Asked by: Matt Vickers (Conservative - Stockton South)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what recent steps her Department has taken to help tackle harms that can be caused by problem gambling.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
We are currently conducting a Review of the Gambling Act 2005 to ensure gambling regulation is fit for the digital age. This builds on action by the government and the Gambling Commission to strengthen protections in recent years including cutting the stake on gaming machines in betting shops, banning gambling on credit cards, mandating operator participation in the national online self-exclusion scheme GAMSTOP, tightening restrictions on VIP schemes, making online slots safer by design and raising the minimum age of sale of National Lottery games.
In 2019, DCMS secured a commitment from industry to contribute £100m over four years to problem gambling treatment. NHS England and the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) are also continuing work to improve and expand specialist treatment services, with up to 15 new NHS clinics set to open by 2023/24. Since 2020, children have been taught about the risks relating to gambling, including the accumulation of debt, as part of the statutory Relationships, Sex and Health Education curriculum in England.
Asked by: Matt Vickers (Conservative - Stockton South)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what progress her Department has made in tackling fraudulent online advertisements.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
We introduced the Online Safety Bill to Parliament on 17 March. Through the Bill, the largest tech companies will need to take robust action to tackle fraud, including fraudulent online advertisements. This will ensure that people using the largest platforms are protected from scams, and ensure these services do not profit from illegal activity.
We have also launched a consultation on proposals for wider reform of online advertising regulations, including the role of the online advertising ecosystem in relation to fraud.
Asked by: Matt Vickers (Conservative - Stockton South)
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 deliver full-fibre and gigabit-capable broadband to every home and business across the UK by 2025.
Answered by Julia Lopez - Minister of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
The Government is committed to delivering nationwide gigabit connectivity as soon as possible. Our target is a minimum of 85% gigabit-capable coverage by 2025, but this is not the limit of our ambitions and we will continue to work closely with the industry to get close to complete gigabit coverage as quickly as we can thereafter.
We are investing £5 billion so hard-to-reach areas can get ultra-reliable gigabit speeds, have already upgraded 600,000 premises, and in three years national coverage has rocketed from six per cent to 66 per cent.
We are making excellent progress on Project Gigabit. Broadband providers have so far been invited to bid for Project Gigabit contracts worth up to £292 million to upgrade up to 187,000 premises across Cumbria, Durham, Northumberland, Cambridgeshire, North Dorset and West Cornwall - with initial work expected to commence later this year.
Up to 2.5 million premises are included in the Project Gigabit procurement pipeline within England, with further details published in our latest Project Gigabit Delivery Plan.
In addition to our procurement pipeline, we are investing up to £210 million in the Gigabit Broadband Voucher Scheme to support rural communities with the cost of installing new gigabit-capable connections. To date, more than 63,500 households and small to medium businesses have benefited from an upgrade through the voucher scheme.
We are also providing funding of up to £110 million to connect up to 7,000 rural public buildings like schools, GP surgeries and libraries, which will act as hubs for connecting nearby homes and businesses.
Asked by: Matt Vickers (Conservative - Stockton South)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what recent steps her Department has taken to help improve broadband and mobile phone coverage in rural areas.
Answered by Julia Lopez - Minister of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
We are investing £5 billion through Project Gigabit to provide reliable, lightning-fast, future-proofed connectivity in areas not covered by commercial delivery. Project Gigabit is central to how we level up, future-proofing connectivity for decades to come and ensuring no-one is left behind.
We have already upgraded 600,000 premises to gigabit-capable broadband, and in three years national gigabit coverage has rocketed from six per cent to 66 per cent.
Procurements under Project Gigabit are now under way in a number of regions across the country to extend this further. Up to 2.5million hard-to-reach premises have been announced as within scope for gigabit procurements and up to £210 million in vouchers is available to help communities that are not in line for commercial or publicly-funded projects right now.
The Government also recognises the frustration arising from the impact poor mobile coverage has on communities, particularly in rural areas. That is why we agreed a deal with the mobile network operators to deliver the Shared Rural Network programme. This agreement will see the government and industry jointly invest over £1 billion to increase 4G mobile coverage to 95% UK geography by the end of the programme. It will improve coverage for an extra 280,000 premises and 16,000km of roads tackling not-spots and reduce the divide in connectivity between urban and rural areas.
The four mobile network operators have already commenced work on the first element of the programme, which is funded by industry, and work is already under way and on track to eliminate the majority of partial not-spots - areas of the UK where there is currently coverage from at least one, but not all operators - by mid-2024.
Asked by: Matt Vickers (Conservative - Stockton South)
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 support grassroots sport.
Answered by Nigel Huddleston - Financial Secretary (HM Treasury)
Sports and physical activity are incredibly important for our physical and mental health and all generations and communities should be able to enjoy the health, wellbeing, social and other benefits of being active.
Since the government launched its sports strategy, Sporting Future in 2015, we have achieved a huge amount. Sport England has allocated over £1.5 billion to nearly 5,000 grassroots organisations across the UK. Sport England has also published its new ten year strategy which focuses on driving up activity levels and helping to improve physical and mental health.
In 2020 alone, Sport England distributed over £340 million of Exchequer and Lottery funding to support the development of grassroots sport in England, in addition to £100 million through the National Leisure Recovery Fund.
The Prime Minister has committed to delivering the grassroots pitches every community needs and this has already resulted in an investment of £25 million by the government to upgrade and improve facilities across the UK this year. At the Spending Review, a further £205 million was pledged over the next three years, targeted at the communities most in need, with the aim of increasing participation in sport among under-represented groups, as part of the government’s levelling up plans. This was in addition to a £30 million package to renovate 4,500 park tennis courts across the country.
Asked by: Matt Vickers (Conservative - Stockton South)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, how the proposed Single Customer View (CSV) to monitor customer activity of those who use internet betting platforms will be regulated to ensure that gamblers who make a profit are not unjustly registered as problem gamblers; and whether she has had discussions with relevant stakeholders on additional costs that may be caused by SCV to the levy and racing industry.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Gambling Commission has made clear from the outset that the single customer view is only intended to facilitate data sharing for safer gambling purposes. It has worked closely with the Information Commissioner’s Office to understand how a single customer view can be delivered in compliance with all relevant data protection requirements. The project is currently entering a pilot stage with GAMSTOP, which operates the national online self-exclusion scheme, as technical provider.
The Government and the Commission will monitor the progress of the trials closely, and further information will be published in due course. The Gambling Commission’s most recent update surrounding progress and next steps can be found here.
We are considering impact at the appropriate stages for all policies in our Gambling White Paper which we will publish in the coming weeks.
Asked by: Matt Vickers (Conservative - Stockton South)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what support he is providing to the (a) events, (b) hospitality and (c) nightlife industries which are unable to open as a result of the covid-19 outbreak.
Answered by Nigel Huddleston - Financial Secretary (HM Treasury)
We are aware that the events, hospitality and nightlife industries have been severely impacted by Covid-19. Businesses can continue to access the Government’s UK wide support package. This includes the Bounce Back Loans scheme, the Self-Employed Income Support Scheme and the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme.
As the Chancellor announced on 24 September, we are also offering affected businesses generous terms for the repayment of deferred taxes and government-backed loans, as well as extending the application window of the government-backed loan schemes.
We continue to engage with stakeholders - including through the Visitor Economy Working Group, the Events Industry Senior Leaders Advisory Panel, and meetings with representatives of the night time economy - to monitor the situation facing companies across the UK.
Asked by: Matt Vickers (Conservative - Stockton South)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, whether he plans to publish a timescale for the renewal of the National Lottery licence.
Answered by Nigel Huddleston - Financial Secretary (HM Treasury)
The current National Lottery licence expires in 2023, and the Gambling Commission remains on track to appoint an operator to take on the new licence from this date. The competition is expected to commence in the first half of 2020, with the successful applicant being announced in 2021.
The Gambling Commission is providing regular updates on progress with the competition on the 4NLC website at https://www.4nlc.com/home.aspx.
Asked by: Matt Vickers (Conservative - Stockton South)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, how much National Lottery funding has been allocated to each constituency; and what projects have received that funding in each of the last three years.
Answered by Nigel Huddleston - Financial Secretary (HM Treasury)
Information on National Lottery funding awards up to January 2018 is held on a publicly available database which allows searches to be made for good cause grants in each constituency within specific timeframes.
We expect to update the database with grant information from January 2018 to March 2020 later this Spring.