Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:

To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, pursuant to the Answer of 17 April 2024 to Question 902272 on Disinformation, how many information threats the Defending Democracy Taskforce has responded to.

In 2022 the Defending Democracy Taskforce, chaired by the Security Minister, was established to further drive forward work to protect the UK from the full range of threats facing our democratic institutions and processes, including interference with the UK democratic process. The Taskforce engages across government and with Parliament, the UK’s intelligence community, the devolved administrations, local authorities, the private sector, and civil society.

It would not be appropriate to comment publicly on the volume of information threats the departments which support the Taskforce team have responded to, in part because doing so would give malign actors insight into the scale of the UK’s capabilities to identify and tackle such threats to our democratic processes.