Written questions by Niblett.

Innovation and Technology, what steps her Department is taking to protect children from harm caused by AI chatbots.

Awaiting answer.

Innovation and Technology, whether, following the Government's announcement on measures to address AI chatbots producing romantic and sexual content for children, it plans to take further steps to close gaps relating to chatbots providing safeguarding advice and misleading information to child users.

Awaiting answer.

Innovation and Technology, what steps she plans to take with Cabinet colleagues to protect and support transgender individuals following the implementation of the proposed under 16s social media ban.

The government wants to support those who use the online world to find solace and support or who depend on technology to connect with others. Transgender individuals will still have access to the internet and safe spaces online. The government wants to se...

Innovation and Technology, what assessment her Department has made of the level of availability of accessible third spaces for people under the age of 16 following the introduction of the proposed social media ba

Giving every child the best possible start in life is this government's driving force. This Government is investing £500 million through our Youth Matters national youth strategy, so young people from all walks of life can access fun things to do outside ...

Innovation and Technology, what assessment she has made of the potential implications for her policies of the extent of similarities between YouTube Shorts, Instagram Reels and TikTok.

The Online Safety Act imposes a range of consistent duties on user-to-user service providers requiring them to proactively identify, mitigate and manage risks to users, and to be accountable for the safety of their platforms. Service providers must proact...

Innovation and Technology, whether she has received representations from the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Digital Creators on the subject of children's access to video-sharing platforms.

The government recently published a consultation and began a national conversation which sought views and evidence from across the UK on measures that could further protect children online and enhance their wellbeing. This closed on 26 May and we are anal...

Innovation and Technology, whether her Department reviewed the Crown Commercial Service's approximately £9 billion Memorandum of Understanding with Microsoft, signed in November 2024, in light of the CMA's findin

DSIT has not formally reviewed the SPA24 Memorandum of Understanding with Microsoft. This agreement does not represent a commitment to spend, but instead provides eligible public sector organisations with access to discounted pricing. Decisions on whether...

Innovation and Technology, what assessment her Department has made of the potential implications for its policies of the CMA's finding, published 31 March 2026, that the rapid integration of artificial intelligen

The Government is committed to promoting a competitive and innovative digital economy, which is why we prioritised the commencement of the CMA’s new powers in digital markets last year.The CMA operates independently of Government, and decisions on the sco...

Innovation and Technology, what assessment her Department has made of the potential implications for its policies of the Competition and Markets Authority's decision of 31 March 2026 to launch a Strategic Market

This Government is committed to promoting a competitive and innovative digital economy, which is why we prioritised the commencement of the CMA’s new powers in digital markets last year.The CMA launched its Strategic Market Status designation investigatio...

Innovation and Technology, what assessment she has made of the concentration of ownership of UK mobile towers among wireless infrastructure providers; and what assessment she has made of the implications of this market structure for competition and mobile coverage.

The Government continually monitors developments across the mobile market to understand how they may shape investment in comprehensive, high-quality mobile connectivity that is secure and affordable for consumers and business.On 10 February, the Government published the Mobile Market Review call for evidence, inviting stakeholders to provide detailed evidence on the technological, structural and financial developments across the mobile ecosystem and how they impact investment, competition and consumer outcomes, and on what further actions the Government could take to support these objectives.The call for evidence closes on 5 May. The Government encourages all relevant stakeholders to engage with the process and provide robust evidence to help inform future policy development.

Innovation and Technology, what assessment she has made of the potential impact of 2017 Electronic Communications Code reforms on relationships between telecoms operators and site providers; and whether she has made an estimate of the number of site providers who have declined to renew mast agreements as a result.

The Government wants Code agreements to be negotiated collaboratively; and the Product Security and Telecommunications Infrastructure Act 2022 made changes to the Code intended to support this.The Department has not undertaken comprehensive monitoring of the number of active Code agreements following the 2017 reforms.However, landowners can terminate agreements governed by the Electronic Communications Code for a number of reasons, including if they intend to redevelop the land. Therefore, any data on the number of terminated agreements alone would not be indicative of the effectiveness of the 2017 reforms.It should also be noted that 4G geographic coverage from all four operators has risen from 40% in 2016 to 81% in 2025 and 5G premises (outdoor) coverage has reached 47% from all four operators in 2025.The 2022 reforms also introduced a requirement for operators to inform landowners of the availability of alternative dispute resolution and to consider using it before issuing legal proceedings. Section 70 of the Act, which will be implemented in due course, will introduce a new process for the handling of complaints about the conduct of operators under the Electronic Communications Code.

Innovation and Technology, what assessment she has made of trends in the level of ownership of UK mobile towers among wireless infrastructure providers; and what assessment she has made of the potential impact of that market structure on competition, pricing and mobile coverage.

The government continually monitors developments across the market to understand how they may impact investment in comprehensive, high-quality mobile connectivity that is secure and affordable for consumers and business.On 10 February, the Government published the Mobile Market Review call for evidence, inviting stakeholders to provide detailed evidence on how technological, structural and financial developments across the mobile ecosystem may impact investment, competition and consumer outcomes, and on what further actions Government could take to support these objectives.The call for evidence closes on 5 May, and the Government encourages all relevant stakeholders to engage with the process to help inform future policy development.

Innovation and Technology, what steps her department is taking to address the potential risk of social housing residents being excluded from full fibre broadband due to access rights.

The Government is committed to ensuring at least 99% of premises receive gigabit broadband coverage by 2032. This will primarily be achieved through the commercial deployment of full‑fibre connections. Through Project Gigabit the Government is supporting the rollout of gigabit‑capable broadband to UK premises that are not expected to be reached commercially, helping to ensure that residents, including those in social housing, can benefit from fast and reliable connectivity. The Department recognises the challenges of connection in social housing, and we continue to engage with Local Authorities and Housing Associations on digital infrastructure deployment. In November 2024, the then Minister of State for Data Protection and Telecoms wrote to Local Authorities to encourage access agreements to be reached for the installation of gigabit-capable broadband on local authority land and assets which include some social housing. We are currently analysing responses to our consultation on legislative proposals to address broadband rollout in leasehold flats (which closed on 16 February 2026), and will update on the outcomes in due course.

Innovation and Technology, what steps he is taking to help tackle the potential impact of restrictive software licensing practices on businesses.

The Government is committed to supporting a competitive and innovative digital economy. This is why we prioritised the commencement of the Competition and Markets Authority’s (the CMA) new powers in digital markets.These new powers are designed to boost competition and innovation in digital markets and promote fairer outcomes for both businesses and consumers. The CMA is independent of Government, and any decisions on which markets it next investigates is for its Board.

Innovation and Technology, what assessment she has made of the value achieved through recent contract negotiations with Microsoft; and what assurances are in place regarding future pricing.

The government holds a number of contracts with resellers of Microsoft products, which includes Office tools, Copilot and Azure.Value for money is typically assessed through the Department’s internal governance processes for awarding a new contract. The Department utilises the Strategic Partnership Arrangement 2024 (SPA24) MOU which was negotiated between Crown Commercial Services (CCS) and Microsoft. SPA24 provides discounts and favourable terms to UK public sector customers.

Innovation and Technology, how much her Department has spent on software licences from Microsoft in the last 12 months; and what proportion this represents of her Department’s total technology spend.

DSIT spend of £3,044,084.14 for DSIT Microsoft Licences in the last 12 months. We have not provided the proportion of the total technology spend as it is not a separate reporting category within Annual Report and Accounts (ARA).

Innovation and Technology, what steps the Government is taking to ensure greater competition, interoperability, and diversity in the UK cloud market, in light of successive large-scale outages from Microsoft Azure and Amazon Web Services.

In July, the Competition and Markets Authority (the CMA) recommended their board prioritise a future Strategic Market Status investigation into competition in the cloud market. The CMA is independent of Government and any decisions on which markets it investigates is for their Board.

Innovation and Technology, what actions she will take to address restrictive software licensing practices by dominant cloud providers, as identified by the CMA, to ensure fair competition in the cloud services market.

The Government is committed to supporting a competitive and innovative digital economy. This is why we prioritised the commencement of the Competition and Markets Authority’s (the CMA) new powers in digital markets. The CMA is independent of Government, and any decisions on which markets it investigates is for their Board.

Innovation and Technology, what steps her Department is taking to ensure that the Competition and Markets Authority accelerates the Digital Markets Unit strategic market status designation process for cloud services.

The Competition and Markets Authority (the CMA) has completed 3 Strategic Market Status investigations this year. The CMA is independent of the Government and decisions on which markets to investigate is for their Board. The CMA has published guidance on its website on how it will prioritise Strategic Market Status designations.

Innovation and Technology, what assessment her Department has made of the systemic risks posed to the UK economy and critical services by reliance on two dominant hyperscale cloud providers, following recent outages on Microsoft Azure and Amazon Web Services.

The Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) continues to monitor systemic risks to UK critical national infrastructure from reliance on cloud providers, including resilience measures and contingency planning following recent service outages. DSIT works closely with each cloud provider during and after any incident to ensure improved resilience and lessons learnt are shared across Government. For example, following earlier global digital resilience incidents, we are working to strengthen our capability to coordinate this kind of incident across Government.Government recommends that public sector organisations adopt a multi-region approach, in which they make controlled, considered use of regions in a way which is compatible with UK law. This helps improve resilience by removing the reliance on any one region.DSIT will publish the Government Cyber Action Plan this Winter, which sets out a clear approach for Government and the public sector to manage cyber security and resilience incidents impacting Government services.Government also recognises the importance of robust protections for the services essential to our society and economy – that is why we introduced the Cyber Security and Resilience Bill on 12 November.