On behalf of its membership, the cross-party LGA regularly submits to Government
consultations, briefs parliamentarians and responds to a wide range of parliamentary inquiries. Our recent
responses to government consultations and parliamentary briefings can be found here.
The regulation proposed in this Bill is aimed at ensuring platforms have systems and processes in place to deal with illegal and harmful content and their associated risk, particularly to children and young people.
A Private Members’ Bill to require providers of electronic communications networks to grant other such providers access to their apparatus where that is necessary to ensure a consistent network coverage.
Digital access and skills are essential to enabling people to fully participate in an increasingly digital society. Tackling the digital divide will be crucial to addressing social and economic inequalities and levelling up every community.
The COVID-19 pandemic has led to an acceleration of changes to the reasons people visit and use high streets. Data for November 2020 shows that footfall is at 45 percent compared to the same period last year. Before the pandemic, footfall had dropped over 10 per cent in the last 7 years. Internet sales had risen to 21 per cent of all retail sales at the end of 2019 compared to 7 per cent a decade earlier, and during the height of the national lockdown period in May this had jumped to nearly 33 per cent of all retail sales.
Local leaders have shown throughout the pandemic that they are well placed to deliver the best outcomes for local communities. They are also best placed to align the work of government departments and agencies with the assets and opportunities of different places.
The UK’s exit from the EU represents an opportunity to provide local areas with new ways to manage their economies. We have made the case for reforming the funding landscape to secure better outcomes and a key chance to deliver this priority is the design of the UKSPF.
This briefing summarised the guidance and some of the key issues councils and combined authorities will need to consider in advance of further details about the UKSPF being released.