Written questions by Mathew.

Innovation and Technology, what steps her Department is taking to protect intellectual property rights in the training of AI models.

As a government, we are determined to back both our world-class creative sectors and our technology sector. Both are essential to our plan for growth.We recognise the potential impact of AI technology on intellectual property rights, including patents, trade marks, designs, and copyright. A balanced IP system can also support AI development.We know we need to strike the right balance on this and we are engaging with creatives, tech companies and parliamentarians to ensure we get that right.

Innovation and Technology, whether his Department is taking steps with animal protection organisations to phase out animal experimentation.

The Labour Manifesto includes a commitment to “partner with scientists, industry, and civil society as we work towards the phasing out of animal testing”. The government will publish a strategy to support the development, validation and uptake of alternative methods later this year, and is engaging animal welfare organisations in developing this. The Government has also recently hosted a roundtable with representatives from these organisations to discuss the strategy.

Innovation and Technology, what steps his Department is taking to ensure social media companies are accountable for content on their sites that may be harmful to children.

Our priority is the effective implementation of the Online Safety Act so that children benefit from its wide-reaching protections. The Act requires all services in scope to protect all users, including children, from illegal content and criminal behaviour. Services likely to be accessed by children will also need to provide additional safety measures to protect them from harmful and age-inappropriate content. Services will need to start complying with their illegal content duties from March and the child safety duties by the summer.