Asked by: Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask His Majesty's Government what consideration they have given to enabling the British Board of Film Classification to perform a formal auditing role for online pornography platforms to ensure online-offline regulatory parity.
Answered by Baroness Lloyd of Effra - Baroness in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)
The Government announced the joint pornography team as part of the VAWG strategy in December. In March, it committed to produce a delivery plan setting out how the government can most effectively close the gap between the regulation of online and offline pornographic content. This will test audit and reporting functions and will consider which regulatory frameworks can best address the issue, noting the interactions with the BBFC’s existing remit and that of Ofcom under the Online Safety Act.
Asked by: Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask His Majesty's Government what discussions they have had with Ofcom about developing regulatory guidance for telecoms providers on governance, risk management, and internal controls.
Answered by Baroness Lloyd of Effra - Baroness in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)
The Government and Ofcom keep the financial health of the telecoms market under close review. Ofcom have powers to request financial information from providers where appropriate.
Alongside this, the Government and Ofcom keep regulation of the telecoms market under review to ensure that it promotes resilience and market stability while encouraging investment and innovation. My department regularly engages with Ofcom on these issues.
Asked by: Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask His Majesty's Government, following the research by the Chartered Institute of Internal Auditors in its letter to Ofcom published on 1 August, what plans they have to issue regulatory guidance for telecoms companies on best practice governance and oversight.
Answered by Baroness Lloyd of Effra - Baroness in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)
The Government, working with Ofcom, closely monitors the financial health of the telecoms market. Ofcom have powers to request financial information from providers where appropriate.
We recently held a public consultation on proposed updates to the Telecommunications Security Code of Practice, which provides guidance on how public telecoms providers can meet their statutory requirements to secure their networks and services. These include requirements relating to reviews, governance and board responsibilities. Ofcom monitor and enforce these requirements.
In response to the consultation, the Chartered Institute of Internal Auditors raised the matter of independent assurance arrangements. We are now carefully reviewing all feedback to the consultation to ensure that any updates to the Code of Practice are appropriate and proportionate.
Asked by: Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the merits of including guidance on internal audit for broadband providers as part of the update to the Telecommunications Security Code of Practice.
Answered by Baroness Lloyd of Effra - Baroness in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)
The Government, working with Ofcom, closely monitors the financial health of the telecoms market. Ofcom have powers to request financial information from providers where appropriate.
We recently held a public consultation on proposed updates to the Telecommunications Security Code of Practice, which provides guidance on how public telecoms providers can meet their statutory requirements to secure their networks and services. These include requirements relating to reviews, governance and board responsibilities. Ofcom monitor and enforce these requirements.
In response to the consultation, the Chartered Institute of Internal Auditors raised the matter of independent assurance arrangements. We are now carefully reviewing all feedback to the consultation to ensure that any updates to the Code of Practice are appropriate and proportionate.
Asked by: Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the potential merits of requiring broadcast providers to maintain internal audit functions.
Answered by Baroness Lloyd of Effra - Baroness in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)
The Government, working with Ofcom, closely monitors the financial health of the telecoms market. Ofcom have powers to request financial information from providers where appropriate.
We recently held a public consultation on proposed updates to the Telecommunications Security Code of Practice, which provides guidance on how public telecoms providers can meet their statutory requirements to secure their networks and services. These include requirements relating to reviews, governance and board responsibilities. Ofcom monitor and enforce these requirements.
In response to the consultation, the Chartered Institute of Internal Auditors raised the matter of independent assurance arrangements. We are now carefully reviewing all feedback to the consultation to ensure that any updates to the Code of Practice are appropriate and proportionate.
Asked by: Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the effectiveness of the Charity Research Support Fund in supporting universities in England who receive charity research funding.
Answered by Lord Vallance of Balham - Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
The Government recognises the Charity Research Support Fund as an important mechanism to help universities meet the indirect costs of charity-funded research. Its effectiveness is being assessed through Research England’s Strategic Institutional Research Funding (SIRF) review and the UKRI Transparency Programme. The review will explore the effectiveness, impact, allocation mechanisms and transparent uses of SIRF, and how it delivers on its aims and objectives. Findings from the SIRF review will be published alongside those from the Transparency Programme, with reporting expected soon after the end of academic year 2025-26. Any changes to the allocation methods will be considered following the publication of review findings.
Asked by: Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask His Majesty's Government whether they have considered any revised methods of allocation of the Charity Research Support Fund.
Answered by Lord Vallance of Balham - Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
The Government recognises the Charity Research Support Fund as an important mechanism to help universities meet the indirect costs of charity-funded research. Its effectiveness is being assessed through Research England’s Strategic Institutional Research Funding (SIRF) review and the UKRI Transparency Programme. The review will explore the effectiveness, impact, allocation mechanisms and transparent uses of SIRF, and how it delivers on its aims and objectives. Findings from the SIRF review will be published alongside those from the Transparency Programme, with reporting expected soon after the end of academic year 2025-26. Any changes to the allocation methods will be considered following the publication of review findings.
Asked by: Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of how the safety measures in the Online Safety Act 2023 apply to conversational interactions between users and artificial intelligence chatbots where an online search has not been conducted.
Answered by Baroness Lloyd of Effra - Baroness in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)
AI chatbots that allow users to share content with one another are regulated by the Online Safety Act. This is in addition to chatbots which search live websites to provide results. Over 100,000 services are in scope of the Act including many services with chatbots.
These services must protect users from illegal content, and they must protect children from harmful and age-inappropriate content. The Government has been clear that we will act to address new and emerging AI harms. For example, government is tackling the disgusting harm of Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse with a new offence to criminalise AI models which have been optimised for this purpose. The Secretary of State has also commissioned the department to see what gaps there are if any, in coverage of the Online Safety Act.
Asked by: Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask His Majesty's Government what discussions they are having with the technology industry to ensure artificial intelligence models are tested robustly before deployment, and to embed safeguards such as suicide prevention into model development.
Answered by Baroness Lloyd of Effra - Baroness in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)
The Government has ongoing partnerships with artificial intelligence developers to ensure the safety of the models they develop. It is essential that AI models are appropriately tested to ensure safeguards are robust, possible harms are considered and risks mitigated, to ensure the British public are protected.
The role of the AI Security Institute (AISI) is to build an evidence base of these risks, to inform government decision making and help make AI more secure and reliable. AISI works in close collaboration with AI companies to assess model safeguards and suggest mitigations. To date, AISI has tested over 30 models from leading AI companies, including OpenAI, Google DeepMind and Anthropic. AISI’s findings lead to tangible changes to AI models before deployment, reducing the risk from day one.
Once deployed, many AI services are captured by the Online Safety Act 2023, which places robust duties on all in-scope user-to-user and search services, including those deploying generative artificial intelligence chatbots, to prevent users from encountering illegal suicide and self-harm content. These duties apply regardless of whether content is created by AI or by humans.
Asked by: Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to reduce the risks of harm from generative artificial intelligence and chatbots.
Answered by Baroness Lloyd of Effra - Baroness in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)
Generative AI services, including AI chatbots, which allow users to share content with one another or search live websites to provide search results, are regulated under the Online Safety Act. In-scope services are required to protect all users from illegal content and children from encountering harmful content, including where it is AI generated.
The Government will not hesitate to act where required – for example we have introduced an offence in the Crime and Policing Bill to criminalise AI models which have been optimised to create child sexual abuse material.
Responding to the AI Action Plan, the Government committed to work with regulators to boost their AI capabilities. We are committed to ensuring our rule book is up to date and future-proofed so the UK is prepared for the changes AI will bring.