Chris Bloore

Cyber security of the UK is a key priority for this government and DSIT and NCSC have been taking significant action to help protect businesses against cyber attacks. This includes providing businesses with the tools, advice and support to protect themselves from cyber threats, including free training for boards and staff. We have also put in place:

• The Cyber Governance Code of Practice, which shows boards and directors how to effectively manage the digital risks to their organisation
• The highly effective Cyber Essentials scheme to prevent common attacks – reducing the likelihood of a cyber insurance claim by 92%. The certification scheme includes automatic cyber liability insurance for any UK organisation who certifies their whole organisation and has less than £20m annual turnover.

In cases of acute and exogenous disruption, including in the context of the cyber attack on Jaguar Land Rover, requests for support are assessed on a case‑by‑case basis. The support for JLR. The government agreed to back JLR with a loan guarantee through UK Export Finance, to unlock up to £1.5 billion in commercial financing. This loan covered by the guarantee will be re-paid over 5 years. JLR supports 154,000 UK jobs and protects a critical part of our automotive supply chain.

The Government will continue to prioritise its support and encouragement for cyber resilience across the economy, to reduce the likelihood and impact of incidents such as cyber attacks, while retaining the ability to respond flexibly using existing frameworks where this is justified.

As part of the Plan to Make Work Pay, the Department for Business and Trade intends to publish a consultation on blacklisting protections in due course. The consultation will cover, amongst other things, the powers of employment tribunals in regard to lists of blacklisted workers. The government will carefully consider responses to the consultation before outlining next steps.

Employees can apply for five days paid special leave as a friends and family carer, this can be increased to ten days in a 12-month period.

Employees also have the statutory right to take up to a week’s unpaid leave in any 12-month period, to provide or arrange care for a dependant with a long-term care need.

DBT has an Employee Assistance Programme which provides impartial and confidential advice, counselling and online resources for all employees. The department also has a Carer’s group which is a support network for carers working at DBT

This Government continues to follow EU regulatory developments with interest, engaging with the EU on key regulatory developments via TCA structures. The Drinking Water Directive has not been discussed or raised with my Department.

UK businesses exporting to the EU must ensure that they comply with EU requirements for accessing the EU market. Guidance in respect of regulatory compliance with the revised Drinking Water Directive is the responsibility of the European Commission.

Ofgem is responsible for the regulation of competition in connections. Following its open letter on “regulatory arrangements for independent distribution network operators”,^[1] Ofgem is undertaking a review of the current regulatory framework. The review will consider how Independent Distribution Network Operators can support wider system reform and contribute to whole-system benefits. Ofgem expects to complete the review in the second half of 2027.

^[1] Response to open letter on regulatory arrangements for independent distribution network operators | Ofgem

In October 2025, Government published the Clean Energy Jobs Plan, which set out the workforce to deliver the clean energy superpower mission and how we will work with industry and trade unions to deliver it. This included announcing support to expand the Energy Skills Passport to include additional roles and sectors.

More widely, Government is funding a four-year engineering skills package worth £182 million, including funding for Technical Excellence Colleges, £47 million for engineering skills for adults, £2 million to increase the number of engineering T-Levels, and £8 million investment in level 4 and 5 clean energy engineering courses.

The Contracts for Difference (CfD) scheme has been successful in bringing forth new renewable assets at fixed, competitive prices. AR7 was the most successful round ever and secured 14.7 GW of new clean energy. CfDs are already beginning to decouple electricity and gas markets, protecting consumers from gas price volatility.

However, as announced in April, we plan to go further and faster on delinking by offering legacy low carbon assets, around 30% of the market, the opportunity to move onto a fixed price CfD. These contracts will only be offered where they deliver clear value for money for consumers.

This government has been clear that the answers to the challenges around affordability, energy security and sustainability point in the same direction, clean energy.

Clean Power means that by 2030, Great Britain will generate enough clean power to meet our total annual electricity demand, backed up by unabated gas supply to be used only when essential.

As the role of unabated gas diminishes, we continue to work with NESO and Ofgem to explore how market and system arrangements can evolve to minimise its impact on energy bills, whilst retaining sufficient unabated gas capacity for security of supply.

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

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

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

We will bring forward plans later this year to offer legacy low carbon generators the option of fixed price arrangements, with an intention to run an allocation process in 2027. Government will only offer contracts to electricity generators where it represents clear value for money for consumers. Further details will be set out in due course, with plans to consult later this year.

This government has been clear that the answers to the challenges around energy security, affordability and sustainability point in the same direction, clean energy.

By 2030 unabated gas will account for less than 5% of total generation. As the role of unabated gas diminishes, we continue to work with NESO and Ofgem to explore how market and system arrangements can evolve to minimise its impact on energy bills, whilst retaining sufficient unabated gas capacity for security of supply.

As part of this, officials have considered proposals to move gas-fired power stations onto a regulated asset base model. Whilst this option may have merits in the long-term, it also has some challenges and would take considerable time to develop and implement. No decisions have been taken at this stage.

Accelerating the deployment of renewable generation, as we are through our Clean Power 2030 Mission, will reduce the amount of time when gas is setting the price and will help to rapidly decouple electricity from gas prices without the need for more complex arrangements.

The Government is determined to increase the share of renewables on the system so that the electricity price is set by cheaper clean power sources rather than gas. Every wind turbine we switch on and solar panel we deploy helps push gas off as the price setter.

Details of Ministers' and Permanent Secretaries' meetings with external individuals and organisations are published quarterly in arrears on GOV.UK.

Great British Energy (GBE) as the government’s publicly owned energy development company is designed to deliver strategic, long-term investment in the UK’s energy infrastructure. GBE is a key part of the Government’s mission to deliver clean power by 2030 to protect billpayers from volatile international fossil fuel markets by increasing domestic energy production and bring down energy bills for good.

Whilst GBE has been set up to participate in the production, distribution, storage and supply of clean energy there are currently no plans for it to have a retail arm.

For most off-grid properties, decarbonising heat will involve installing a heat pump. The Boiler Upgrade Scheme grants offer £7,500 for heat pumps, and £5,000 for biomass boilers in specific rural cases.

The government recognises that renewable liquid fuels (RLFs) could play a role in heating. We expect sustainable biomass, a limited resource, to be prioritised where there are fewer alternatives to decarbonisation. RLFs are also more expensive to use than other heating solutions. The government continues to review evidence on the affordability and availability of sustainable feedstocks for RLFs.

The Department does not offer paid time off work specifically for kinship care. However, the Department does offer unpaid carer’s leave and both paid and unpaid special leave for employees who have caring responsibilities for dependants, either family or friends, which can include kinship.

The Sovereign AI Fund is designed to strengthen the UK’s capability in strategically important parts of the AI value chain, including compute and infrastructure. Backed by around £500 million, it combines equity investment, access to public compute, R&D funding, procurement pathways, talent support and wider government support to help strategically significant AI companies start, scale and remain anchored in the UK.

The Fund does not seek total self-sufficiency or to turn away from trusted international partners. Its purpose is to increase UK resilience, choice and influence in a global AI economy. Since launching in April, the Fund has already announced 3 direct equity investments in Callosum, Ineffable Intelligence, and Isomorphic Labs, as well as 6 more compute offers. The Fund complements wider Government action to expand public compute and AI infrastructure.

The Data and AI Ethics Framework provides detailed guidance and a self-assessment for government and public sector teams on how to use data and data-driven technologies responsibly. It bridges the gap between high-level ethical principles and practical actions, considering themes such as transparency, accountability, fairness, societal impact, security and privacy through an ethical lens. It does not replace technical or regulatory guidance in these areas, but instead complements and connects to them.

The AI Knowledge Hub is more relevant to the use of generative AI for the drafting of ministerial advice. Launched in May 2025 in response to a commitment in the AI Opportunities Action Plan, it helps UK government departments make better use of available tools through curated, sector-specific prompts and practical use cases. This includes guidance on prompting for creating draft Ministerial Submissions and states that officials must read through the suggested draft to make sure the answers are accurate and relevant to their policy work, as well as checking that all sources are verified.

The Government’s assessment has focused on how artificial intelligence can improve civil service roles, productivity and service delivery, including by automating routine tasks and supporting use of departmental capability. This work is being taken forward alongside controls on consultancy spending and wider reforms to strengthen efficiency and value for money.

The Network and Information Systems Regulations 2018 provides the UK’s only cross-sector cyber legislation, focused on protecting the security and resilience of essential services. The regulations impose security duties on Operators of Essential Services (OES) and relevant digital service providers (RDSPs) to take "appropriate and proportionate technical and organisational measures" to manage risk and prevent and minimise the impact of cyber incidents.

The Cyber Security and Resilience (Network and Information Systems) Bill, introduced in November 2025, updates these regulations to ensure it is fit for today, and the future. It will cover a wider range of critically important entities, including data centres and large load controllers and relevant managed service providers (RMSPs). The Bill will also allow, through secondary legislation, for security and resilience requirements to be set for regulated entities. Our proposals for this legislation will be linked to existing, high level security duties and be consistent with the NCSC’s Cyber Assessment Framework.

Regulators will also have the power under the Bill to designate certain suppliers as “critical” if a compromise or outage in their systems can cause a disruption to their services that would have serious, cascading impacts for our society and economy. Proportionate cyber security and resilience duties and requirements to applying to those designated suppliers, with associated requirements will be developed through secondary legislation and guidance. This will ensure that these critical suppliers have the appropriate cyber security and resilience measures in place, helping to protect the UK’s critical infrastructure from disruption.

The Bill sits alongside other regulatory regimes, such as for public telecoms providers and financial services, and a range of other tools to help organisations actively improve their cyber resilience. For example, the government offers the Cyber Essentials certification scheme to prevent the most common cyber attacks. Organisations with Cyber Essentials are 92% less likely to make a claim on their cyber insurance than those without it.