport, and programmes designed to tackle inactivity.
Community sports teams will also be able to benefit from Sport England’s new Community Asset Fund, which will make £7.5 million of National Lottery funding available to support community clubs to modernise or expand their facilities.
Asked by: Karen Lumley (Conservative - Redditch)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what recent assessment he has made of the adequacy of mobile phone coverage in rural areas.
Answered by Lord Vaizey of Didcot
Mobile phone coverage is vital for rural businesses and households. 99% of premises already receive 2G coverage. However 21% of the UK’s landmass has coverage from only one or two mobile operators. This affects around 1.5 million people living in areas with patchy coverage, who not only receive a worse service than other consumers, but also have a limited choice of providers and packages. People travelling into these areas are also affected.
A consultation into tackling partial not-spots closed on 26 November. I am also in discussions with the mobile industry to agree a voluntary solution, which remains my preference.