Asked by: Freddie van Mierlo (Liberal Democrat - Henley and Thame)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, whether she will make an assessment of the effectiveness of the enforcement of the Malicious Communications Act 1988.
Answered by Kanishka Narayan - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
The Online Safety Act introduced a number of communication offences, which were commenced in January 2024, including the false and threatening communications offences. The new communications offences have replaced the equivalent offences in the Malicious Communications Act 1988. In the January to December 2024 period, there were 14 convictions under the false communications offence and 294 under the threatening communications offence.
Asked by: Freddie van Mierlo (Liberal Democrat - Henley and Thame)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, what steps she is taking to help ensure that parents receive adequate information on (a) the use of (i) parental controls and (ii) virtual private networks and (b) other steps to keep children safe online.
Answered by Kanishka Narayan - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
DSIT has funded media literacy projects, including Parent Zone’s ‘Everyday Digital’, to help parents understand online safety. On 12 September 2025, DSIT published research exploring what support parents need to keep children safe online. Ofcom has also released a guide for parents on how new Online Safety Act measures will protect children online, including advice and links to trusted resources.
Virtual private networks have many legitimate uses. The Government and Ofcom continue to monitor whether technologies can be used to seek to circumvent the protections of the Act for children.
Asked by: Freddie van Mierlo (Liberal Democrat - Henley and Thame)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, what assessment she has made of the adequacy of online safety regulations for protecting people against harmful advice provided by AI chatbots.
Answered by Kanishka Narayan - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
Services with AI chatbots regulated under the Online Safety Act have duties to protect all users from illegal content and children from age inappropiate content. This includes harmful advice if it is illegal content or meets the definition of harmful content to children under the Act.
The Government keeps all legislation under review and we will not hesitate to strengthen the law further if required.
Asked by: Freddie van Mierlo (Liberal Democrat - Henley and Thame)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, whether she has made an assessment of the potential impact of the Online Safety Act 2023 on (a) Wikipedia and (b) news reporting sites.
Answered by Kanishka Narayan - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
The Online Safety Act covers services where users post content or interact online, requiring sites like Wikipedia to address illegal material and protect children where necessary. Ofcom must ensure that the duties are proportionate and appropriate for the different kinds and sizes of services.
The Act includes exemptions for specific types of user comment sections, which will take many news publishers sites out of scope. Safeguards are also built in to protect news publisher content on the largest (Category 1) platforms and Ofcom will be required to review how the Act affects journalistic and news publisher material on such services.
Asked by: Freddie van Mierlo (Liberal Democrat - Henley and Thame)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, with reference to the Online Safety Act 2023, what assessment he has made on the adequacy of the security of personal data shared with third parties.
Answered by Kanishka Narayan - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
The Online Safety Act has cross-cutting duties to ensure that users’ rights to privacy are protected. All providers are required to give particular regard to the importance of protecting users’ privacy rights when implementing measures to comply with their new safety duties, including age assurance technologies. Where Ofcom has concerns that a provider has not complied with its obligations under data protection law, it may refer the matter to the ICO.
Asked by: Freddie van Mierlo (Liberal Democrat - Henley and Thame)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, what guidance her Department has issued to (a) websites and (b) organisations on the implementation of the Online Safety Act 2023.
Answered by Kanishka Narayan - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
Ofcom has conducted an extensive programme of work aimed at facilitating understanding and compliance with the Online Safety Act. This includes a Regulation Checker to help services and organisations identify whether they are in scope of the relevant duties. Where they are, Ofcom provides guides and toolkits on complying with the new rules. Ofcom’s guide for services webpage can be used as a hub for relevant resources. When it comes to compliance, Ofcom will focus on services where the risk and impact of harm is the highest, only taking action where appropriate.
Asked by: Freddie van Mierlo (Liberal Democrat - Henley and Thame)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, if he will make an assessment of (a) trends in the level of online abuse of sport people and (b) the effectiveness of online safety provisions.
Answered by Feryal Clark
The government is extremely concerned by the online abuse of sportspeople and will continue working with the sports sector to tackle this.
The Online Safety Act strengthens protections for public figures online. Harassment and hate crime are priority offences under the Act, requiring companies to proactively search for, remove and limit users’ exposure to such content and activity.
DSIT is working with Ofcom to develop a longer-term monitoring and evaluation framework to assess the Act’s impact, including assessing relevant data and crime statistics.
Asked by: Freddie van Mierlo (Liberal Democrat - Henley and Thame)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, when he plans to respond to the correspondence of 14 May 2025 from the hon. Member for Henley and Thame on Bullitt Group UK.
Answered by Chris Bryant - Minister of State (Department for Business and Trade)
The Secretary of State has responded to the Member’s earlier letter.
Asked by: Freddie van Mierlo (Liberal Democrat - Henley and Thame)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, what recent discussions he has had with Ofcom on the regulation of gaming companies under the Online Safety Act 2023.
Answered by Feryal Clark
The Government engages regularly with Ofcom to discuss implementation of the Online Safety Act.
Game services are in scope of the Online Safety Act if they allow users to post content online or to interact with each other. The Act requires all user-to-user services, including in-scope gaming platforms, to have systems and processes in place to remove illegal content. In July, in-scope services will also need to take steps to protect children from harmful content.
Asked by: Freddie van Mierlo (Liberal Democrat - Henley and Thame)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, what recent assessment he has made of the adequacy of funding to support the growth of innovative UK businesses.
Answered by Feryal Clark
Supporting innovative businesses is a key objective of the government’s growth mission. My department regularly engages with business organisations to understand the needs of their members, and significant support is available through Innovate UK. Over the last six months, Innovate UK has launched £276m of competitions, and annually it supports over 10,000 businesses on their innovation journey. This is in addition to significant work underway to increase the availability of growth capital, which includes increasing the National Wealth Fund’s capitalisation to £27.8bn, reforms to the British Business Bank, and new pension reforms aimed at unlocking £80 billion of investment.