Written questions by Wrigley.

Innovation and Technology, if he will make an assessment of the potential merits of (a) civil society and (b) community organisations delivering lifelong media literacy programmes for adults.

Civil society and community organisations are instrumental in delivering media literacy programmes to adults, leveraging their expertise to support diverse and vulnerable groups. Libraries and community centres provide accessible locations where adults of all ages can get guidance and advice.The Digital Inclusion Action Plan outlines steps toward delivering digital inclusion and media literacy for everyone in the UK, including supporting local and community initiatives to increase digital participation.Under updated media literacy duties, Ofcom is developing a ‘place-based’ model to embed media literacy into community digital strategies, working with the Good Things Foundation to support Digital Inclusion Hubs.

Innovation and Technology, whether he plans to provide funding to develop small-batch GMP phage manufacturing in the UK.

The Government supports the vibrant life sciences sector, which contributes £108 billion to the economy and 300,000 jobs nationwide. A new Life Sciences Sector Plan, part of the upcoming Industrial Strategy, is due to be published in late Spring. This will set out a comprehensive plan of how the Government intends to drive growth in the sector. Domestic manufacturing is of critical importance and to support this part of the sector, the Life Sciences Innovative Manufacturing Fund will allocate up to £520 million to deliver economic growth and build health resilience. Funding is available UK-wide, with GMP batch phage manufacturing projects being eligible.

Innovation and Technology, what discussions he has had with (a) Connecting Devon and Somerset and (b) Airband on (i) resuming full-scale operations and (ii) the effectiveness of communications between the three parties.

Building Digital UK (BDUK) is working with both Connecting Devon and Somerset (CDS) and Airband to identify premises which will no longer be connected via its Superfast contracts for the area. Premises that have been descoped from the Airband contracts and are not in any commercial plans are now eligible for support through Project Gigabit.However, approximately 6,000 premises across the area are likely to remain in scope of Airband’s subsidised delivery. The supplier expects to resume this work in June and complete it by the end of 2027. BDUK is in regular contact with both parties to monitor this delivery.

Innovation and Technology, what plans his Department has to enable Ofcom to regulate poor customer service.

Ofcom’s principal duty, established by the Communications Act 2003, is to further the interests of citizens and consumers, and Ofcom sets its regulatory framework to promote good outcomes for consumers, in line with this duty.For telecoms, Ofcom has a duty to set General Conditions with which communications providers must comply. These are published on Ofcom’s website and include conditions on complaints handling and dispute resolution. In addition to this, for example, Ofcom has introduced requirements to send end-of-contract notifications and published guidance to help providers support vulnerable consumers. Ofcom also publishes the Comparing Customer Service (CCS) report to show how customer service levels compare across the telecoms industry.

Innovation and Technology, what steps his Department is taking to protect children against the risks of generative-AI content on small websites.

AI generated content is regulated by the Online Safety Act where it is shared on an in-scope service and constitutes illegal content or content which is harmful to children. Providers who publish pornographic content must protect children from that content, including where it is AI generated.In recognition of the unique risks that small but high-risk platforms pose to users, Ofcom, the online safety regulator, has established a taskforce to tackle these services. The taskforce’s aim is to proactively identify services, focusing on those posing the most severe risks of harm, and ensure compliance with the Act.

Innovation and Technology, if he will put a statutory duty on small websites to prevent putting children at risk of (a) sexual extortion, (b) grooming and (c) generating child sexual abuse images.

The Online Safety Act creates new duties on online services to protect users from being harmed by illegal content and activity. The strongest duties are to protect children from sexual abuse and exploitation (CSEA) and to stop child sexual abuse material (CSAM) from being shared. The illegal content duties have been in effect from 17 March. Ofcom is the regulator for the regime and has set out steps providers can take including strong automated content moderation measures and anti-grooming measures. Ofcom will continue to develop their codes iteratively, including measures to detect, prevent and remove CSAM.

Innovation and Technology, if he will make an assessment o strengthening protections from AI-generated CSAM by introducing a statutory duty for all Generative AI developers to (a) complete a risk assessment and (b) mitigate the risks of their products contributing to illegal activity.

AI generated child sexual abuse images are illegal material. It is an offence to produce, store or share any material that contains or depicts child sexual abuse, regardless of whether the material depicts a real child or not.The Online Safety Act places new duties on companies that provide user-to-user services and search services to prevent CSAM appearing on their services, and to have systems in place to remove it quickly when it does.We also remain committed to introducing targeted rules on companies developing the most powerful AI models to ensure we can realise the benefits of these systems safely.

Innovation and Technology, if he will introduce legislation to put a statutory duty on generative AI developers to (a) complete risk assessments for and (b) mitigate risks of contributing to illegal activity.

We remain committed to introducing targeted rules on companies developing the most powerful AI models to ensure we can realise the benefits of these systems safely.The Central AI Risk Function continues to identify, assess and prepare for risks associated with AI, including the risks of AI contributing to illegal activity.The Online Safety Act also places new duties on companies that provide user-to-user services and search services that will do more to mitigate the risk of illegal content on their services.We will continue to engage with the tech sector to support them in making their technology safer.

Innovation and Technology, if he will have discussions with (a) the hon. Member for Newton Abbott, (b) Devon County Council, (c) Project Gigabit and (d) Airband on improving broadband speeds in (i) Ideford, (ii) Newton Abbot, (iii) Ashburton, (iv) Teignmouth, (v) Ipplepen, (vi) Holcombe and (vii) Dawlish.

The hon. Member has recently met with Openreach and my officials in Building Digital UK (BDUK) and my officials are in the process of organising a further meeting with the hon. Member to discuss broadband connectivity across his constituency in greater detail.

Innovation and Technology, with reference to Connecting Devon and Cornwall's news story Airband’s full fibre broadband delivery for CDS scaled back, published on 31 October 2024, what assessment he has made of the potential impact of the amendment to Airband’s contract to reduce the number of properties in Somerset and Devon that will receive full fibre broadband.

Last year, Airband and Connecting Devon and Somerset (CDS) took the decision to descope premises from their Superfast contracts in the region. Approximately 6,000 premises will remain under contract to gain access to a gigabit-capable broadband connection from Airband. Other premises have since been included in suppliers’ commercial rollout, and we are working swiftly to identify alternative solutions for the remaining, approximately 13,000, descoped premises.Eligible descoped premises have been made available for connection via the Gigabit Broadband Voucher Scheme. Several projects are currently under review. Any premises that are not included in voucher projects will be considered for inclusion in our Project Gigabit contracts in Devon and Somerset being delivered by the supplier Openreach.

Innovation and Technology, if he will make an assessment of the potential impact of the transfer of intellectual property for projects for which a catapult grant has been awarded to that catapult grant on (a) small businesses, (b) start-up businesses and (c) entrepreneurs.

The intellectual property (IP) associated with any grants from Innovate UK is owned by the project participants. The sharing of IP between project participants in a collaborative R&D project is established through a collaboration agreement for that consortium. Innovate UK does not dictate the terms of those collaboration agreements. When a Catapult, which are set up as private businesses, is one of the collaborators they are subject to the same approach. Agreement would be reached across the consortium, and while a Catapult might take an IP stake it would only do so where this supported delivery of its strategic objectives to support innovation and the translation of R&D.

Innovation and Technology, whether he has had discussions with his American counterpart on the security provisions in place for UK citizens that have data held by US Government Departments, in the context of recent steps taken by the US Department of Government Efficiency to access personal data.

The UK-US special relationship continues to be critical for our security, growth and prosperity, as reiterated by the Prime Minister and President during the recent visit. Under the UK data protection regime, organisations must ensure there are appropriate safeguards in place when sending UK personal data internationally.The UK has an adequacy decision for certain transfers to the US and robustly monitors any developments that could affect that decision. Where an adequacy decision cannot be relied upon, UK organisations must ensure alternative safeguards are in place, such as contractual clauses, in accordance with Article 46 of the UK GDPR.

Innovation and Technology, what assessment his Department has made of the potential for harm by small websites not included in the Online Harm Bill.

All user-to-user services, no matter their size and regardless of whether they are categorised, will be captured by the Online Safety Act. The illegal content duties will require all user-to-user services – including small but risky services - to risk assess for illegal content, reduce the risk that users encounter illegal content, and mitigate against their service being used to facilitate or commit certain offences. The child safety duties will apply to all services likely to be accessed by children. These services must use highly effective age assurance to protect children from the most harmful content.

Innovation and Technology, if he will bring forward legislative proposals to oblige generative AI developers to disclose detailed information on creative works used in AI training.

The Government published a consultation on Copyright and AI in December 2024. This consultation seeks views on a number of issues relating to copyright and AI. It sets a clear objective of achieving proportionate transparency from AI developers over the creative content that is used to train their models. The consultation closes on 25 February.

Innovation and Technology, whether he has made an assessment of the potential impact of proposed AI data centres on UK (a) security and (b) defence.

The government recognises the critical role of AI and data centre infrastructure in supporting the UK’s security and defence. AI Growth Zones will help develop domestic AI capabilities, ensuring the UK can harness AI to strengthen national security and defence capabilities. The UK must also have sufficient domestic data centre capacity to support our digital economy and ensure we are not overly reliant on international markets for storing and processing sensitive data.

Innovation and Technology, what transparency obligations his Department plans to introduce on generative AI developers.

The Government published a consultation on Copyright and AI in December 2024.This consultation seeks views on a number of issues relating to copyright and AI, including on how to achieve proportionate levels of transparency from AI developers over their training sources.The success of any new approach to copyright and AI will depend on stronger trust between AI developers and rights holders. That is why transparency is one of the three primary objectives underpinning the Government’s approach to this work.The consultation closes on 25 February.

Innovation and Technology, what steps his Department is taking to help ensure that generative AI does not undermine creative industries.

The Government published a consultation on Copyright and AI in December 2024. It seeks views on how to create clarity in this area, to promote growth and investment in both the creative industries and AI sector.Through this consultation, the Government aims to ensure that right holders in the creative industries can control and be remunerated for the use of their work, while supporting the development of world-leading AI models in the UK.The Government recognises that this is a complex area and welcomes all views and evidence to help shape its thinking.

Innovation and Technology, if he will make an assessment of the potential impact of the incoming US presidency on scientific research in the UK.

The US is our biggest research partner. We expect this to continue. The UK’s thriving scientific ecosystem make us a natural and leading collaborator for the US research community. The UK and US have a deep scientific partnership which supports the UK's economic growth agenda. The Government looks forward to continuing to build on our strong existing bilateral commitments on research, which advance the frontiers of science, research and innovation to shape the technologies of the future.