Speeches by Darlington.

“Thank you very much, Bob. We want to bring this debate to the House because we feel that it is an issue that is very little understood, and is having a huge impact on the majority—51%—of the population. It is the issue of the censorship of women’s health information and products online, because they are deemed too sexu…”

“A Tuesday or Thursday 90-minute debate, please.”

“Q A huge thank you to the panel. Many of my colleagues have already asked the question, so I appreciate you talking about the futureproofing in quantum, the international regulatory environment and the use of standards alongside regulation to drive up quality. You all have a huge amount of UK clients, and I want to ask…”

“Q I want to go back to basics and get a bit of insight from you. What cyber risks are businesses currently facing, and how do you feel the Bill addresses those risks? David Cook: The original NIS regulations came out of a directive from 2016, so this is 10 years old now, and the world changes quickly, especially when i…”

“Q I note your interest in how the Bill will affect smaller businesses. There is not much detail in the Bill, but how do you think the code of practice could create an environment that lifts everyone’s security up without prescribing too great a burden? Richard Starnes: You just stepped on one of my soapbox issues. I wo…”

“Tuesday or Thursday—not “and”.”

“Q I want to move from software to hardware that is particularly vulnerable to potential cyber-attack, particularly from the integration of Chinese tech into SIPs, possibly making them vulnerable to cyber-attack by someone who knows the code into those bits of hardware. Should we be doing more to protect against that vu…”

“DHSC, because this is ultimately about women’s health.”

“Q I have a question for Ian Hulme. In your role at the ICO, you are clearly looking at data security. Data is obviously one of the main goals of cyber-attacks. Data issues cut across every sector, and you are looking at a really broad sector of data, from individual identifiers to names, addresses, bank accounts or wha…”

“Q9. If reports are correct, Elon Musk has climbed down today under pressure from this Government. Let’s be clear: stripping women naked without consent in real life or online is abuse. However, we do not know whether to trust what X says today, and this is not just happening on X. Will the Prime Minister join me and me…”

“Do you think they are being honest?”

“There is an important point here. The beginning of my question was on how you are monitoring spend by UK political parties on bots.”

“Do you think they are being honest?”

“I am conscious of time. A quick question, how does the Electoral Commission monitor spend by political parties on bots or foreign bot activity to amplify or attack parties? It may be different during short or long elections, but this is clearly one of the ways in which we know foreign actors are interfering or creating…”

“This is in the same vein, but it is not about me. There are 73 TikTok accounts posting thousands of deepfakes about Keir Starmer announcing controversial policies—obviously, outside the election period. They have names like “BBB UK News” and “Daily Britain News”. We are not sure whether these are foreign state actors o…”

“There is an important point here. The beginning of my question was on how you are monitoring spend by UK political parties on bots.”

“Picking up on your point about deepfakes, the current legal position is that it is illegal to “make or publish a false statement of fact about the personal character or conduct of a candidate”—that is off your website. Do you think that that is strong enough legislation for deepfakes?”

“I am conscious of time. A quick question, how does the Electoral Commission monitor spend by political parties on bots or foreign bot activity to amplify or attack parties? It may be different during short or long elections, but this is clearly one of the ways in which we know foreign actors are interfering or creating…”

“And you can buy them.”

“And some clarity about which agency has responsibility for that. What is the role of the Electoral Commission? What is the role of security services? Everyone seems to say that this is somebody else’s responsibility.”