Asked by: James McMurdock (Independent - South Basildon and East Thurrock)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps the Department is taking to ensure that AI systems used in A&E departments comply with NHS data governance, patient privacy and cybersecurity requirements.
Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government is dedicated to ensuring patient privacy while leveraging artificial intelligence (AI) in healthcare. We have engaged patients and the public in discussions on how and why health data should be accessed for AI systems. The Department and NHS England have implemented robust data protection measures, including Data Protection Impact Assessments and adherence to UK General Data Protection Regulation, to safeguard patient data. All National Health Service trusts and providers must complete a Digital Technology Assessment Criteria (DTAC) assessment to fully assure that the technologies they use are safe, effective, and that data is protected. This includes technologies used in accident and emergency departments. The DTAC evaluates products to ensure NHS standards for safety, usability, and accessibility are met, with clear evidence requirements and scoring criteria included for each area.
The accident and emergency demand forecasting tool, within the NHS England Federated Data Platform, is trained on pseudonymised data, and with only aggregate non-patient level outputs reaching the dashboard users. Regular risk reviews occur to ensure it is as low risk as possible in terms of cyber security and patient privacy and that it follows NHS data governance.
The Department and the NHS England Information Governance Team provide guidance for patients, health care professionals, and information governance professionals on the use of AI in the NHS and NHS settings such as accident and emergency departments.
The Department works closely with the NHS and its suppliers to share threat intelligence on evolving AI cyber threats.
Asked by: Luke Akehurst (Labour - North Durham)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what assessment her Department has made of the risk that electric buses operating in the UK could be remotely rendered inoperable via their internet-connected systems by hostile state actors.
Answered by Simon Lightwood - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The Government takes national security seriously and recognises the systematic challenges of increased connectivity and the cyber security implications for almost every area of government policy, including vehicles. My Department works closely with the transport sector and other government departments to understand and respond to cyber vulnerabilities for all transport modes.
Asked by: Baroness Alexander of Cleveden (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask His Majesty's Government whether they will publish an overview of the key threats they have identified to the UK's electoral processes.
Answered by Baroness Taylor of Stevenage - Baroness in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)
It is, and always will be, an absolute priority for this Government to protect our democratic and electoral processes. Several government publications provide an overview of key threats to the UK’s electoral processes as part of the Government’s Counter Political Interference and Espionage Action Plan to disrupt and deter foreign influence and spying from foreign states.
The Government’s strategy for modern, secure and inclusive elections, published in July, sets out our plan to strengthen oversight of and safeguards against known and emerging threats, including foreign interference through covert political funding. We will deliver a robust and proportionate response to known risks, protecting the integrity of our system and reinforcing public trust in democracy. The strategy can be found (attached) here: Restoring trust in our democracy: Our strategy for modern and secure elections - GOV.UK
Additionally, on December 16th 2025, the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government announced an independent review into countering foreign financial influence and interference in UK politics. The terms of reference for the review can be found (attached) here: Independent review: countering foreign financial influence and interference in UK politics: Terms of Reference - GOV.UK
The findings of the independent review will build on both the Government’s Elections Strategy and Counter Political Interference and Espionage Action Plan and inform the elections and democracy bill that we will bring forward this year.
Furthermore, the national technical authorities have published overviews of key threats. The guidance that the National Protective Security Agency published in October highlights the range of vectors and tactics that foreign actors are using to target individuals working in UK politics. This can be found (attached) here: Defending Democracy | National Security Act | NPSA and the NCSC published guidance for political organisations and individuals to counter the cyber threat to elections: Defending democracy - NCSC.GOV.UK
Asked by: Blake Stephenson (Conservative - Mid Bedfordshire)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what steps his Department is taking to prevent the creation of fake Digital IDs.
Answered by Josh Simons - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
The UK’s digital ID scheme will be built to the highest security standards, following National Cyber Security Centre guidance.
To help guard against fake digital IDs, we propose that any checking of such IDs will be done via a robust digital process. For example, we do not think people should be able to ‘flash’ their digital ID on their phone screen.
This will help ensure a digital ID has not been faked, tampered with or revoked.
Asked by: Ben Obese-Jecty (Conservative - Huntingdon)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what assessment he has made of the potential impact of the addition of the Grok chatbot alongside Google’s generative AI engine on every unclassified and classified network throughout the US Department of War on joint US-UK operations.
Answered by Luke Pollard - Minister of State (Ministry of Defence)
The US and UK remain steadfast allies and will continue to closely cooperate on a range of defence and security issues. But how the US Department of War manages the use of technology in their systems is a matter for them. The UK’s Defence AI Strategy recognises AI systems must be adopted to avoid falling behind adversaries, whilst mandating robust cybersecurity and safety measures for these systems. The MOD’s Joint Service Publication 936 mandates that AI systems deployed in UK defence environments must be safe, robust, and secure, must pass relevant assurance checks, and comply with the Government Cyber Security Standard and Secure By Design principles.
Asked by: Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the level of resilience of an internet-only distribution model for television for public service broadcasting and emergency broadcasting; and what contingency arrangements are in place to guarantee universal access to emergency broadcast information in the event of major cyber incidents, prolonged power outages and mobile or broadband network failure.
Answered by Baroness Twycross - Baroness in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)
The Government understands how important it is that everyone can access information in times of national emergency. Television and radio both play an important role in providing such access in a range of different emergency scenarios. DCMS works closely with broadcast CNI operators and technical authorities to maintain security and resilience against a wide range of scenarios where communications may be disrupted, including power outages.
The BBC has specific requirements under its Framework Agreement in relation to broadcast security and resilience, and works closely with DCMS in ensuring its networks are able to support emergency communications.
The Government’s project looking into the future of TV distribution is considering a range of relevant factors, including the future resilience requirements for broadcast networks.
Asked by: Lee Anderson (Reform UK - Ashfield)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent assessment he has made of the readiness of the NHS to respond to co-ordinated cyber attacks.
Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
In the past year, we have invested £37.6 million across health and social care, building on the £338 million invested since 2017. Through our ambitious Cyber Improvement Programme, we are tackling the changing cyber risk head-on, expanding protection and services to better protect the health and care system.
NHS England’s Cyber Operations team provides 24/7 monitoring and expert support to National Health Service organisations who have been impacted by cyber-attacks. This includes specialist, on the ground, certified incident response services free of charge to NHS organisations who have been severely impacted by cyber incidents as well as technical and operational support to contain, investigate, and remediate incidents. Furthermore, we have developed guidance for leaders involved in cyber incidents to ensure there is a clear policy and process for how to respond across all elements of incidents.
We have a process in place to identify lessons and implement improvements following cyber incidents. Following the Synnovis cyber-attack in 2024, the Department and NHS England have made improvements to critical communications processes, additional measures to improve resilience in the supply chain, and setting out clearer roles and responsibilities in incident management.
In 2023, a Health and Care Cyber Security Strategy was launched. Pillar 5 of the strategy focuses on exemplary response and recovery, and as set out in the strategy, health and care organisations should run annual cyber exercises to ensure there is a well-practiced and rapid response when incidents do occur.
Asked by: Lee Anderson (Reform UK - Ashfield)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what steps his Department is taking to strengthen the resilience of the military from potential cyber attack.
Answered by Al Carns - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Defence) (Minister for Veterans)
Defence prioritises cyber security of its systems and implements a range of measures, including security and monitoring tools, to support cyber resilience and protect as far as possible from attack. Details of the measures are not shared publicly for security reasons.
In autumn 2025 we established Defence Cyber & Electromagnetic Force (DCEMF) to unify and advance previously fragmented and nascent capabilities, while empowering leadership to deliver operational advantage across the domain. This is in recognition of the critical importance of Cyber and Electromagnetic operations and capabilities in an increasingly complex and uncertain geopolitical environment. The DCEMF plays a central role in ensuring the UK remains competitive against peer adversaries in cyberspace and electromagnetic operations, driving the development of a technologically advanced Integrated Force capable of outthinking, outmanoeuvring, and outpacing its opponents.
Asked by: Daniel Zeichner (Labour - Cambridge)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps her Department is taking to help ensure that English language immigration requirements are strengthened in the context of proposals to move English language testing for immigration purposes to a remotely proctored system.
Answered by Mike Tapp - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Home Office)
The proposals contained within the Immigration White Paper 2025 will be delivered over the course of this Parliament, including new English Language Requirements.
The Home Office is committed to maintaining the highest standards of security and integrity in our immigration system whilst modernising services for legitimate applicants. The new service will enhance existing arrangements via robust and consistent identity management, increased monitoring of test takers and activity that is underpinned by stringent security and cyber security requirements. Detecting and combatting existing and emerging threats is at the centre of this service.
Asked by: Gregory Campbell (Democratic Unionist Party - East Londonderry)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, if she will hold discussions with her Irish counterpart on undertaking joint efforts to identify Russia, Iranian and Venezuelan registered oil tankers in British and Irish waters that may be avoiding sanctions on oil.
Answered by Stephen Doughty - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
The UK and Ireland continue to discuss how we can improve our security cooperation, including maritime and cyber security. On 3 December, the Foreign Secretary spoke to her counterpart Helen McEntee, Ireland's Minister for Foreign Affairs, Trade and Defence, about defence, security and other matters.
That follows the commitments made by the Prime Minister and Taoiseach at the UK-Ireland Summit in March 2025 to deepen defence cooperation.