Asked by: Mark Hendrick (Labour (Co-op) - Preston)
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 help tackle illegal online sport gambling sites that do not hold a licence to operate in the UK.
Answered by Ian Murray - Minister of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
Since April 2024, the Gambling Commission has significantly increased its disruption activity and has focused on finding innovative ways to tackle the illegal market. The Crime and Policing Bill, once passed, will give the Gambling Commission greater powers to more quickly take down illegal websites. At the budget the Gambling Commission received £26 million across three years to increase investment, resources and capacity to tackle the illegal market. We have also set up an Illegal Gambling Taskforce with key stakeholders, which considers how to tackle illegal payments, advertising, and maximising cross-agency collaboration.
We announced in February 2026, an intention to consult on cracking down on unlicensed sponsors in sport. This will ban unlicensed gambling operators from sponsoring sports in Great Britain.
Asked by: Mark Hendrick (Labour (Co-op) - Preston)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what assessment her Department has made of the adequacy of the (a) condition and (b) availability of outdoor basketball courts; and what steps her Department is taking to ensure adequate funding for the maintenance, repair and construction of such facilities.
Answered by Stephanie Peacock - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Culture, Media and Sport)
The Government is committed to ensuring that everyone, regardless of background, should have access to and benefit from quality sport and physical activity opportunities. This means delivering a range of facilities across the country based on what each local community needs.
On 17 September, the Government confirmed £5 million investment in 2026/27 towards both indoor and outdoor basketball and basketball-led multi-sport facilities in England in 2026/27. This dedicated funding for basketball will be matched by the NBA, who will invest £5 million in grassroots programmes through to 2028.
We provide the majority of support for grassroots sport through our Arm’s Length Body, Sport England, which annually invests over £250 million in Exchequer and Lottery funding. Sport England provides long term investment of £12.6 million to Basketball England between 2022 and 2029 to support grassroots basketball.
Asked by: Mark Hendrick (Labour (Co-op) - Preston)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what data her Department holds on gender disparities in access to youth sports training facilities; and what steps she is taking to decrease those disparities.
Answered by Stephanie Peacock - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Culture, Media and Sport)
The Government is determined to ensure that everyone has access to quality sport and physical activity opportunities. The Government has invested £98 million through the Multi-Sport Grassroots Facilities Programme across the UK in 2025/26, funding projects such as new and upgraded grass pitches, pitch maintenance equipment and floodlights. Following the Spending Review we have committed another £400 million to transform facilities across the whole of the UK over the next four years. We are now working closely with sporting bodies and local leaders to establish what communities need and will then set out further plans.
We are committed to supporting every aspect of women’s sport and ensuring all women and girls, no matter their background, are able to participate in sport and physical activity. We will more than double priority access to grassroots football pitches for women and girls in England over the next five years as part of a series of plans to honour the success of the Lionesses following the team’s victory at Euro 2025, as well as dedicating flagship sites and pitches to the Lionesses.
The Government provides the majority of support for grassroots sport in England through Sport England, which annually invests over £250 million in Exchequer and Lottery funding in areas of greatest need to tackle inactivity levels through community-led solutions.
Asked by: Mark Hendrick (Labour (Co-op) - Preston)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what funding her Department has allocated to local authorities to provide youth services in (a) Preston and (b) Lancashire over the next three years.
Answered by Stephanie Peacock - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Culture, Media and Sport)
Local authorities hold the statutory duty to secure, so far as is reasonably practicable, sufficient provision of educational and recreational leisure-time activities for young people. Local Authorities fund youth services from their Local Government Finance Settlement in line with local need.
This Spending Review provides over £5 billion of new grant funding over the next three years for local services that communities rely on. This includes £3.4 billion of new grant funding which will be delivered through the Local Government Finance Settlement within financial years 2026-27 to 2028-29.
Asked by: Mark Hendrick (Labour (Co-op) - Preston)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what funding her Department has allocated to local authorities to provide arts and culture in (a) Preston and (b) Lancashire over the next three years.
Answered by Chris Bryant - Minister of State (Department for Business and Trade)
Typically, DCMS does not directly fund local authorities, nor their arts and cultural organisations, which are commonly funded by the Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government and Arts Council England.
In last month’s spending review, the government committed to providing an additional £3.4 billion of grant funding to local government in 2028‑29 compared to 2024‑25. This equates to an average annual real terms increase in overall local authority core spending power of 3.1% across the spending review period.
Whilst individual decisions on how to invest departmental resources will be determined in due course, there will be significant investment into Arts and Culture over the spending review period, including to Arts Council England (ACE) which will continue to support local arts programmes and projects across the country.
In the 2024-25 financial year, ACE provided over £450k of funding to arts projects in Preston, and almost £6.5 million to arts organisations and projects across Lancashire. Details of this funding can be found on the ACE website here https://culture.localinsight.org/#/map
Asked by: Mark Hendrick (Labour (Co-op) - Preston)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what steps her Department is taking to increase public awareness of deepfakes.
Answered by Damian Collins
The Government takes seriously the threat of disinformation and online manipulation which includes digitally manipulated content such as deepfakes. Building public awareness and resilience is a key part of our whole society approach to tackling the threat.
Last year, the government published the Online Media Literacy Strategy, setting out our plans to support the empowerment of citizens with the skills and knowledge they need to make safe and informed choices online. This includes supporting citizens to: critically think about online content, understand how the online environment works including how images can be manipulated, and understand that the online world is not always reflective of reality.
In April 2022 we published our £2.5 million year two Action Plan setting out our work programme to meet the ambition of the Strategy. This included launching the Media Literacy Programme Fund which will award grant funding to organisations undertaking activity to build citizens' resilience to misinformation and disinformation. We have committed to publishing future actions plans each Financial Year until March 2025.
Asked by: Mark Hendrick (Labour (Co-op) - Preston)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what recent estimate she has made with Cabinet colleagues of the number of (a) crimes and (b) scams involving deepfake technology.
Answered by Damian Collins
Ministers and officials have regular meetings with Cabinet colleagues on a range of issues, including deepfake technology. Details of ministerial meetings are published on the GOV.UK website.
Asked by: Mark Hendrick (Labour (Co-op) - Preston)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, whether she has made an assessment of the (a) impact of the rise in the cost of energy on the charity sector’s ability to maintain services and (b) potential merits of providing energy grants to charity organisations.
Answered by Nigel Huddleston - Shadow Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport
We recognise that many organisations, including charities, are facing pressures due to the significant increases in global gas prices. The Government’s priority is to ensure costs are managed and supplies of energy are maintained.
Extensive engagement continues at both a ministerial and official level on this situation. Though we do not anticipate a need for sector-wide support at this time, we will continue to work closely with the sector to monitor the impact of increased energy costs.
Asked by: Mark Hendrick (Labour (Co-op) - Preston)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what steps her Department is taking to help ensure the safety of young people online.
Answered by Chris Philp - Shadow Home Secretary
Protecting young people online is a priority for the government. In May 2021, we published the draft Online Safety Bill, which places duties on platforms to protect their users from harmful content and activity. The strongest protections in the legislation are for children. Services which are likely to be accessed by children will have to protect children from inappropriate and harmful content like pornography, and behaviour such as bullying. The regulator, Ofcom, will be able to take enforcement action against companies that fail to comply.
Ahead of online safety legislation, the UK’s regulatory regime for video sharing platforms requires UK-established platforms to take appropriate measures to protect children from harmful material. In addition, the Information Commissioner’s Age Appropriate Design Code, which came into force in September 2021, provides stronger protections for children’s personal data.
The government also recognises that it is important that children and parents are supported to stay safe online. In July 2021, we published the Online Media Literacy Strategy. This supports the empowerment of users, including young people, with the skills and knowledge they need to make safe and informed decisions online, whilst making the most of all the internet has to offer. In June 2021, we also published Safety by Design guidance and a “One Stop Shop” on child online safety. These provide voluntary guidance on steps that platforms can take to design safer services and protect children.
Asked by: Mark Hendrick (Labour (Co-op) - Preston)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what discussions she has had with the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care on the potential merits of introducing a national register of defibrillators located in (a) football stadiums, (b) sports pitches, (c) gyms and (d) leisure centres.
Answered by Nigel Huddleston - Shadow Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport
My Department holds discussions with the Department for Health and Social Care on a variety of matters, including the safety and welfare of those who participate in sport and physical activity.
Events at UEFA EURO 2020 earlier this year demonstrated the immense value of access to Automated External Defibrillators (AEDs) and first aid training for anyone involved in sport. Sports facility owners have a responsibility to make the safety and welfare of those who use their facilities their top priority, including through access to life-saving first aid equipment and relevant training and education.
The NHS in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have been working in partnership with The British Heart Foundation, the Resuscitation Council UK and the Association of Ambulance Chief Executives to set up a pioneering database that will register AEDs across the UK, called The Circuit.
The Circuit will link a UK wide network of AEDs to every ambulance service in the country and the public in a bid to help save more lives from Out of Hospital Cardiac Arrest.
Sports venues can register their AEDs via The Circuit (www.thecircuit.uk) and we would encourage them to do so in order to increase the chances of successful life-saving outcomes.