Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:

To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, what steps they are taking to help ensure that their Department (a) gives sufficient attention to long term strategic challenges, (b) does not allow current events to slow down work on long term strategic issues and (c) consistently undertakes horizon scanning.

The Science and Technology Framework, published in March, sets out a strategic vision for the UK across priority areas to 2030 to meet the UK’s science superpower ambition. Much of DSIT’s work is underpinned by long-term strategies including the UK Life Sciences vision and our recently published National Quantum Strategy. DSIT constantly examines future trends across the breadth of its policy areas, drawing in expertise from across government and externally, for example through our work preparing for the AI Safety Summit and the Frontier AI Taskforce. This is underpinned by the Government Office for Science, which supports strategic long term thinking in government through its Futures and Foresight team.