Asked by: Lord Cromwell (Crossbench - Excepted Hereditary)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask Her Majesty's Government, given the “real danger that hostile actors use online disinformation to undermine” the UK’s “democratic values and principles” outlined in their Online Harms White Paper, published in April 2019, what steps they plan to take to empower the proposed independent regulator to require online platforms to take down such material that may be perceived to have an impact on an electoral contest; and what guidance they plan to give to that regulator about how any such decision should be reached.
Answered by Baroness Barran - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
On 12 February the Government published its Initial Consultation Response to the Online Harms White Paper. This sets out our direction of travel on a number of key areas, including that we are minded to appoint Ofcom as the regulator for online harms, and more detail on the proposed approach of the regulator. The response also confirmed that a media literacy strategy will be published in Summer 2020 and aim to support citizens in thinking critically about the things they come across online. More detailed proposals on online harms regulation will be released in the spring.
The Government has also established the Defending Democracy programme to bring together expertise and ongoing work on protecting democratic processes from different departments. This programme, led by the Cabinet Office, has been set up to:
protect and secure UK democratic processes, systems and institutions from interference, including from cyber, personnel and physical threats;
strengthen the integrity of UK elections;
encourage respect for open, fair and safe democratic participation; and
promote fact-based and open discourse, including online.
As part of this work, we engage regularly with social media companies to understand the actions they are taking to prevent misuse of their platforms.
Asked by: Lord Cromwell (Crossbench - Excepted Hereditary)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government, further to the oral answer by Lord Ashton of Hyde on 27 March (HL Deb, col 355), and in the light of the finding by the Coalition for a Digital Economy in its report <i>Global Britain: From local startups to international markets</i>, published in February, that one third of technology start-ups’ first ten hires came from outside the UK, what is their estimate of the shortage of specialist technical staff needed by the digital technology sector in the UK; and what estimate they have made of future staffing needs in that sector.
Answered by Lord Ashton of Hyde
DCMS is leading a review focused on identifying the current and future advanced and specialist digital skills gaps in the UK’s digital technology sector and wider economy. This work will give DCMS a greater understanding of the characteristics of the existing advanced and digital specialist workforce in the UK, current and future advanced and specialist digital skills needs in the UK, and will inform how to focus efforts on developing the UK digital skills pipeline. We anticipate the review will be completed by summer 2017.
Asked by: Lord Cromwell (Crossbench - Excepted Hereditary)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government, further to the oral answer by Lord Ashton of Hyde on 27 March (HL Deb, col 355), whether they intend to address the need for people from overseas with the requisite digital technology skills to be able to come to work in the UK during the Brexit negotiation process; if not, what assessment they have made of the impact of failing to address that need in the short-term on the UK economy; and if so, what steps they are taking to support access to the skills required in that sector.
Answered by Lord Ashton of Hyde
We seek to guarantee the rights of EU citizens who are already living in Britain, and the rights of British nationals in other member states as early as we can. This remains an early priority for the forthcoming negotiations. We will control immigration so that we continue to attract the brightest and the best to work or study in Britain, but manage the process properly so that our immigration system serves the national interest. As part of that it is important that we understand the impacts of different options on different sectors of the economy and the labour market. We are taking action across the entire education and training pipeline to ensure we have the digital skills to maintain our world leading digital economy.