Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:

To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, what steps her Department is taking to encourage (a) UK and (b) international technology firms to invest in AI and digital innovation clusters in the North East of England.

Answered by Kanishka Narayan - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)

The Government is committed to driving regional growth by attracting AI and digital investment across the UK, including in the North East of England. The North East AI Growth Zone will provide secure, dedicated compute infrastructure, supporting innovation and productivity and helping to unlock significant long‑term economic growth. The Zone has already attracted substantial private investment, including £10 billion from Blackstone.

Alongside this, we are investing up to £500 million through the Local Innovation Partnerships Fund to grow high‑potential innovation clusters in 17 regions across the UK. This includes £30 million for the North East, empowering local leaders to target R&D investment, attract private funding and create jobs.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what proportion of General Practices are signed up to the Clinical Practice Research Datalink (CPRD); and what steps his Department is taking to help address (a) technical and (b) contractual barriers preventing further practices from joining.

Answered by Zubir Ahmed

The Clinical Practice Research Datalink (CPRD) receives data from Optum, Vision, and TPP SystmOne practices, which represent the three largest clinical system providers to general practices (GPs). 32% of practices across all four nations currently participate in CPRD. As of 22 April, there are 7,660 practices in total, 2,428 of which currently have requested to contribute data to CPRD. The following table shows the number of practices in each nation:

CPRD is mandated to operate on a cost-recovery basis and holds contracts with all three of the main data providers. CPRD’s current data licence and service fees are only able to support a maximum of 35% population coverage across the United Kingdom. The focus is therefore on a representative practice and patient sample rather than 100% coverage.

For Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales, previous IT system limitations restricting participation are currently being lifted which will allow for further participation across the three devolved nations.

CPRD currently has 402 TPP practices signed up in England. However, due to technical issues, CPRD is unable to use TPP patient data and continues to work with the supplier to find a solution.

If a patient registers for a type 1 opt-out with their GP, or registers for the National Data Opt-out, then CPRD will not receive any new data for that patient.

The number of type 1 opt-outs are not recorded centrally, as it is not possible to specify how many people who registered for a National Data Opt-out did so to opt-out of the sharing of their data via the CPRD, as the opt-out covers a range of research. Information on the numbers of National Data Opt-outs is published at the following link:

https://digital.nhs.uk/dashboards/national-data-opt-out-open-data

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what proportion of patients in England have exercised their right to opt out of sharing their data for research purposes via the Clinical Practice Research Datalink (CPRD).

Answered by Zubir Ahmed

The Clinical Practice Research Datalink (CPRD) receives data from Optum, Vision, and TPP SystmOne practices, which represent the three largest clinical system providers to general practices (GPs). 32% of practices across all four nations currently participate in CPRD. As of 22 April, there are 7,660 practices in total, 2,428 of which currently have requested to contribute data to CPRD. The following table shows the number of practices in each nation:

CPRD is mandated to operate on a cost-recovery basis and holds contracts with all three of the main data providers. CPRD’s current data licence and service fees are only able to support a maximum of 35% population coverage across the United Kingdom. The focus is therefore on a representative practice and patient sample rather than 100% coverage.

For Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales, previous IT system limitations restricting participation are currently being lifted which will allow for further participation across the three devolved nations.

CPRD currently has 402 TPP practices signed up in England. However, due to technical issues, CPRD is unable to use TPP patient data and continues to work with the supplier to find a solution.

If a patient registers for a type 1 opt-out with their GP, or registers for the National Data Opt-out, then CPRD will not receive any new data for that patient.

The number of type 1 opt-outs are not recorded centrally, as it is not possible to specify how many people who registered for a National Data Opt-out did so to opt-out of the sharing of their data via the CPRD, as the opt-out covers a range of research. Information on the numbers of National Data Opt-outs is published at the following link:

https://digital.nhs.uk/dashboards/national-data-opt-out-open-data

Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:

To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, what steps her Department will take to prevent further withdrawal of planned AI investment from the UK, in the context of OpenAI’s decision to pause its Stargate UK project.

Answered by Kanishka Narayan - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)

Decisions on investment are a matter for private companies. The Government has been clear that it will encourage and support investments that will enable UK firms and people to benefit. Many of the large-scale AI infrastructure projects in the UK have been publicly announced, with most of these having press releases available on Gov.uk. The Government continues to engage across the board on these investments to ensure that they deliver the best outcomes for the UK.

Our focus is on continuing to create the right conditions for investment in the UK’s AI data centre infrastructure. We are continuing to work with OpenAI and other leading AI companies to strengthen UK compute capacity.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment has he made of the potential merits of proposals in the ABPI report published in March 2026.

Answered by Zubir Ahmed

The Department has considered the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry’s (ABPI) March 2026 report, Globally competitive United Kingdom wide data-enabled clinical trials: the time is now, and its proposals on improving clinical trial set‑up and recruitment through use of healthcare data. The report raises issues that align with the Government’s ongoing work to improve the UK’s clinical research environment, including delivery of faster trial set‑up and development of the Health Data Research Service (HDRS).

The HDRS will be a UK-wide service to bring new treatments and cures to patients by safely enabling the use of patient data to super-charge research, and is currently being set up. It will be for the HDRS leadership team to decide whether to take forward the recommendations of the ABPI report.

The Department continues to work with industry and research system partners through the UK Clinical Research Delivery Programme to consider how such proposals could support these objectives, while ensuring high standards of data protection and public trust.

As set out in our 10-Year Health Plan, we will integrate the Be Part of Research registry tool with the NHS App to allow people to find and sign up to research relevant to them.

Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:

To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, what steps her Department is taking to ensure AI tools are safe by design to prevent the creation of child sexual abuse material.

Answered by Kanishka Narayan - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)

It has not proved possible to respond to the hon. Member in the time available before Prorogation.

Found: Current membership Dame Chi Onwurah (Labour; Newcastle upon Tyne Central and West) (Chair) Emily Darlington

Found: following Members made oral representations: Mr Alistair Carmichael: Financial future of farming Chi Onwurah

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Found: Science, Innovation & Technology 22-26 Whitehall London, SW1A 2EG www.gov.uk/dsit Dame Chi Onwurah

Found: With best wishes, Dame Chi Onwurah MP Chair – Science, Innovation and Technology Committee

Found: Science, Innovation and Technology 22-26 Whitehall London SW1A 2EG www.gov.uk/dsit Dame Chi Onwurah

Found: Science, Innovation & Technology 22-26 Whitehall London, SW1A 2EG www.gov.uk/dsit Dame Chi Onwurah

Found: Watch the meeting Members present: Dame Chi Onwurah (Chair); George Freeman; Dr Allison Gardner; Kit

Found: Watch the meeting Members present: Dame Chi Onwurah (Chair); George Freeman; Dr Allison Gardner; Kit

Found: With best wishes, Dame Chi Onwurah MP Chair – Science, Innovation and Technology Committee

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Found: Technology 22-26 Whitehall London SW1A 2EG W: www.gov.uk/dsit 21 April 2026 Dame Chi Onwurah

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