Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:

To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, what steps her Department taking to help tackle digital exclusion among elderly people.

We know that digital exclusion is a complex issue and some demographics are more likely to be digitally excluded than others, including older people.

That’s why in February; we published the Digital Inclusion Action Plan which outlines the immediate actions we are taking on digital inclusion. One of these actions was to launch the £9.5mn Digital Inclusion Innovation Fund to support and expand local community initiatives to get people online, which we did in August. All funded projects will support at least one of the focus demographic groups, which includes older people.