Every parliamentary written question tabled by Samantha Niblett this session, with the full answer and department. Back to the MP page.
Showing 1–20 of 34 · Department for Science, Innovation and Technology
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 Status investigation into Microsoft's business software ecosystem; and what steps her Department is taking to help ensure that the investigation proceeds without delay from its scheduled commencement in May 2026.
Awaiting answer.
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 intelligence into Microsoft's business software ecosystem creates risks of distorting competition in a critical layer of UK digital infrastructure.
Awaiting answer.
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 findings that Microsoft's software licensing practices reduce competition in UK cloud markets and impose additional costs on public sector organisations.
Awaiting answer.
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 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 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 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 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.
Innovation and Technology, pursuant to the Answer of 4 June 2025 to Question 55786 on Public Sector: Digital Technology, whether his Department’s digital transformation strategy will include the (a) financial impact of software assets on departmental budgets and (b) impact of identified dependencies on those assets on cost efficiencies.
The State of Digital Government review, A blueprint for modern digital government and the Performance Review of Digital Spend, all published this year, have highlighted the need to reform digital purchasing.The Government has launched a Digital Commercial Centre of Excellence, containing experts from the Digital and Commercial Functions, within the Government Digital Service (GDS) in my department. It is pursuing multiple strategies to improve value for money and outcomes including central buying of commodity services, development of a digital sourcing strategy, creation of technical enablers and joined-up management of strategic digital suppliers.
Innovation and Technology, pursuant to the Answer of 4 June 2025 to Question 55785 on Public Sector: Digital Technology, what discussions his Department has had with the Digital Commercial Centre of Excellence on the impact of software licensing for Government software procurement on the digital transformation strategy.
The State of Digital Government review, A blueprint for modern digital government and the Performance Review of Digital Spend, all published this year, have highlighted the need to reform digital purchasing.The Government has launched a Digital Commercial Centre of Excellence, containing experts from the Digital and Commercial Functions, within the Government Digital Service (GDS) in my department. It is pursuing multiple strategies to improve value for money and outcomes including central buying of commodity services, development of a digital sourcing strategy, creation of technical enablers and joined-up management of strategic digital suppliers.
Innovation and Technology, what steps his Department is taking to support (a) the Health Innovation Network and (b) other regional networks to help (i) support health technology SMEs and (ii) increase economic growth.
The Government continues to fund the Health Innovation Network to support health and social care teams to identify, test, and scale new solutions – including new health technologies – to major NHS challenges. Since 2018, HIN programmes have created or secured over 10,000 jobs and provided bespoke support to thousands of SME innovators, contributing >£2.6bn to UK economy with a 3:1 return on investment.Other Government-funded regional networks include the NIHR Research Delivery Network, which enables the health and care system to attract, optimise and deliver research across England. This includes supporting the delivery of research funded by health technology SMEs.
Innovation and Technology, what assessment has been made of the potential impact of restrictive software licensing on the ability to achieve the digital transformation of public services.
Government procures software via a number of agreed frameworks which are tendered via the Crown Commercial Service and are awarded under the relevant procurement regulations. The introduction of the new procurement act 2023 will provide government with an ability to consider how such services are contracted in the future.The creation of the Digital Commercial Centre of Excellence is overseeing the development of sourcing/category strategies to co-ordinate how we shape demand, drive down usage and optmise the way such assets are used. This work is currently underway.
Innovation and Technology, what assessment he has made of the impact of (a) usage, (b) year-over-year spend and (c) potential dependencies of the Government's current software assets on cost efficiencies.
His Majesty's Government monitors the usage of individual and enterprise licenses across a wide variety of products
Innovation and Technology, what steps he is taking to support the technology industry in adopting data-led practices to improve diversity in the sector; and whether the Department plans to support an industry diversity accreditation scheme.
The Government is committed to promoting diversity in the tech sector and is doing so in a number of ways. DSIT is supporting the Tech Future Taskforce on Social Mobility, which includes helping companies to collect and act upon data to promote tech workforce diversity. As committed in the AI Opportunities Action Plan, DfE and DSIT will collaborate with industry to publish a plan to improve the diversity of the AI talent pool.More widely, the Employment Rights Bill and Equality (Race and Disability) Bill will strengthen reporting and action on gender, race and disability by large companies, which includes tech companies.