Asked by: Samantha Niblett (Labour - South Derbyshire)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, whether she has received representations from the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Digital Creators on the subject of children's access to video-sharing platforms.
Answered by Kanishka Narayan - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
The government recently published a consultation and began a national conversation which sought views and evidence from across the UK on measures that could further protect children online and enhance their wellbeing.
This closed on 26 May and we are analysing the responses. We received over 116,000 responses to the consultation and we are considering the insights parents, children and other stakeholders have shared. We will publish a full list of organisations that responded to the consultation alongside a summary of responses.
Asked by: Samantha Niblett (Labour - South Derbyshire)
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 potential implications for her policies of the extent of similarities between YouTube Shorts, Instagram Reels and TikTok.
Answered by Kanishka Narayan - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
The Online Safety Act imposes a range of consistent duties on user-to-user service providers requiring them to proactively identify, mitigate and manage risks to users, and to be accountable for the safety of their platforms.
Service providers must proactively mitigate risk of use for illegal activity and must address illegal content when it appears. They must also prevent children from encountering the most harmful content and must implement age-appropriate measures to protect children from other kinds of harmful content.
Ofcom, the independent regulator, has powers to take robust enforcement action where service providers do not comply with Act duties.
Asked by: Samantha Niblett (Labour - South Derbyshire)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, whether her Department reviewed the Crown Commercial Service's approximately £9 billion Memorandum of Understanding with Microsoft, signed in November 2024, in light of the CMA's findings that Microsoft's software licensing practices reduce competition in UK cloud markets and impose additional costs on public sector organisations.
Answered by Ian Murray - Minister of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
DSIT has not formally reviewed the SPA24 Memorandum of Understanding with Microsoft. This agreement does not represent a commitment to spend, but instead provides eligible public sector organisations with access to discounted pricing. Decisions on whether to purchase goods and services are made by individual organisations in line with procurement regulations.
The Government Commercial Agency (GCA), formerly Crown Commercial Service (CCS), manages SPA24 with Microsoft to ensure that it continues to deliver against its objectives.
Asked by: Samantha Niblett (Labour - South Derbyshire)
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 potential implications for its policies of the Competition and Markets Authority's decision of 31 March 2026 to launch a Strategic Market Status investigation into Microsoft's business software ecosystem; and what steps her Department is taking to help ensure that the investigation proceeds without delay from its scheduled commencement in May 2026.
Answered by Kanishka Narayan - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
This Government is committed to promoting a competitive and innovative digital economy, which is why we prioritised the commencement of the CMA’s new powers in digital markets last year.
The CMA launched its Strategic Market Status designation investigation into Microsoft’s business software ecosystem on the 14 May 2026, this investigation must be completed within 9 months. An indicative timetable of this investigation is published on the CMA’s website. The CMA operates independently of Government, and decisions on which firms to investigate, and how these investigations are conducted rest solely with the CMA.
Asked by: Samantha Niblett (Labour - South Derbyshire)
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 potential implications for its policies of the CMA's finding, published 31 March 2026, that the rapid integration of artificial intelligence into Microsoft's business software ecosystem creates risks of distorting competition in a critical layer of UK digital infrastructure.
Answered by Kanishka Narayan - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
The Government is committed to promoting a competitive and innovative digital economy, which is why we prioritised the commencement of the CMA’s new powers in digital markets last year.
The CMA operates independently of Government, and decisions on the scope of its investigations rest solely with the CMA.
The CMA launched its investigation into Microsoft’s business software ecosystem on 14 May 2026. The CMA has invited views on the details of this investigation until 4 June 2026. The proposed scope includes the integrated use of AI tools in business software to help ensure that UK businesses and public sector organisations can choose the tools that deliver the greatest productivity gains. The CMA will consider responses to its consultation and confirm its position in due course.
Asked by: Samantha Niblett (Labour - South Derbyshire)
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 concentration of ownership of UK mobile towers among wireless infrastructure providers; and what assessment she has made of the implications of this market structure for competition and mobile coverage.
Answered by Kanishka Narayan - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
The Government continually monitors developments across the mobile market to understand how they may shape investment in comprehensive, high-quality mobile connectivity that is secure and affordable for consumers and business.
On 10 February, the Government published the Mobile Market Review call for evidence, inviting stakeholders to provide detailed evidence on the technological, structural and financial developments across the mobile ecosystem and how they impact investment, competition and consumer outcomes, and on what further actions the Government could take to support these objectives.
The call for evidence closes on 5 May. The Government encourages all relevant stakeholders to engage with the process and provide robust evidence to help inform future policy development.
Asked by: Samantha Niblett (Labour - South Derbyshire)
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 potential impact of 2017 Electronic Communications Code reforms on relationships between telecoms operators and site providers; and whether she has made an estimate of the number of site providers who have declined to renew mast agreements as a result.
Answered by Kanishka Narayan - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
The Government wants Code agreements to be negotiated collaboratively; and the Product Security and Telecommunications Infrastructure Act 2022 made changes to the Code intended to support this.
The Department has not undertaken comprehensive monitoring of the number of active Code agreements following the 2017 reforms.
However, landowners can terminate agreements governed by the Electronic Communications Code for a number of reasons, including if they intend to redevelop the land. Therefore, any data on the number of terminated agreements alone would not be indicative of the effectiveness of the 2017 reforms.
It should also be noted that 4G geographic coverage from all four operators has risen from 40% in 2016 to 81% in 2025 and 5G premises (outdoor) coverage has reached 47% from all four operators in 2025.
The 2022 reforms also introduced a requirement for operators to inform landowners of the availability of alternative dispute resolution and to consider using it before issuing legal proceedings. Section 70 of the Act, which will be implemented in due course, will introduce a new process for the handling of complaints about the conduct of operators under the Electronic Communications Code.
Asked by: Samantha Niblett (Labour - South Derbyshire)
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 trends in the level of ownership of UK mobile towers among wireless infrastructure providers; and what assessment she has made of the potential impact of that market structure on competition, pricing and mobile coverage.
Answered by Kanishka Narayan - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
The government continually monitors developments across the market to understand how they may impact investment in comprehensive, high-quality mobile connectivity that is secure and affordable for consumers and business.
On 10 February, the Government published the Mobile Market Review call for evidence, inviting stakeholders to provide detailed evidence on how technological, structural and financial developments across the mobile ecosystem may impact investment, competition and consumer outcomes, and on what further actions Government could take to support these objectives.
The call for evidence closes on 5 May, and the Government encourages all relevant stakeholders to engage with the process to help inform future policy development.
Asked by: Samantha Niblett (Labour - South Derbyshire)
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 address the potential risk of social housing residents being excluded from full fibre broadband due to access rights.
Answered by Kanishka Narayan - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
The Government is committed to ensuring at least 99% of premises receive gigabit broadband coverage by 2032. This will primarily be achieved through the commercial deployment of full‑fibre connections. Through Project Gigabit the Government is supporting the rollout of gigabit‑capable broadband to UK premises that are not expected to be reached commercially, helping to ensure that residents, including those in social housing, can benefit from fast and reliable connectivity.
The Department recognises the challenges of connection in social housing, and we continue to engage with Local Authorities and Housing Associations on digital infrastructure deployment. In November 2024, the then Minister of State for Data Protection and Telecoms wrote to Local Authorities to encourage access agreements to be reached for the installation of gigabit-capable broadband on local authority land and assets which include some social housing.
We are currently analysing responses to our consultation on legislative proposals to address broadband rollout in leasehold flats (which closed on 16 February 2026), and will update on the outcomes in due course.
Asked by: Samantha Niblett (Labour - South Derbyshire)
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 help tackle the potential impact of restrictive software licensing practices on businesses.
Answered by Kanishka Narayan - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
The Government is committed to supporting a competitive and innovative digital economy. This is why we prioritised the commencement of the Competition and Markets Authority’s (the CMA) new powers in digital markets.
These new powers are designed to boost competition and innovation in digital markets and promote fairer outcomes for both businesses and consumers. The CMA is independent of Government, and any decisions on which markets it next investigates is for its Board.