Speeches by Narayan.

“Thank you, Chair, and thank you in particular for both the inquiry that you are conducting as a group and for that generous opener. The fundamental thing I would say is that you will know more than any other part of Parliament that we are in a totally new geopolitical paradigm. AI is the central question in terms of ca…”

“Prosecuted? Talitha, I am going to have to rely on you to decide.”

“The fundamental thing that we are looking at, as I mentioned in the consultation, is personality rights born out of this feeling over the manipulation of individuals’ rights to their own personality online. It applies more acutely to public figures and politicians but it applies broadly too. It is a definite problem an…”

“If we speak about very specific amendments, MHCLG is of course the Department leading on it, and we are contributing. I am engaging very closely with my colleagues in MHCLG on the question.”

“As an offence, it is owned by the Home Office.”

“Yes. Foreign interference as an offence is very much owned by the Home Office. There are some aspects of deepfakes that I am involved in. The question of personality rights, for example, is a question that is very much in scope for my role.”

“On the first question of whether it is an offence or not, ostensibly it feels totally wrong to me. Given the threshold set in the law, which is that you just need reasonable grounds to infer foreign interference, not conclusive proof of it, without pre-empting the individual cases, to me it would feel like there is a p…”

“No, not at all. In fact, it is the opposite. The elements of foreign interference covered in the Online Safety Act come from the offence but the foreign interference offence covers offline stuff, which is totally separate from the—”

“The main thing I would say is that the online experience at the moment for me, and I expect for all of you, is not satisfactory in a couple of different ways. There might be instances that meet the threshold of illegality, and when those happen, we have a system to take action on those. There is a—”

“I try to limit it but of course I do, yes.”

“On the responsibility question, as Ofcom has itself told you, it is responsible for the implementation of the Online Safety Act. I am the junior Minister responsible for it; the Secretary of State is the senior Minister responsible for it. On the question of the legal threshold, which was the second separate question r…”

“There are two separate questions here. One is the question of who is responsible. You have rightly answered that yourself in that context: Ofcom is responsible for the implementation of the law. There is a separate question from responsibility, which is are the thresholds appropriate at the moment? First, as I mentione…”

“I am very happy to write to the platforms and ask them for data.”

“Platforms have a responsibility to comply with the Act. I suspect there are many cases where they have done so. We do not ask platforms to report every single instance where they have taken action.”

“I would not make claims about any individual-level investments we have made through the fund at the moment, but I am happy to write to the hon. Gentleman about the provisions in the fund as a whole. Central to our ambition is boosting manufacturing through the delivery of up to £520 million to the life sciences innovat…”

“I am happy to look into the specific case study in the papers, which the hon. Gentleman referenced. I have to say that I have not seen the mention in The Times of the company he talked about, and I am reluctant to speculate on the context. However, if he is looking for an answer, I am happy to write to him about that c…”

“I thank both hon. Members for their contributions. To respond to the hon. Member for Didcot and Wantage, the large investment portfolio part of the fund is of course focused on larger projects that materially move the needle for the sector as a whole. The life sciences innovative manufacturing fund as a whole is much m…”

“I beg to move, That the Committee has considered the motion, That this House authorises the Secretary of State to make payments, by way of financial assistance under section 8 of the Industrial Development Act 1982, in excess of £30 million to any successful applicant to the Life Sciences Large Investment Portfolio, la…”

“I thank the hon. Member for St Neots and Mid Cambridgeshire (Ian Sollom) for bringing this important debate to the House. A number of hon. Members have mentioned bereaved families, and I want to pay tribute to all those families. Ian Russell—with whom I have had a series of meetings, including this morning—Stuart and A…”

“I pay tribute to my hon. Friend’s engagement in her constituency and on this debate nationally. She has been a strong champion for the voices of victims, particularly in relation to this question. I entirely agree with her demands for parity, and that is exactly the commitment we have made as a Government. We have set …”