Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps her Department is taking to tackle (a) online fraud and (b) cyber crime.

Answered by Dan Jarvis - Minister of State (Home Office)

Measures to tackle online fraud will be set out in the upcoming fraud strategy. The Chancellor, Home Secretary and Secretary of State for DSIT have already written to the tech sector to request that companies go further and faster to fight fraud.

Cyber crime causes immense damage to people and businesses in the UK and is a top priority for the Government. Our approach to tackling cyber crime is set out in the UK Government’s National Cyber Strategy. We work closely with our international partners and law enforcement agencies such as the National Crime Agency (NCA) and the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), to reduce the harm caused by cyber attacks and bolster our resilience. This is mostly recently underscored by the Home Office’s current public consultation on legislative proposals to reduce ransomware payments to cyber criminals and increase incident reporting.

The Home Office’s cyber crime programme has boosted investment and expanded training to improve the law enforcement response to deliver improvements to the UK’s cyber resilience. We provide law enforcement with the necessary cyber skills and training at the national, regional, and local levels to ensure they have the capacity and expertise to deal with the perpetrators and provide support to the victims of cyber crime.

Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what progress his Department has made on achieving Goal 4 of the National Space Strategy, published in September 2021.

Answered by Maria Eagle - Minister of State (Ministry of Defence)

The Ministry of Defence has achieved major progress on the 'Protect and Defend' mission in space. This has been achieved through the development of our own capabilities, collaboration with our international partners and across government. The creation of a UK Space Command has brought a renewed focus to the importance of space, delivering new cross-government capabilities such as a National Space Operations Centre. We have committed to the Deep Space Advanced Radar Capability alongside the US and Australia as a highly advanced tool to enhance our understanding of this vital domain. This has been underpinned by a £6.5 billion commitment over ten years to develop space capabilities, and through the Strategic Defence Review we are assessing the strategic landscape and threat picture to inform long-term decisions on investment in future capabilities.

Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:

To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, what steps his Department is taking to mitigate the risks posed by space debris to UK (a) satellites and (b) other space assets.

Answered by Chris Bryant - Minister of State (Department for Culture, Media and Sport)

The government is committed to mitigating the risk from space debris through arange of actions, including regulatory reform, international collaboration on standards and best practice, and developing capabilities to prevent, track or remove space debris. The government recently awarded £4.7 million to Astroscale and ClearSpace to understand the risks and costs of an active debris removal mission. The UK also launched the National Space Operations Centre in May 2024, combining civil and military space domain awareness and protection capabilities. This includes uncontrolled re-entry early warning, fragmentation monitoring, in-space collision avoidance protection services and support to HMG and international partners.

Found: Watch the meeting Members present: Debbie Abrahams (Chair); Johanna Baxter; Steve Darling; Damien Egan