Oral Answers to Questions

Matt Warman Excerpts

Thursday 8th February 2018 Commons Chamber

[Michael Ellis]

It is extremely important that we do that, and my hon. Friend is a doughty champion for his constituency. He is absolutely right about the importance of the work that our volunteers do to encourage footfall.

[Matt Warman (Boston and Skegness) (Con)]

10. What progress his Department is making on developing the Government's internet safety strategy.

[The Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (Matt Hancock)]

We are committed to making the UK the safest place in the world to be online. In October, we published the internet safety strategy Green Paper. On Tuesday the Prime Minister confirmed that we will bring forward the social media code of practice and an annual internet transparency report, as proposed in the Green Paper, and we will publish a full response in the spring.

[Matt Warman]

It is clear that teaching internet safety in schools will be a crucial part of all that the Government are doing for the future. At the moment, there is a huge number of disparate endeavours from a range of sources. It seems to me that they are in some ways less than the sum of their parts. I wonder whether the Government would consider backing a body such as Internet Matters to really deliver gold standard education in this area.

--- Later in debate ---

[Matt Hancock]

I will take that as another consideration in the gambling review, the response to which we are looking at right now.

[Matt Warman (Boston and Skegness) (Con)]

T6. Back to the app. Too many users of Android phones have been unlucky enough to read the words “Matt Hancock has stopped” when the app crashes. Can the Secretary of State reassure us that, for all the fun we have had over this, it is a genuinely meaningful attempt to get in touch with constituents and that, as the owner of the fastest-growing social network in the country, he will continue to press on?

[Matt Hancock]

I can assure my hon. Friend that I have not stopped and I will not stop communicating with my constituents, which is what this is all about.