Asked by: Paul Girvan (Democratic Unionist Party - South Antrim)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what definition of fake news is used by his Department.
Answered by Margot James
Fake news' conflates a variety of types of false information. DCMS instead focuses on terms such as 'disinformation' and 'misinformation'.
In our work we have defined disinformation as the deliberate creation and sharing of false and/or manipulated information that is intended to deceive and mislead audiences, either for the purposes of causing harm, or for political, personal or financial gain. 'Misinformation' refers to the inadvertent sharing of false information.
Asked by: Paul Girvan (Democratic Unionist Party - South Antrim)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what steps his Department is taking to ensure that the level of advertising of betting products is reduced in relation to sporting events.
Answered by Mims Davies - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
There are strict controls on the content of all gambling advertisements, including broadcast adverts and online. Gambling operators who advertise in the UK must comply with the advertising codes, which aim to ensure gambling advertising does not exploit vulnerable people, or target or appeal particularly to children or young people. TV adverts must be pre-cleared by Clearcast and the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) acts on complaints and proactively checks the media to take action against misleading, harmful or offensive advertisements. The Gambling Commission also has a range of powers, including issuing fines, if operators break the rules.
The government's Review of Gaming Machines and Social Responsibility Measures, published last May, looked at protections around gambling advertising and concluded it would remain under review. It set out a package of measures to strengthen existing protections further, including tough new guidance from the Committees of Advertising Practice (CAP) on protecting vulnerable people and children and a multi-million pound safer gambling advertising campaign. This launched in February and is aimed at reducing risky and impulsive gambling. GambleAware has commissioned major new research on the impact of gambling advertising on children, young people and vulnerable groups, which will be published later this year.
The gambling industry also recently announced that it will introduce a whistle-to-whistle ban on adverts during sporting events in response to public concerns. This is expected to come into force this summer. We will monitor this implementation closely.
Asked by: Paul Girvan (Democratic Unionist Party - South Antrim)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what steps his Department is taking to encourage the take-up of volleyball in the UK.
Answered by Tracey Crouch
According to Sport England's most recent Active Lives Survey, around 77,500 people regularly play volleyball.
Sport England will be investing exchequer and lottery funding of almost £1.7m into Volleyball England to support its participation and talent programmes for the five-year period from 2017.
Asked by: Paul Girvan (Democratic Unionist Party - South Antrim)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, if he will make an assessment of the potential merits of bringing forward legislative proposals to grant charitable status to grass-root sports clubs.
Answered by Tracey Crouch
Grassroots sports clubs can achieve status comparable to charitable status through the existing Community Amateur Sports Clubs (CASCs) scheme.
If a sports club is eligible, and achieves CASC status it would receive tax relief on income, gains and profits from some activities, Gift Aid repayments on donations and business rates relief. For more information on CASCs, grass-roots sports clubs can visit the Sport England website.
Asked by: Paul Girvan (Democratic Unionist Party - South Antrim)
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 ensure that broadband customers in rural Northern Ireland receive the same guarantee of minimum speeds as other parts of the UK.
Answered by Margot James
I refer the Hon Member to the Written Ministerial Statement entitled "Universal Broadband" made on 20th December. Once the broadband USO has been implemented, consumers across the UK will have a legal right to request from a designated provider, who has a legal obligation to supply, a broadband connection of at least 10Mbps, up to a reasonable cost threshold.
Asked by: Paul Girvan (Democratic Unionist Party - South Antrim)
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 ensure that broadband customers in rural Northern Ireland have access to equivalent speeds as customers in the rest of the UK.
Answered by Margot James
Currently over 85% of premises in Northern Ireland have access to superfast broadband and this is expected to increase to 87% by the end of March 2018 as a result of the Government’s Superfast Broadband Programme. The Government has allocated a further £150 million to support ultrafast broadband roll-out as part of the June 2017 funding support package for Northern Ireland. For any premises that do not have access to superfast broadband the government will give everyone in the UK a legal right to request a connection of at least 10Mbps by 2020. The Better Broadband Scheme is also available now to enable all premises to have access to a connection speed of at least 2Mbps today.
Asked by: Paul Girvan (Democratic Unionist Party - South Antrim)
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 work with UK Athletics to ensure the integrity of the sport following recent drug controversies.
Answered by Tracey Crouch
As the UK's designated National Anti-Doping Organisation, UK Anti-Doping, an Arm's Length Body of DCMS, works extensively with UK Athletics to prevent doping by its athletes through its education and testing programmes.
The UK Government remains fully committed to combating doping in sport and protecting the integrity of sport.