Written questions by Collins.

Innovation and Technology, what assessment her Department has made of the level of risk to UK competitiveness from underinvestment in (a) AI and (b) defence technology; and what steps she is taking to ensure that the UK does not fall behind international competitors in AI development and deployment.

In January, we accepted all 50 recommendations of the AI Opportunities Action Plan, setting out the steps we are taking to ensure the UK does not fall behind the advances in AI made by global competitors but rather is an AI maker, not an AI taker.At the Spending Review, we committed up to £2 billion to deliver this plan, and are now 11 months into delivery. We are investing in the foundations of AI through world-class computing and data infrastructure, for example increasing public compute by 20x by 2030 through the expansion of the AI Research Resource programme, and through the announcement of 4 AI Growth Zone sites since January this year. We will also combine equity investment with other levers to back British businesses to become national champions in critical domains through the £500 million-backed Sovereign AI Unit.DSIT is also working with the MoD to foster a world-leading UK defence technology sector through establishing the UK Defence Innovation (UKDI) Organisation and collaborating on National Security Strategic Investment Fund (NSSIF) investment programmes.

Innovation and Technology, what support her Department is providing to enable local authorities to commission AI skills training for SMEs and community groups in their areas.

The AI Opportunities Action Plan sets out how we can strengthen our AI skills and talent base to ensure AI can be used by workers and the public across the UK. We are providing targeted support to SMEs, training 7.5 million workers with essential AI skills by 2030 and trialing AI traineeships at the National Innovation Centre for Data (NICD) in Newcastle, helping new UK AI graduates to develop industry-ready skill sets by working on real-world projects through industry placements.We are also providing £5m for each AI Growth Zone (AIGZ) to support skills and adoption in the area and we are also ensuring that local authorities keep 100% of all business rates generated by sites where pre-existing arrangements do not exist.We are targeting our funding to where it is most impactful and continue to forge strong partnerships with industry and local government to deliver these initiatives.

Innovation and Technology, what steps her Department is taking to ensure that safety-by-design principles are integrated into AI systems from inception rather than as retrospective additions especially given the persistence in harmful online content including deep-fake CSAMs that are visible across the internet.

The government is committed to tackling the atrocious harm of child sexual exploitation and abuse (CSEA). Making, distributing or possessing child sexual abuse material (CSAM) is a serious criminal offence, and the Online Safety Act requires services to proactively identify and remove such content.The Act requires in-scope services, including AI services, to take a safety by design approach to tackling these harms. Ofcom has set out safety measures, including requiring risky services to use technology to detect known images and scan for links to such content. There are also measures to tackle online grooming.We are taking further action in the Crime and Policing Bill to criminalise AI models which have been optimised to create CSAM and creating a new legal defence which will allow designated experts (such as AI developers and third sector organisations) to stringently test whether AI systems can generate CSAM, and develop safeguards to prevent it.The government remains committed to taking further steps, if required, to ensure that the UK is prepared for the changes that AI will bring.

Innovation and Technology, what assessment her Department has made of the benefits of (a) a duty of candour requiring AI developers and deployers to publicly disclose when biases are discovered in their algorithms or training data and (b) providing clear mitigation strategies, similar to disclosure requirements in other regulated sectors such as medicines.

A range of existing rules already apply to AI systems such as data protection, competition, equality legislation and sectoral regulation. The government is also committed to supporting regulators to promote the responsible use of AI in their sectors and mitigate AI-related challenges, such as identifying and addressing algorithmic bias.To help tackle this issue, we ran the Fairness Innovation Challenge (FIC) with Innovate UK, the Equality and Human Rights Council (EHRC), and the ICO. FIC supported the development of novel of solutions to address bias and discrimination in AI systems and supported the EHRC and ICO to shape their own broader regulatory guidance.This is complemented by the work of the AI Security Institute (AISI) who work in close collaboration with AI companies to assess model safeguards and suggest mitigations to risks pertaining to national security.To date, AISI has tested over 30 models from leading AI companies, including OpenAI, Google DeepMind and Anthropic.The government is committed to ensuring that the UK is prepared for the changes AI will bring and AISI’s research will continue to inform our approach.

Innovation and Technology, what steps her Department is taking to establish standardised testing frameworks for identifying bias in AI datasets; and whether she will consider introducing requirements for the quality of databases used to train artificial intelligence systems.

AI is already regulated in the UK. A range of existing rules already apply to AI systems, such as data protection, competition, equality legislation and sectoral regulation. The government is committed to supporting regulators to promote the responsible use of AI in their sectors, including identifying and addressing bias.To help tackle this issue, we ran the Fairness Innovation Challenge (FIC) with Innovate UK, the Equality and Human Rights Council (EHRC), and the ICO. FIC supported the development of novel of solutions to address bias and discrimination in AI systems and supported the EHRC and ICO to shape their own broader regulatory guidance.The government is committed to ensuring that the UK is prepared for the changes AI will bring.

Innovation and Technology, what transparency conditions are currently required when government departments procure AI systems from private companies; and what mechanisms are in place to ensure public sector bodies can explain AI-driven decisions to citizens when the underlying models are proprietary.

Since February 2024, all government departments and arm’s-length bodies must comply with the Algorithmic Transparency Recording Standard (ATRS), which mandates publishing details on algorithmic tools, including decision-making processes, human oversight, technical specifications, and risk assessments. Suppliers are required to provide sufficient information for transparency records, with exemptions balancing commercial sensitivities. Over 36 ATRS records have been published to date.The AI Knowledge Hub further enhances transparency by sharing open-source code, problem statements, and performance metrics.Additionally, the Open Source AI Fellowship promotes explainability through publicly inspectable models. These measures enable government to explain AI-driven decisions while maintaining accountability.

Innovation and Technology, what assessment her Department has made of the potential impact of unspecified price increases in fixed-term telecoms contract on consumers; and whether her Department has had discussions with Ofcom about reviewing the regulation of such increases.

It is imperative that people feel empowered when interacting with the telecoms market and that they can be confident they are getting a fair deal.The Secretary of State wrote to Ofcom’s CEO on 31 October to seek Ofcom’s assessment of existing consumer protections and to explore what could be done further and faster on transparent and fair pricing. The Secretary of State has also met with consumer advocate Martin Lewis of MoneySavingExpert, to discuss issues raised in the letter and ideas to further strengthen protections for ordinary people.

Innovation and Technology, what recent discussions her department has had with a) telecoms companies b) consumer groups on unspecified discretionary price rises in consumer telecoms contracts.

It is imperative that people feel empowered when interacting with the telecoms market and that they can be confident they are getting a fair deal.The Secretary of State wrote to Ofcom’s CEO on 31 October to seek Ofcom’s assessment of existing consumer protections and to explore what could be done further and faster on transparent and fair pricing. The Secretary of State has also met with consumer advocate Martin Lewis of MoneySavingExpert, to discuss issues raised in the letter and ideas to further strengthen protections for ordinary people.

Innovation and Technology, what assessment her Department has made of the potential merits of geographical indication protections for regionally significant natural stones.

I am responding as minister with responsibility for intellectual property. Geographical indications for craft and industrial products, e.g. natural stones, can be protected in the UK via specialised collective and certification trade marks. Collective and certification trade marks can be applied for via the Intellectual Property Office and are accompanied by regulations that set out the conditions of use of the trade mark. This can include that the goods or services covered by the mark have a specific geographical origin. As trade marks are private rights, it is for potential applicants to decide whether to seek such trade mark protection.

Innovation and Technology, whether his Department has had recent discussions with representatives of the creative industries on a potential copyright and AI framework.

The Government will continue to engage extensively with stakeholders on copyright and AI. This includes establishing a stakeholder working group to inform the development of copyright and AI policy.This work commenced over the Summer, where three initial meetings were convened with representatives of the creative, media and AI sectors, by the Secretaries of State for the Department for Culture, Media and Sport and the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology.Information relating to the stakeholder working group will be published on Gov.uk, which will include further details and a list of working group members.

Innovation and Technology, whether Ofcom plans to (a) measure and (b) report on the effectiveness of the Online Safety Act 2023 for tackling online child grooming.

Monitoring and evaluation are key to understanding how effective the online safety regime is. The Government and Ofcom are actively monitoring the regime’s impact through a programme of evaluation work.This work will track the effect of the online safety regime over time and feed into a statutory Post Implementation Review of the Online Safety Act. The review will assess the performance of the legislation against its primary objectives, including how the online safety regime has protected children online.

Innovation and Technology, what steps her Department is taking to help increase the level of funding for the pharmaceutical and life sciences sector for clinical trials to (a) optimise existing treatments and (b) support innovation in repurposed drugs for paediatric brain cancer.

The Department for Science, Innovation and Technology invests approximately £200 million into cancer research annually via UK Research and Innovation. In parallel, the Department of Health and Social Care funds cancer research via the National Institute for Health and Care Research, investing £133 million in 2023/24.The government is supporting commercial clinical research through the Commercial Research Delivery Networks as part of the voluntary scheme for branded medicines pricing, access and growth Investment Programme. Government investment and infrastructure can be used to optimise existing treatments and support innovation in drug repurposing. The forthcoming National Cancer Plan will also detail plans for improving care across all cancer types, including paediatric brain cancers.

Innovation and Technology, what steps his Department is taking to ensure mobile network operators cannot invoke the all reasonable efforts clause to avoid penalties under the Shared Rural Network agreement in (a) remote and (b) total not-spot areas.

The Shared Rural Network programme is underpinned by licence obligations enforced by Ofcom. Under the licences, the mobile network operators can only invoke the reasonable endeavours clauses under specific circumstances, by providing evidence to Ofcom, and would do so at their own discretion. Ofcom will make any assessment of whether any such claims are valid at a key delivery deadline of January 2027. This is an independent process facilitated by Ofcom and it would not be appropriate for the Department to intervene and take steps to stop the operators invoking the reasonable endeavours clauses.

Innovation and Technology, pursuant to the Answer of 19 June 2025 to Question 59177 on Broadband: Coastal Areas and Rural Areas, whether the reported 95 percent coverage achieved by the Shared Rural Network will be reviewed using Ofcom’s forthcoming reporting methodology based on a 5 Mbps threshold.

The previously agreed coverage thresholds for the Shared Rural Network were designed to reflect the level of service required to make calls and access online services in areas that previously had little to no service. This remains the baseline for the programme. We will continue to work with the mobile network operators to ensure that the improved connectivity we are putting in place meets the needs of rural communities.

Innovation and Technology, what his planned timetable is for publishing the consultation on the proposed AI Bill.

The Government plans to publish a consultation later this year on AI legislation.

Innovation and Technology, whether his Department has made an assessment of the potential merits of establishing an international AI safety agency headquartered in the UK.

AI is the technology driving the next global industrial revolution - creating the economic growth which is central to our Plan for Change. Through the AI opportunities action plan, we are cementing Britain's position as a world leader on AI.The UK is committed to international cooperation on AI safety and security. The AI Security Institute is a central example of our leadership.The Institute has one of the world's largest teams dedicated to AI security.Technical talent is drawn from the best AI labs in the world, including: Anthropic, OpenAI and Google DeepMind. It is the first state-backed body of its kind, and its work sets the global gold standard for AI security.It partners internationally, with the US, Canada and many others to develop best practices on secure AI development.

Innovation and Technology, whether his Department plans to work with technology companies to co-develop (a) standards and (b) frameworks to help increase levels of trust in AI among (i) the public and (ii) businesses.

The government recognises the importance of trust in AI systems. DSIT is building confidence in and driving adoption of AI by supporting a growing, competitive, and dynamic AI assurance ecosystem. AI assurance can help provide the basis for consumers to trust the products they buy will work as intended and for industry to confidently invest in new products and services.The Department will continue to work with a range of stakeholders, including the public and businesses, as we deliver initiatives to support the AI assurance ecosystem. This includes further developing our AI Management Essentials framework for businesses as well as our roadmap to trusted third-party AI assurance, which will be published this summer.

Innovation and Technology, what recent discussions he has had with the Secretary of State for Home Affairs on protecting (a) elderly and (b) vulnerable people against AI scams using deepfake content; and what steps he is taking to tackle such scams.

DSIT regularly engages with Home Office on ongoing efforts to protect users from online harms, including AI-generated scams. AI generated content is regulated by the Online Safety Act where it is shared on an in-scope service and constitutes either illegal content or content which is harmful to children.In March this year the Act’s illegal harms duties came into force, with fraud captured as a priority offence. User-to-user services must take preventative measures to stop fraudulent content from appearing and swiftly remove it where it does. Search services must minimise fraudulent content from appearing in results. This includes AI generated deepfake scams.

Innovation and Technology, whether his Department conducted a Disability Impact Assessment of the Public Switched Telephone Network migration.

The Department has not conducted a Disability Impact Assessment. The Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) migration is an industry-led programme and does not result from a government decision.The Government is committed to ensuring that any risks arising from the industry-led migration of the PSTN to Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) are mitigated for all customers across the UK. In November 2024, at Government’s behest, all major communication providers agreed additional safeguards to protect vulnerable customers, including for people living with disabilities.

Innovation and Technology, what recent discussions his Department has had with the Home Office on protecting (a) elderly and (b) vulnerable people against AI-generated scams in the form of deepfake content.

DSIT regularly engages with Home Office on ongoing efforts to protect users from online harms, including AI-Generated scams. AI generated content is regulated by the Online Safety Act where it is shared on an in-scope service and constitutes either illegal content or content which is harmful to children.In March this year the Act’s illegal harms duties came into force, with fraud captured as a priority offence. User-to-user services must take preventative measures to stop fraudulent content from appearing and swiftly remove it where it does. Search services must minimise fraudulent content from appearing in results. This includes AI generated deepfake scams.