Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, how many and what proportion of (a) cars and (b) other vehicles used by her Department were made in Britain.
Answered by Andrew Griffith - Minister of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
The Government Car service (GCS) provides vehicles to a number of Government departments. Due to logistical and operational reasons the type of vehicles deployed at each department can vary on a daily or weekly basis. The GCS fleet currently has 122 vehicles, 58 (48%) of which are vehicles made in Britain.
Asked by: Lord Clement-Jones (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the new arrangements and communications relating to the roll out of Digital Voice by BT; in particular, what assessment they have made of the clarity of communications to customers regarding opting in or out of the ability to retain their copper connection or move to fibre and how they should do this; whether any opt in or opt out is indefinite or for a limited period; and what are the costs to an individual customer of opting in or opting out.
Answered by Viscount Camrose - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
The PSTN switch-off is a necessity, given that the network is past its serviceable life and is experiencing increasing failure rates year-on-year. Ultimately everyone will need to move off a copper connection for safety.
Currently, with the exception of a small number of customers who do not use or need a landline, BT has paused all non-voluntary migrations to Digital Voice. As agreed in the PSTN Charter for Communication Providers in December 2023, non-voluntary migrations will only be restarted once BT can guarantee that all possible steps have been taken to protect vulnerable users. Initially, only customers who are identified as not being vulnerable as a result of the PSTN switch-off, will be migrated. However, the migration of vulnerable customers will still happen at a later point with the appropriate support from BT.
The Department is currently working with BT, among other key stakeholders, to define any groups at a heightened risk during the migration, as per the PSTN charter. If a customer notifies BT of any additional needs, they will also be able to defer their migration.
Customers with vulnerabilities or additional needs who are choosing to move to Digital Voice will be provided with free support from BT, such as an engineer in-home installation, a battery backup unit and/or a hybrid landline-mobile handset.
Customers signing new contracts will be provided with a digital landline by default unless they are identified as a telecare user, in which case their migration will be deferred. Openreach engineers will not currently proceed with a migration during an in-home visit if a telecare device is found at a premises.
Customers should not expect to see any additional fees from migrating to VoIP or continuing to use their PSTN landlines.
Asked by: Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to support research into sustainable materials, including those limiting emissions along entire material and product lifecycles.
Answered by Viscount Camrose - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
The Government are committed to supporting the research and development of sustainable materials, notably where it enhances our commitments to net zero. The Government set up the Henry Royce Institute in 2015, the UK’s centre for advanced materials research with an initial £235m in investment provided by HMG. In 2022 an additional £95 million was provided to the Royce Institute.
The cross-government Innovation Accelerator Programme through InnovateUK has funded a two-year pilot for a Centre of Expertise in Advanced Materials and Sustainability (CEAMS), part of wider programme that will see £100 million invested across 26 transformative R&D projects.
The UK government through UKRI has awarded the Foundation Industries Sustainability Consortium £19.5 million to run the Economic Material Innovation for Sustainable and Efficient use of Resources (EconoMISER) programme. The funding provides the UK’s Foundation Industries, who contribute 10% of the total CO2 emitted by UK homes and businesses, with the essential tools needed to decarbonise.
Asked by: Helen Morgan (Liberal Democrat - North Shropshire)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, what steps her Department is taking to support mobile phone owners whose device is not 4G compatible when the 3G signal is switched off.
Answered by Julia Lopez - Minister of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
The government welcomes legacy networks being switched off in a responsible way, as this will free up spectrum for 4G and 5G networks and beyond. Ofcom has published details of how it expects the mobile network operators to conduct the switch off in line with their regulatory obligations. These expectations include providing customers with a minimum of three to six months’ notice of any steps they need to take as a result of their provider switching off their 3G networks; communicating in a clear and timely way, using a range of communication channels to raise customer awareness of the proposed changes; and providing additional support to vulnerable customers.
The mobile network operators have set out advice to their customers on 3G switch off plans on each of their websites.
We will continue to monitor the MNOs’ progress in switching off their 3G networks.
Asked by: Gregory Campbell (Democratic Unionist Party - East Londonderry)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, with reference to the Answer of 10 July 2023 to Question 192484 on Broadband: Social Tariffs, if he will make an estimate of the number and proportion of eligible people who were both (a) aware of and (b) took up a mobile phone social tariff in the last six months.
Answered by Julia Lopez - Minister of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
Ofcom has a statutory duty to monitor the affordability of telecoms services, and releases regular reports regarding public awareness and take-up of broadband and mobile social tariffs.
In December 2023, as part of its Pricing Trends Report, Ofcom stated that awareness of social tariffs amongst eligible households was 45% (or around 2 million households). The report also estimated 380,000 UK households were taking-up social tariff, this represents around 8.3% of those eligible. Ofcom does not differentiate between mobile or broadband for these purposes.
We continue to work closely with Ofcom and the telecoms industry to explore ways to improve awareness of social tariffs amongst eligible households.
Asked by: Duncan Baker (Conservative - North Norfolk)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, if she will make an assessment of the potential merits of updating the Code of practice for wireless network development in England to make it easier for rural communities to get new mobile phone masts erected.
Answered by Julia Lopez - Minister of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
The Wireless Code of Practice was updated in 2022. It provides guidance to operators and local authorities on the deployment of wireless networks, including how infrastructure should be sited.
Installation of new infrastructure is governed by planning legislation. In 2022, we made changes to these regulations to make it quicker and easier to deploy new equipment, including masts in rural areas, to help communities in these areas get the connectivity they need.
Asked by: Andrew Percy (Conservative - Brigg and Goole)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, if she will make it her policy to regulate small forums that share (a) antisemitic hatred and (b) instructional content on methods of suicide to the fullest extent possible under the powers available to her in the Online Safety Act 2023; and what assessment she has made of the implications for her policies on that matter of Ofcom's advice of 29 February 2024 on the use of powers under that Act.
Answered by Saqib Bhatti - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
The Secretary of State is considering in detail the advice that Ofcom has provided. The Secretary of State will make regulations as soon as reasonably practicable, in line with Schedule 11 of the Act.
More broadly, all user-to-user services in scope of the Online Safety Act – including online forums of any size – will be required to comply with the illegal safety duties and take steps to remove illegal content. The strongest protections in the Act are for children and where these services are likely to be accessed by children, they must also protect children from a wider range of harmful content. Targeted duties on search services, to minimise illegal search results, will also reduce traffic to websites, including online forums, that host illegal material.
Asked by: Andrew Percy (Conservative - Brigg and Goole)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, if she will take steps under the powers available to her as set out in Schedule 11(1)(b) of the Online Safety Act to bring forward legislative proposals setting category 1 threshold conditions in relation to small forums that share (a) antisemitic hatred and (b) suicide methods.
Answered by Saqib Bhatti - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
The Secretary of State is considering in detail the advice that Ofcom has provided. The Secretary of State will make regulations as soon as reasonably practicable, in line with Schedule 11 of the Act.
More broadly, all user-to-user services in scope of the Online Safety Act – including online forums of any size – will be required to comply with the illegal safety duties and take steps to remove illegal content. The strongest protections in the Act are for children and where these services are likely to be accessed by children, they must also protect children from a wider range of harmful content. Targeted duties on search services, to minimise illegal search results, will also reduce traffic to websites, including online forums, that host illegal material.
Asked by: Neil O'Brien (Conservative - Harborough)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, with reference to page 173 of the Levelling Up the United Kingdom White Paper, published the Government on 2 February 2022, what recent progress she has made on targeting at least 55% of domestic R&D funding outside the greater south east by 2024-25.
Answered by Andrew Griffith - Minister of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
Following the establishment of DSIT, the department set the aim to invest, over the Spending Review period, a cumulative £1.3 billion more in R&D funding outside the Greater South East than in 2021-2022, superseding the referenced BEIS target.
DSIT and UKRI are working together to achieve this target, delivering the Innovation Accelerators programme to accelerate innovation clusters, investing £200 million in 12 projects across the UK through the Strength in Places Fund, by 2025, and in Autumn 2023 DSIT announced funding for a next-gen Exascale supercomputing facility in Edinburgh, and a new AI supercomputer for the national AI Research Resource in Bristol.
Asked by: Neil O'Brien (Conservative - Harborough)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, what information her Department holds on the amount of R&D spend by the (a) Government, (b) higher education sector, (b) charity sector and (c) private sector in each region in each year since 1997.
Answered by Andrew Griffith - Minister of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
The amount of R&D spend by sector and region is published annually by the Office for National Statistics.
The most recent release of these R&D spending breakdowns can be downloaded from: https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/governmentpublicsectorandtaxes/researchanddevelopmentexpenditure/bulletins/ukgrossdomesticexpenditureonresearchanddevelopment/2021