Asked by: Lord Clement-Jones (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask His Majesty's Government whether they have made an assessment of the impact of restrictions on the use of pseudonymised data for personalised advertising on the financial sustainability of UK publishers.
Answered by Baroness Lloyd of Effra - Baroness in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)
The Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations (PECR) require online advertisers to seek consent to place cookies (and similar technologies) on users’ devices. But certain uses of cookies are a lower risk to privacy than others, and privacy enhancing techniques such as pseudonymisation can further reduce risk. As part of the Data (Use and Access) Bill this government introduced reforms to PECR that enabled more than £17m annually in compliance savings. The government is working with the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), industry, and others to assess whether new exemptions under PECR could be used to promote growth and innovation in the advertising, creative, and publishing industries while maintaining high privacy standards for users.
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 potential economic impact of the Information Commissioner's Office's proposed regulatory approach to online advertising on the publishing sector.
Answered by Baroness Lloyd of Effra - Baroness in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)
This Government recognises the importance of supporting the growth of the UK’s publishing sector - one of our most successful and long-standing creative industries.
We welcome the Information Commisisoner’s Office’s (ICO) work in this area. The ICO are currently examining whether additional exceptions to the cookies consent requirements in the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations 2003 could be made to support online advertising while maintaining users’ privacy standards. We will be considering the ICO’s recommendations, and their potential impact, carefully in due course.
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 impact of the Information Commissioner's Office's approach to regulation of online advertising on economic growth in creative industries.
Answered by Baroness Lloyd of Effra - Baroness in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)
This Government recognises the importance of supporting the growth of the UK’s publishing sector - one of our most successful and long-standing creative industries.
We welcome the Information Commisisoner’s Office’s (ICO) work in this area. The ICO are currently examining whether additional exceptions to the cookies consent requirements in the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations 2003 could be made to support online advertising while maintaining users’ privacy standards. We will be considering the ICO’s recommendations, and their potential impact, carefully in due course.
Asked by: Lord Clement-Jones (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking for procurement to diversify their cloud services providers.
Answered by Baroness Lloyd of Effra - Baroness in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)
The Government recognises its dependence on a small number of key suppliers for cloud services. As set out in the Blueprint for Modern Digital Government, we are addressing this by establishing the Digital Commercial Centre of Excellence to strengthen digital procurement capability and improve supplier management. This includes working with Government Commercial Agency on the National Digital Exchange which is intended to make it easier for public sector organisations to access services from new cloud service providers, including SMEs. Together with the Procurement Act 2023, this will help ensure competition, innovation and resilience in government cloud services.
Asked by: Lord Clement-Jones (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to diversify their cloud service providers following the outages of those services in October.
Answered by Baroness Lloyd of Effra - Baroness in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)
The Government recognises the importance of resilience in cloud services. Following the outages in October, the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology worked with affected providers and the Government Cyber Coordination Centre to assess impacts and strengthen contingency planning. Alongside this, the forthcoming Cyber Security and Resilience Bill will improve resilience standards. In February 2025, DSIT published guidance supporting multi-region cloud adoption to help departments improve resilience. I also refer the Noble Lord to the answer given on 4 November 2025 to Question HL11169.
Asked by: Lord Clement-Jones (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask His Majesty's Government, regarding Replacing animals in science: A strategy to support the development, validation and uptake of alternative methods, published on 11 November, whether they will consider including monoclonal antibodies as part of their priority areas for targeted replacement of animal tests; and how the target to replace the use of animal-derived polyclonal-type antibodies by 2030 will be enforced.
Answered by Lord Vallance of Balham - Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
The Government’s strategy to support replacing animals in science commits to, from 2026, publish biennially a list of alternative-methods research and development priorities, to coalesce UK scientists and incentivise partnerships between research organisations, CROs and industry. These priority areas will be developed collaboratively between Government, academia, industry, and other partners. Monoclonal antibody testing will be considered as a potential area.
Enforcement of the target to replace animal-derived polyclonal antibodies is provided for by existing law which states animals cannot be used where a validated alternative exists. Therefore licences would not be granted once alternative methods have been validated and agreed.
Asked by: Lord Clement-Jones (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask His Majesty's Government what engagement they have had with the data centre industry about the infrastructure and connectivity requirements associated with AI growth zones.
Answered by Baroness Lloyd of Effra - Baroness in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)
Ministers and officials frequently meet with the data centre industry to understand their needs. Details of Ministers' and Permanent Secretaries' meetings with external individuals and organisations are published quarterly in arrears on GOV.UK.
Asked by: Lord Clement-Jones (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask His Majesty's Government what is the total cost to UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) of the Data and Analytics Research Environments UK research programme; how much if any in additional funds that programme has received from non-UKRI sources; and how much of those funds were finally spent, and by which UK universities or organisations, at the end of the institutional funding chain.
Answered by Lord Vallance of Balham - Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
The Data and Analytics Research Environments UK (DARE UK) programme is funded by UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) and co-delivered by Health Data Research UK (HDR UK) and Administrative Data Research UK (ADR UK) who jointly oversee programme delivery.
The Medical Research Council (MRC), which is part of UKRI, has provided £24.4m since 2021 to the DARE UK research programme. This was allocated from the UKRI Digital Research Infrastructure (DRIC) fund. Funding has been awarded to a range of projects led by over 28 research organisations.
Details of recipient organisations are available at GtR.ukri.org.
A list of the DARE UK Early Adopters (projects supporting the testing and integration of capabilities in UK Trusted Research Environments) awarded by the DARE UK team are available at dareuk.org.uk.
Final spend figures for on-going projects will be confirmed in due course via DARE UK (Data and Analytics Research Environments UK) – HDR UK.
Asked by: Lord Clement-Jones (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to increase awareness among local and regional authorities of the economic and social benefits of hosting data centre infrastructure.
Answered by Baroness Lloyd of Effra - Baroness in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)
This government has engaged with local authorities to increase awareness of the local benefits of data centres. Through the AI Growth Zones programme, we are ensuring the selected sites deliver for working people, by providing £5 million in support for each AI Growth Zone for local AI adoption and skills. To deliver even broader local benefits to communities, local authorities in England will retain 100% of business rate growth in AI Growth Zones for the next twenty-five years. A central AI planning team backed by £4.5 million will also support local councils across the UK with expert planning advice.
The designation of the sector as Critical National Infrastructure last year was a recognition that the sector occupied a similar level of national importance as water, energy, and emergency services. We are actively looking into how we secure the best deal possible for local communities, ensuring they benefit from ongoing direct employment and this Government encourages operators to seek opportunities for the reuse of waste heat, to invest in local technical skills, improvements to local broadband and other beneficial initiatives.
Asked by: Lord Clement-Jones (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask His Majesty's Government what action they are taking to strengthen sovereign capacity in cloud services and cyber resilience.
Answered by Baroness Lloyd of Effra - Baroness in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)
DSIT is supporting industry in building more data centres in the UK (including via AI Growth Zones), which helps enable cloud providers in the UK to expand. We are working with other government departments to speed up planning permission and grid connection timings to support this.
The Government believes complex issues such as the security of data and digital governance are best addressed through transparent, inclusive multistakeholder engagement. We remain committed to working with international partners within recognised global mechanisms to promote shared understanding and responsible international behaviours, while ensuring support for UK-based data-driven businesses to innovate and grow.
Cyber security is a key part of the Industrial Strategy. DSIT supports the development of sovereign capability in the £13.2 billion UK cyber security sector through its accelerator programmes, including CyberASAP, which commercialises cyber security research, and Cyber Runway, which supports entrepreneurs and companies. Our £187 million TechFirst programme will improve digital skills across the country, including cyber security skills. We are investing significantly in the National Cyber Security Centre, the Government’s technical authority on cyber security, which continues to work to strengthen UK cyber resilience. The Cyber Security and Resilience Bill will further strengthen UK cyber defences and boost protections for our essential and digital services, including cloud computing.