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1271389

registered interest
date	15/12/2020
answering body	Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport
answering dept id	10
answering dept short name	Digital, Culture, Media and Sport
answering dept sort name	Digital, Culture, Media and Sport
hansard heading	Swimming: Coronavirus
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what the scientific basis is for the decision to prevent individuals who are over 18 years of age from participating in club swimming during the covid-19 outbreak.
tabling member constituency	Harlow
tabling member printed	Robert Halfon
uin	130025
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 11/01/2021 answer text <p>As the Prime Minister said on 23 November, the national restrictions ended on Wednesday 2 December, and gyms and sport facilities can reopen across all tiers. This means that certain leisure and sporting facilities including swimming pools are able to open subject to relevant social contact rules in each tier.</p><p>As set out in the COVID Winter Plan the decision to allocate tiers is based on a range of factors and will be reviewed every 14 days. In Tier 3 areas we have taken further measures to limit social interactions and therefore opportunities for the virus to spread. For swimming pools specifically, the transmission concerns have always been around points of contact within facilities, such as changing rooms.</p><p> </p><p> </p> answering member constituency Mid Worcestershire answering member printed Nigel Huddleston question first answered 11/01/2021 13:39:34 answering member 4407 label Biography information for Nigel Huddleston
tabling member	3985 label Biography information for Robert Halfon

1270743

registered interest
date	14/12/2020
answering body	Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport
answering dept id	10
answering dept short name	Digital, Culture, Media and Sport
answering dept sort name	Digital, Culture, Media and Sport
hansard heading	BT Group: Disclosure of Information
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, with reference to the estimated £900 million clawback from his Department's Openreach contracts, what assessment he has made of the value to the public purse of the work of the whistleblower who eight years ago identified that BT were potentially inflating its charges for work provided in rolling out rural broadband.
tabling member constituency	Newcastle upon Tyne Central
tabling member printed	Chi Onwurah
uin	128953
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 14/01/2021 answer text <p>I do not recognise the use of the term ‘whistleblower’. The person referred to in the</p><p>the question was, at the time, a contractor for BDUK who shared commercially confidential information without knowledge or authority from either BDUK or DCMS. By doing so they put the information in the public domain and as a result it was shared with the press.</p><p>The superfast contracts included capped and maximum prices, as well as clawback mechanisms to ensure that the public sector only paid on the basis of evidenced and eligible costs, which recovers the benefit of higher-than-forecast take-up. There is no opportunity for suppliers to ask for more funding if they overspend. As a result, suppliers such as Openreach reasonably incorporated contingency for higher build costs or lower take-up in their pricing at bid stage. The contract mechanisms have been effective in correcting the public subsidy requirement based on actual costs and take-up, and local authorities have reinvested funding clawed back to date in further coverage.</p><p>As noted in the October 2020 NAO report into the superfast programme, DCMS estimates that these mechanisms to safeguard value for money will return £0.9 billion to the public sector.</p><p> </p> answering member constituency Boston and Skegness answering member printed Matt Warman question first answered 14/01/2021 16:39:39 answering member 4361 label Biography information for Matt Warman
tabling member	4124 label Biography information for Chi Onwurah

1270970

registered interest
date	14/12/2020
answering body	Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport
answering dept id	10
answering dept short name	Digital, Culture, Media and Sport
answering dept sort name	Digital, Culture, Media and Sport
hansard heading	Broadband
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, pursuant to the Answer of 10 December 2020 to Question 126027 on Broadband, what criteria he plans to use to determine whether to bring forward additional spending on accelerating the UKs fibre rollout.
tabling member constituency	Newcastle upon Tyne Central
tabling member printed	Chi Onwurah
uin	128956
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 11/01/2021 answer text <p>Homes and businesses that do not yet have access to superfast broadband will be prioritised for gigabit-capable delivery with connections capable of offering more than 1,000 megabits per second, or one gigabit per second.</p><p>There is a consultation underway looking at large regions of England that are most likely to attract commercial investment but requires subsidy to reach the hardest 40,000 to 80,000 premises in each area. In addition, there will be smaller contracts to connect around 1,000 to 8,000 premises, to stimulate competition across a wider range of small, medium-sized and rural specialist telecoms providers and help them to scale up. DCMS is also exploring how to make available a small number of contracts covering very large areas that are the least commercially attractive to build in. This would help make sure that no areas are left behind - even those where there is a limited prospect of competition.</p><p>As well as these supply-side market interventions, the government is also seeking industry views on how to extend its successful Gigabit Broadband Voucher Scheme from April 2021. The scheme allows people in rural areas to request a gigabit connection with the government subsidising the installation costs. This would help broadband suppliers respond to increasing consumer demand for gigabit broadband while the new procurements get up and running. The government will also continue its programme to connect public and community buildings - such as council houses, schools, libraries and GP surgeries - so they act as full-fibre ‘hubs’ from which industry can build their networks and connect surrounding homes and businesses.</p><p>These new procurements for gigabit infrastructure are set to begin in Spring 2021. The government will now seek industry and local authority views on the strategy to define small and large procurement boundaries, as well as ensuring that priority areas are served.</p><p>The recent Spending Review set out the timeline for how the first tranche of £1.2bn of funding will be made available to industry over 4 years. The commitment to spend £5 billion stands, and the government will accelerate this investment if industry can demonstrate it has the capacity to deliver further and faster.</p><p>In parallel to these interventions the Superfast programme has put in place a number of new contracts during 2020 for delivery between now and 2024. This obviously includes R100 in Scotland and Stratum in Northern Ireland. Less well publicised are a number of English and Welsh procurements such as Devon, Somerset, Herefordshire, Gloucestershire, North Yorkshire, Cheshire and Lincolnshire. These new contracts are almost entirely for delivery of gigabit capable fibre. In total these represent c.500k premises with incremental delivery for the Superfast programme in lieu of the new Supply Side procurements under the UK Gigabit Programme.</p><p> </p> answering member constituency Boston and Skegness answering member printed Matt Warman question first answered 11/01/2021 14:55:09 answering member 4361 label Biography information for Matt Warman
tabling member	4124 label Biography information for Chi Onwurah