Asked by: Sharon Hodgson (Labour - Washington and Gateshead South)
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 help ensure that young people from all regions, including the North East, are represented in consultations on online safety and Al regulation.
Answered by Kanishka Narayan - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
We will ensure that young people from across the country, including the North East are represented in consultations.
We are shortly launching a consultation exploring children’s use of technology to understand how they can be protected and how their wellbeing can be improved during technological change. The consultation will seek views on tackling ‘addictiveness’ of social media, introducing a minimum age of access and additional protections for AI chatbots.
We will ensure children's voices are heard by launching a child-friendly version of the consultation and progressing a national conversation to hear directly from children and young people.
Asked by: Sharon Hodgson (Labour - Washington and Gateshead South)
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 whether social media age restrictions on platforms headquartered overseas would be enforceable.
Answered by Kanishka Narayan - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
The Online Safety Act has extraterritorial effect, meaning any regulated service with a significant number of UK users is required to meet duties wherever they are based.
Where an organisation breaches its duties, Ofcom can require it to take steps to return to compliance or issue a fine. Ofcom can enforce these penalties via court processes in the UK and other jurisdictions.
Ofcom can also apply for court orders requiring third parties to withdraw services or block access in the UK to non-compliant services. These measures ensure that, where services overseas choose to ignore their duties, they can be sanctioned.
Asked by: Sharon Hodgson (Labour - Washington and Gateshead South)
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 social media age restrictions on young people accessing illegal platforms.
Answered by Kanishka Narayan - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
The government keeps this issue under close consideration . The Online Safety Act places robust duties on in-scope services to prevent children from encountering illegal content and activity.
We are shortly launching a consultation exploring children’s use of technology to understand how they can be better protected and how their wellbeing can be improved. The consultation will seek views across many issues, including a minimum age of access for social media.
Asked by: Sharon Hodgson (Labour - Washington and Gateshead South)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, what (a) grants and 9b) funding her Department has allocated to the Medical Research Council for research into anti-seizure medications in pregnancy since 2018.
Answered by Kanishka Narayan - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
Since 2018, the Medical Research Council (MRC), which is part of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), has committed £2.7 million to a research project developing a new anti-seizure drug to the point of regulatory submission for first-in-human trials. The treatment is intended to improve upon the effectiveness of the main existing anti-seizure treatment, valproate, to avoid valproate’s harmful effects on unborn children.
DSIT is investing a record £58.5 billion on R&D between 2026/27 and 2029/30. UKRI will deliver an expected £38.6 billion of R&D investment from 2026/27 to 2029/30, rising to nearly £10 billion per annum by the end of the period. A more detailed breakdown of UKRI’s budgets will be published later this year.
Asked by: Sharon Hodgson (Labour - Washington and Gateshead South)
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 tackle the harmful effects of pornography in Washington and Gateshead South constituency.
Answered by Feryal Clark
Under the Online Safety Act, platforms must proactively tackle the most harmful illegal content including extreme pornography, much of which disproportionately affects women and girls. The Act requires services in scope to understand risks from illegal content online and take mitigating action.
Separate to provisions in the Online Safety Act, the Independent Pornography Review, led by Independent Lead Reviewer Baroness Gabby Bertin will explore the effectiveness of regulation, legislation and the law enforcement response to pornography. The government expects the Review to present its final report by the end of the year.
Asked by: Sharon Hodgson (Labour - Washington and Gateshead South)
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 prevent children in Washington and Gateshead South constituency being exposed to pornography.
Answered by Feryal Clark
The Government is committed to keeping children safe online. Our priority is the effective implementation of the Online Safety Act so that children benefit from its wide-reaching protections.
The Act requires that all in scope services that allow pornography use highly effective age assurance to prevent children from accessing it, including services that host user-generated content, and services which publish pornography. Ofcom has robust enforcement powers available against companies who fail to fulfil their duties.
Asked by: Sharon Hodgson (Labour - Washington and Gateshead South)
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 support research into (a) understanding, (b) treating and (c) curing Myalgic Encephalomyelitis.
Answered by Andrew Griffith - Shadow Secretary of State for Business and Trade
Medical Research Council (MRC) has invested in research into Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFS) for many years, awarding £6.6m in this area since 2012. This includes through DecodeME, the world’s largest ME/CSF study, via strategic co-funding with the National Institute of Health and Care Research, which aims to find genetic factors to better understand ME/CFS disease pathways and unlock future treatment pathways.
We continue to encourage high-quality proposals across our funding opportunities, maintaining an open highlight notice to encourage ME/CFS research. MRC also co-funded the ME/CFS Priority Setting Partnership to identify research priorities for ME/CFS, led by people with ME/CFS, their carers and clinicians, and facilitated by Action for M.E.
Asked by: Sharon Hodgson (Labour - Washington and Gateshead South)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, how the Government plans to allocate funding for research into (a) myalgic encephalomyelitis and (b) other post-viral diseases.
Answered by Andrew Griffith - Shadow Secretary of State for Business and Trade
Medical Research Council (MRC) has invested in research into Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFS) for many years, awarding £6.6m in this area since 2012. This includes through DecodeME, the world’s largest ME/CSF study, via strategic co-funding with the National Institute of Health and Care Research, which aims to find genetic factors to better understand ME/CFS disease pathways and unlock future treatment pathways.
We continue to encourage high-quality proposals across our funding opportunities, maintaining an open highlight notice to encourage ME/CFS research. MRC also co-funded the ME/CFS Priority Setting Partnership to identify research priorities for ME/CFS, led by people with ME/CFS, their carers and clinicians, and facilitated by Action for M.E.
Asked by: Sharon Hodgson (Labour - Washington and Gateshead South)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, what research the Medical Research Council is funding on the (a) causes and (b) treatment of Myalgic Encephalomyelitis.
Answered by Andrew Griffith - Shadow Secretary of State for Business and Trade
Medical Research Council (MRC) has invested in research into Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFS) for many years, awarding £6.6m in this area since 2012. This includes through DecodeME, the world’s largest ME/CSF study, via strategic co-funding with the National Institute of Health and Care Research, which aims to find genetic factors to better understand ME/CFS disease pathways and unlock future treatment pathways.
We continue to encourage high-quality proposals across our funding opportunities, maintaining an open highlight notice to encourage ME/CFS research. MRC also co-funded the ME/CFS Priority Setting Partnership to identify research priorities for ME/CFS, led by people with ME/CFS, their carers and clinicians, and facilitated by Action for M.E.
Asked by: Sharon Hodgson (Labour - Washington and Gateshead South)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, when the National Science and Technology Council last met.
Answered by Andrew Griffith - Shadow Secretary of State for Business and Trade
It is a long-established precedent that information about the discussions that have taken place in Cabinet and its Committees, and how often they have met, is not normally shared publicly.