Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:

To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, what steps he plans to take to support the Digital Security by Design programme.

The Government is funding the Digital Security by Design programme with over £80 million, alongside a £200 million from the private sector, to foster collaboration among academia, industry and government to develop CHERI (Capability Hardware Enhanced RISC Instructions). CHERI enhances memory-safe in semiconductor chips. Memory safety issues cause 70% of critical vulnerabilities that can be exploited by cyber criminals as well as being responsible for unintended, and widespread, economic disruption. The Government works with international partners to promote memory-safe principles and continues to fund academic and industry programmes to make CHERI more widely available for commercial implementation.