Asked by: Andrew Snowden (Conservative - Fylde)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, what steps he is taking to increase broadband access for (a) residents and (b) businesses in (i) Fylde constituency and (ii) Lancashire.
Answered by Chris Bryant - Minister of State (Department for Culture, Media and Sport)
According to the independent website Thinkbroadband.com, over 99% of homes and businesses in the Fylde constituency can access superfast broadband speeds (>=30 Mbps) and over 94% have access to a gigabit-capable broadband connection (>1000 Mbps). In Lancashire, over 98% of homes and businesses can access superfast broadband speeds, and over 90% have access to a gigabit-capable connection.
To improve this coverage further, Openreach is delivering a Project Gigabit contract across Lancashire, targeted at bringing gigabit-capable broadband to homes and businesses in hard-to-reach areas that are unlikely to be otherwise reached by suppliers’ commercial rollout. Approximately 11,450 homes and businesses in Lancashire are currently expected to benefit from this contract, including in Fylde.
Asked by: Andrew Gwynne (Independent - Gorton and Denton)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, if he will take steps to help support industrial research in the North West.
Answered by Feryal Clark - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
The North West has unique industrial and scientific strengths that the government is committed to continue to grow as part of our ambition to drive the development of high-potential science and technology clusters across the UK.
Between the financial years 2021/22 and 2023/24 UK Research and Innovation’s (UKRI) annual investment in the North West rose from £671 million to £903 million. UKRI’s investments have supported key industrial research projects in the region including the Medicine Discovery Catapult, pioneering the next generation of complex medicines through the development of cutting-edge technologies and assay.
Asked by: Andrew Gwynne (Independent - Gorton and Denton)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, whether his Department plans to provide funding for projects relating to (a) energy, (b) life sciences, (c) advanced materials and (d) other scientific fields in the North West in the 2025-26 financial year.
Answered by Feryal Clark - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
The government is committed to protecting record levels of R&D investment, having allocated £20.4 billion for the 2025/26 financial year. This substantial funding underpins a broad spectrum of scientific research and innovation, supporting areas such as energy, life sciences, and advanced materials.
In April 2025, DSIT confirmed UKRI’s allocation for 2025-26 of £8.8bn, this will support investments in the North West across these important scientific fields including the Henry Royce Institute – the UK National Institute for advanced materials research and innovation. The hub for the institute is at The University of Manchester, with University of Liverpool also a partner.
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, what steps he is taking to increase the number of apprenticeship starts in his Department.
Answered by Feryal Clark - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
We remain committed to supporting the use of apprenticeships across all government departments to break down barriers to opportunity. This includes supporting the Government's commitment to 2,000 digital apprenticeships through its TechTrack scheme by 2030 to improve digital skills and drive improvements and efficiency in public services.
Additionally, a new cross-Government Level 3 apprenticeship programme in Business Administration, The ‘Civil Service Career Launch Apprenticeship’ (CLA), will see new apprentices kickstart their careers, across various departments, starting from January 2026.
In DSIT, we are also taking active steps to increase apprenticeship starts through our Apprenticeship Blueprint, which focuses on four key areas: digital, cyber security, line manager capability, and science & engineering. The department is also expanding its offer to include skills in policy, systems thinking, and profession-specific apprenticeship programmes.
DSIT will also be embedding apprenticeships into recruitment processes, giving managers the option to fill vacancies with apprentices.
Asked by: Anna Gelderd (Labour - South East Cornwall)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, whether he plans to maintain the level of financial support for research to achieve the (a) replacement, (b) refinement and (c) reduction of animals in research and (d) develop non-animal alternatives.
Answered by Feryal Clark - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
The Government is committed to the development of non-animal alternatives. UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) has a diverse portfolio of investments that support research which can lead to alternatives, such as organ on a chip and computer modelling. They invest £10m annually to the National Centre for the Replacement, Refinement and Reduction of Animals in Research (NC3Rs). UKRI also supports ‘human-specific’ research, for example a £15m call on Novel human in vitro models of disease with NC3Rs and Wellcome.
The government will publish a strategy to support the development, validation and uptake of alternative methods later this year.
Asked by: Rupert Lowe (Independent - Great Yarmouth)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, if they will make it their policy to not provide (a) translation and (b) interpretation for speakers of non-UK languages for services provided by their Department.
Answered by Feryal Clark - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
Services which DSIT offers to the public are set out on GOV.UK. Language service needs and spend are assessed to ensure these services offer good value for money for taxpayers while maintaining high standards of service delivery.
Asked by: Andrew Snowden (Conservative - Fylde)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, what recent progress he has made on achieving full gigabit coverage by 2030.
Answered by Chris Bryant - Minister of State (Department for Culture, Media and Sport)
According to the independent website ThinkBroadband.com, over 87% of UK premises now have access to a gigabit-capable connection.
More than £2.3 billion in Project Gigabit contracts have now been signed to connect over 1 million more premises. This includes the latest contract in Scotland we announced with Openreach earlier this month.
In the last few months, the first premises have been connected as part of Project Gigabit contracts in areas including Norfolk, West Yorkshire and South Wiltshire, and build has now started in earnest in other parts of the country too. In March, we announced the Project Gigabit contract for Cumbria, being delivered by Fibrus, had been extended to connect an additional 21,000 premises.
Asked by: Jim Shannon (Democratic Unionist Party - Strangford)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, what estimate he has made of the number of cyber attacks on large shops in the last 5 years.
Answered by Feryal Clark - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
The government’s Cyber Security Breaches Survey 2025 estimates that 43% of UK businesses suffered a cyber breach or attack in the past 12 months, equivalent to 612,000 organisations. In the retail/wholesale sector, this figure is 32%. The proportion of businesses in the retail/wholesale sector suffering a cyber breach or attack in each of the past five years are as follows:
2021: 37%
2022: 29%
2023: 28%
2024: 43%
2025: 32%
The cyber security of the UK is a priority for the government. Organisations of any size, in any sector, can use the government's Cyber Essentials scheme to protect themselves against the majority of cyber threats. 92% fewer insurance claims are made by businesses and organisations with these controls in place. Further, the new Cyber Governance Code published in April sets out how boards and directors how to effectively manage digital risks. Beyond these, companies and public organisations can help protect themselves against ransomware and other cyber threats by using the wide range of free advice, training and tools available on the National Cyber Security Centre website.
Asked by: Lord West of Spithead (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the environmental impact in the Turks and Caicos Islands of the explosions of SpaceX rockets in January and March.
Answered by Lord Vallance of Balham - Minister of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
Following the Starship 7 failure in January, the Government supported the Government of the Turks and Caicos Islands. This support included the development of plans to restore the state of the Turks and Caicos Islands coastal and marine environment to a condition pre-flight 7.
The Government has not conducted a formal environmental impact assessment. Environmental policy is a devolved matter for UK Overseas Territory governments.
The Government continues to support the Government of the Turks and Caicos Islands on the local response to the Starship 7 incident.
Asked by: Lord Agnew of Oulton (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of which services are operated, whether directly or through third parties, from which servers in which data centres across the government IT estate.
Answered by Baroness Jones of Whitchurch - Baroness in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)
No central assessment has been made of which services and servers are operated from which data centers across the government estate. Whilst we would expect individual organisations to have an understanding of the physical locations that are associated with the running of their digital services to support business continuity planning this is not information that is recorded centrally. In the public cloud the information required by organisations is different and they should understand the cloud regions in which their services are hosted rather than the physical location of servers, especially for modern cloud-native workloads which are abstracted from physical servers.