Asked by: Nadia Whittome (Labour - Nottingham East)
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 help tackle digital exclusion among Arab women in the UK.
Answered by Chris Bryant - Minister of State (Department for Culture, Media and Sport)
Digital inclusion is a priority for Government. It means ensuring everyone has the access, skills, support and confidence to engage in our modern digital society, whatever their circumstances. Digital exclusion disproportionately impacts certain demographics, creating new inequalities and exacerbating existing ones. As we develop our approach on tackling this issue we will be working closely with local communities, local authorities, businesses and charities to ensure everything we do is well targeted. We hope to announce more on this in the near future.
Asked by: Nadia Whittome (Labour - Nottingham East)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, what steps he is taking to implement the Online Safety Act 2023 to protect young people from (a) harmful content and (b) AI-deepfakes.
Answered by Feryal Clark - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
The government is focused on implementing the Online Safety Act as quickly as possible working with Ofcom. Ofcom has consulted on its draft Children’s Safety codes of practice which set out the steps companies must take to protect children on their platforms under the Online Safety Act. Ofcom will publish the finalised codes and guidance in Spring 2025 and the government will work to ensure these codes are in effect as soon as possible.
Deepfakes and other forms of manipulated media are captured by the Online Safety Act where they constitute user generated content that is illegal content, or content which is harmful to children. Services that are likely to be accessed by children will need to take steps to protect children from harmful content and behaviour on their services, including AI-generated or enabled content.
Asked by: Nadia Whittome (Labour - Nottingham East)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, what assessment her Department has made of the adequacy of competition in the mobile network operator sector.
Answered by John Whittingdale
Any proposal to merge mobile network operators needs to be looked at by the Competition and Market Authority (CMA). The government does not have a role in the review of mergers on competition grounds. It is the responsibility of CMA to assess the impact on consumers and competition in the market, with input from sectoral regulators.
Strong competition in the UK mobile market has produced good outcomes for consumers and businesses to date, in terms of costs, choice and quality of service. UK prices for mobile services are some of the lowest in Europe. In addition to the four national mobile network operators (MNOs) (BT/EE, VMO2, Vodafone and Three), consumers and businesses can also buy services from mobile virtual network operators (MVNOs). The UK MVNO market is strong, representing 27% of mobile subscribers in the market.
Competition has encouraged the four MNOs to invest to extend and upgrade their networks. 4G coverage currently extends to 92% of the UK landmass from at least one MNO, and our Shared Rural Network programme will extend this to 95%. All four MNOs launched their 5G networks in 2019 and last year we met our ambition to deliver a basic 5G signal for the majority of the population by 2027 - 5 years early.
Our recently published Wireless Infrastructure Strategy set out a new ambition for nationwide coverage of standalone (high-quality) 5G to all populated areas by 2030.