Oral Answers to Questions

Matt Warman Excerpts

Thursday 16th September 2021 Commons Chamber

[Craig Williams (Montgomeryshire) (Con)]

13. What recent progress her Department has made on the roll-out of gigabit broadband.

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

As the current broadband Minister I can say that, as Members will have seen, across the country gigabit broadband is now at 47%, up from just 10% in November 2019. This Government will leave no stone unturned to get that number as high as possible as quickly as possible.

[Dr Wallis]

May I, too, offer my congratulations to my hon. Friend the Secretary of State on her very recent promotion?

I thank the Minister for his response. Residents of the newly built Parc Derwen estate in my Bridgend constituency, and others across the UK, have found themselves tied to disagreeable fibre providers and unable to seek competitive quotes due to restrictions placed on them by developers as they are laying infrastructure. What will my hon. Friend do to ensure a competitive market as we roll out gigabit broadband?

[Matt Warman]

My hon. Friend is right that competition is a crucial part of a functioning broadband market. FibreNest, the company that he refers to, says that it is willing to let other providers use its networks, and it is a commercial decision for the company. It is important that all the right steps are taken to ensure that that promise becomes a reality, and the Government will work with him and the company to ensure that it does so.

[Craig Williams]

It is very good to see my hon. Friend in his place at the Dispatch Box. As a rural constituency, Montgomeryshire is very reliant on the roll-out of Project Gigabit, which I welcome very much. Not only is that integral to increased speeds, but the backbone of that fibre network is key to our levelling-up ambitions. Does my hon. Friend agree that we need to deliver it at pace?

[Matt Warman]

My hon. Friend is very kind; I hope that is not the kiss of death. He is right that, in areas such as Wales in particular, the power of levelling up through digital infrastructure is key. We have recently made positive announcements with the Welsh Government. We look forward to making more, and I know that Montgomeryshire will be a key part of delivering that mission.

[Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)]

I congratulate the Minister on retaining his position and welcome the new Secretary of State to hers. The Minister’s is a wide-ranging and critical role, not least because we need our broadband. Parliament, our businesses, our students, our economy and our social lives depend on it—but it is another broken promise. Full fibre by 2025 was the Prime Minister’s pledge, and the 2020 Budget set aside £5 billion to deliver it. Will the Minister confirm that only £1.2 billion of that £5 billion is planned to be spent by 2025 and that, far from full fibre, we will not even get affordable broadband? According to Ofcom, more than 2 million households find it hard to afford broadband, yet the Government are slashing broadband price controls, slashing the broadband budget, slashing universal credit support, and slashing gigabit targets. When will we get the broadband we need?

[Matt Warman]

I enjoyed the hon. Lady’s speech, Mr Speaker. The fact remains that this is a £5 billion commitment to—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I just say gently to the Minister that I make the judgment call. He is very kind to offer his assistance, but I will let him know when I need it.

[Matt Warman]

Absolutely, Mr Speaker.

The fact remains that this is a £5 billion commitment to getting as close to 100% broadband across this country as fast as we possibly can. The only barrier to doing that is the speed with which we can dig up the roads and lay the cables. This Government will do every single thing we can to make sure that every single barrier is removed in order to spend every penny of that £5 billion as quickly as we possibly can.

[Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)]

3. What plans she has to tackle fraudulent online advertisements.

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

The Government are committed to tackling online fraud. That is why, later this year, we will be consulting on the online advertising programme, which is considering all options, including legislation, to tackle paid-for advertising online. Meanwhile, the draft online safety Bill, which is currently in prelegislative scrutiny, will address fraudulent user-generated content.

[Stephen Timms]

Paid-for scam adverts are rife online, and it is not unusual for people to lose their entire life savings to them. The Prime Minister told the Liaison Committee in July that

“one of the key objectives of the Online Safety Bill is to tackle online fraud,”

but the Bill as drafted does not cover paid-for scam adverts at all. I am pleased that the prelegislative scrutiny Committee is going to take a look at this, but will the Minister review the Department’s currently indefensible position? We cannot wait years for the other process that he referred to to work its way through the system.

[Matt Warman]

The right hon. Gentleman is right to raise a hugely important issue. I and this Government share his impatience to tackle it, but that is why we are talking, through the online advertising programme, about looking at every single option, whether it is to tackle user-generated content through one mechanism or, potentially, advertising through another. It is about getting that combination of measures right so that we can achieve the maximum possible effect.

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith (Chingford and Woodford Green) (Con)]

May I, through the Minister, pass on my congratulations to the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Bedfordshire (Ms Dorries), on her appointment?

In line with the whole issue of fraudulent adverts, there is also the big issue of the appalling behaviour of gambling companies and their advertising, which causes huge problems and addiction for many young people. May I, through the Minister, ask the new Secretary of State whether she would take a meeting with families bereaved as a result of gambling addiction?

[Matt Warman]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right to raise that terrible scourge. I am happy to tell him that my hon. Friend the Secretary of State would be delighted to take the meeting he suggests.

[Jo Stevens (Cardiff Central) (Lab)]

May I, too, extend a warm welcome to the new Secretary of State and the new Minister? I hope that, as Digital Secretary, she has changed her parliamentary password.

Online fraud is a growing goldmine for fraudsters and online child abuse is a growing goldmine for paedophiles. Latest figures from the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children and the Internet Watch Foundation show a 70% increase in sexual communication offences with children, and a 77% increase in self-generated child sexual abuse material. Why are the Government still stubbornly and inexplicably refusing Labour’s call and the NSPCC’s call for the immediate implementation in the online safety Bill of personal criminal liability for senior tech executives whose actions consistently and significantly put children at risk? We already have such a legal regime that works in financial services and in health and safety. There must be a compelling reason why the Government refuse to do the same to protect our children online. Can the Minister tell us what it is?

[Matt Warman]

As the hon. Lady knows, the Bill is going through the pre-legislative scrutiny process. We are entirely aware of the issues she raises. The aim of the Bill and the aim of the Government’s approach will always be to take the most effective attitude to tackling them. As the Bill goes through that process, we will of course continue to look at all the options, but our priority will be the effectiveness of the legislation. A mechanism may well work well in other industries, but that does not necessarily mean we should copy and paste it into another.

[Cat Smith (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Lab)]

4. When she plans to allocate funding under the £500 million youth investment fund.

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

As I am sure the hon. Member would agree, youth services play a vital role in supporting young people, and the £500 million youth investment fund remains a manifesto commitment. It builds on more than £12 billion given this year to local authorities, who have the statutory duty to allocate funding to youth services in line with their local needs. Detailed plans for the fund are subject to the 2021 spending review, which, as she knows, will be coming later in October.

[Cat Smith]

Will the Minister join me in welcoming the innovation and expansion we have seen in the Scouts this week with the launch of the Squirrels, which will open up Scouting opportunities for four and five-year-olds? The sector is hugely innovative, but it is also really struggling financially. It has been two years since the £500 million youth investment fund was announced, but not a penny has been spent. Can the Minister tell the sector when it can expect that money to come forward, or whether the Government have raided our children’s piggy banks?

[Matt Warman]

We all, I am sure, have Scout troops in our constituencies to which we would pay tribute, and the expansion is hugely welcome. I am afraid, as I said in my answer, that the detailed plans for the fund are subject to the 2021 spending review. I look forward to being able to talk more about those plans after the spending review.

[Mrs Emma Lewell-Buck (South Shields) (Lab)]

5. What progress the Government have made on supporting touring musicians to continue to work in Europe following the UK’s withdrawal from the EU.

--- Later in debate ---

[John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)]

8. What steps she is taking to strengthen and promote public service broadcasting.

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

Public service broadcasting remains critical to the UK’s media landscape, and the Government are committed to ensuring that it continues to thrive. We will present proposals in the form of a broadcasting White Paper to update the existing public service broadcasting framework later this year.

[John McDonnell]

I admit I was hoping that the Secretary of State would answer this question so that I could say “from one red to another”, although maybe not in the full range of meaning of that term. I am the secretary of the National Union of Journalists parliamentary group. NUJ members are concerned about the future of public broadcasting, because of the sale of Channel 4, because of the 25% cut that has already been incurred at the BBC and because of reports that the Government are considering refusing even an inflation-rate increase in the BBC licence fee. Will the Minister meet a delegation from the NUJ parliamentary group to discuss these concerns?

[Matt Warman]

As a former member of the NUJ myself, it would be churlish to refuse.

[Mr David Davis (Haltemprice and Howden) (Con)]

T1. If she will make a statement on her departmental responsibilities.

[Mr Davis]

Can I express my delight at the arrival of my hon. Friend in Cabinet? She demonstrates that you do not need to be a boring conformist to get on in this world. Returning to the boring conformity, however, I shall put my substantive question to her. What assessment has she made of delegating the decision on what is harmful and what is not harmful to the online platform providers?

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

The fact is that the Online Safety Bill does not delegate that decision to online platforms. What it does is define the harmful content that companies must address. The Government will set out the categories for those harmful contents later. Companies will need to ensure that children are protected from any content that meets this definition, and that will clearly be directed by Government; it will not be delegated to them.

[Jo Stevens (Cardiff Central) (Lab)]

We know that the new Secretary of State has set out her own views and interpretation of racism online, because she has written about it, so I am sure she will remember what the Prime Minister said about the torrent of online racist abuse against England footballers on 14 July. This is what he said:

“Today we are taking practical steps to ensure that the football banning order regime is changed, so that if a person is guilty of racist online abuse of footballers, they will not be going to the match—no ifs, no buts, no exemptions and no excuses.”—[Official Report, 14 July 2021; Vol. 699, c. 362.]

I am really pleased that the Prime Minister heeded my call to extend banning orders to online racism. Can the Secretary of State tell us exactly what practical steps have been taken to change the football banning order regime since 14 July?

[Caroline Ansell (Eastbourne) (Con)]

T3. May I also offer my congratulations to the new Secretary of State? In Eastbourne, the ambition for a mixed augmented reality studio is beginning to take shape. What would this mean? Skilled jobs, an injection into the hospitality sector and keeping us at the forefront of film-making. What support can the sector and MediaBite, the project lead, anticipate from the Government, and will the Minister join me in wishing them well in their endeavour and in their bid to Innovate UK?

[Matt Warman]

I absolutely join my hon. Friend in endorsing that bid. It is a key ambition of this Government to ensure that augmented reality and all those future technologies are made a reality not just in London and the big cities but across the whole country, so Eastbourne is a real opportunity. I would be happy, for instance, to facilitate a meeting with the BFI or something of that nature in order for her to help to pursue this endeavour.

[John Nicolson (Ochil and South Perthshire) (SNP)]

I would also like to welcome the Secretary of State to her place. I have been glancing at her oeuvre, and now is perhaps not the time to discuss the alarming dumbing down she once identified in the once highbrow artform of panto or, indeed, to ponder her long anti-gay rights voting record. Just as well there are no homosexuals in the arts sector.

Instead, let us continue to focus on Afghanistan. We know the Taliban respect only violent power. They care nothing for culture or heritage. UNESCO is monitoring the evolving situation, focusing on the universal rights to education, freedom of expression and heritage. Does the Secretary of State agree that the women standing up for their rights and national culture in street protests are extraordinarily brave? Will she outline what the UK Government will be doing to protect all those who feel abandoned in Afghanistan, whether they are women, LGBT people or minorities who fear for their lives and futures?

--- Later in debate ---

[Edward Timpson (Eddisbury) (Con)]

T5. Last year there was full gigabit-capable broadband in just 13% of households in my Eddisbury constituency. Thanks to UK Government initiatives such as the rural voucher scheme, the figure now stands at 47%, but we still have a long way to go, which is why I am launching a survey of the broadband and mobile coverage of my local residents to find out where the notspots are. Will the Minister agree to meet me to assess that survey and to discuss what more can be done to ensure that we get full coverage right across the constituency?

[Matt Warman]

My hon. Friend is right to highlight the world-leading pace of this country’s broadband roll-out, but we know there is more to do. I would encourage everybody in his constituency to fill in his broadband survey, and I would be very happy to meet him.

[Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Slough) (Lab)]

T2. The lockdowns during the pandemic have brought into sharp focus the stark digital divide in our country. Despite Government promises, 1.9 million households still do not have internet access, and many more, including in my Slough constituency, rely on expensive pay-as-you-go services. Is it not about time that the Government finally bridged this divide?

[Matt Warman]

The hon. Gentleman is right to highlight the need for affordable broadband and mobile access, which is why this Government have worked with the companies during the pandemic and since to make sure there are social tariffs so that cheaper products are available. Such tariffs are a crucial part of making sure everyone has the access we all need in the 21st century.

[Lee Anderson (Ashfield) (Con)]

T6. D. H. Lawrence is Ashfield’s most famous son, and I thank the Government for the extra funding they supplied last year for the D. H. Lawrence Centre in Eastwood. Will the Secretary of State now back my bid to get a D. H. Lawrence statue in Eastwood to celebrate his life and works?