Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what assessment he has made of the implications for his policies of the BBFC's recent survey entitled Age ratings on subscription streaming services - April 2021 and its finding that parents want age ratings to be consistent between cinema, DVD and video-on-demand platforms; and if he will take steps to ensure that platforms respond to that finding and use age ratings based on UK standards.

The Government welcomes the British Board of Film Classification’s (BBFC) recent report, which contributes to our understanding of this matter and builds on wider evidence regarding best practice age ratings for film content.

The Government will consider the report and its findings, and continue to support the adoption of BBFC ratings for content on video on demand platforms. To that end, we were particularly pleased to see Netflix announce on 1 December 2020 that they have become the first platform to achieve complete coverage of their content under the BBFC’s ratings.

We will keep the evidence for legislation in this area under review.