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.

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.

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to ensure that the new media and digital literacy curriculum is adapted to support children with special educational needs and disabilities to sufficiently learn media and digital literacy skills and knowledge.

Answered by Baroness Smith of Malvern - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

Media literacy is currently covered in the citizenship, relationships, sex and health education (RSHE) and computing curricula, while digital literacy is addressed in computing and RSHE.

On 15 July, the government published updated RSHE statutory guidance, introducing new content on artificial intelligence (AI), online safety and pornography, which will become mandatory learning in schools from 1 September 2026. Following publication of the independent Curriculum and Assessment Review’s final report on 5 November 2025, vital applied knowledge and skills in media and digital literacy will be embedded into the revised curriculum from 2028.

The department will engage with sector experts in working out how best to reflect this in the updated curriculum, including to ensure that the curriculum is accessible to pupils with special educational needs and disabilities and adaptable to remain current in a rapidly changing context. There will be a public consultation on the updated curriculum programmes of study to seek views on the content before it is finalised.

To support schools with teaching in the short and longer-term, Oak National Academy, an independent arm’s length body, provides adaptable, optional and free curriculum support for schools, including resources for computing and secondary citizenship, which can be found here: https://www.thenational.academy/.

In addition, the Educate Against Hate website hosts a series of online media literacy resources to support teachers and school leaders to build resilience to extremist narratives online in children and young people. The National Centre for Computing Education also provides teachers with subject knowledge courses and resources to support the teaching of computing topics, including digital literacy and AI.

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask His Majesty's Government how media and digital literacy education in the new curriculum will be kept up-to-date with trends in technologies and emerging threats.

Answered by Baroness Smith of Malvern - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

Media literacy is currently covered in the citizenship, relationships, sex and health education (RSHE) and computing curricula, while digital literacy is addressed in computing and RSHE.

On 15 July, the government published updated RSHE statutory guidance, introducing new content on artificial intelligence (AI), online safety and pornography, which will become mandatory learning in schools from 1 September 2026. Following publication of the independent Curriculum and Assessment Review’s final report on 5 November 2025, vital applied knowledge and skills in media and digital literacy will be embedded into the revised curriculum from 2028.

The department will engage with sector experts in working out how best to reflect this in the updated curriculum, including to ensure that the curriculum is accessible to pupils with special educational needs and disabilities and adaptable to remain current in a rapidly changing context. There will be a public consultation on the updated curriculum programmes of study to seek views on the content before it is finalised.

To support schools with teaching in the short and longer-term, Oak National Academy, an independent arm’s length body, provides adaptable, optional and free curriculum support for schools, including resources for computing and secondary citizenship, which can be found here: https://www.thenational.academy/.

In addition, the Educate Against Hate website hosts a series of online media literacy resources to support teachers and school leaders to build resilience to extremist narratives online in children and young people. The National Centre for Computing Education also provides teachers with subject knowledge courses and resources to support the teaching of computing topics, including digital literacy and AI.

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they plan to take to support children’s media and digital literacy education in the period before the curriculum is updated in 2028.

Answered by Baroness Smith of Malvern - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

Media literacy is currently covered in the citizenship, relationships, sex and health education (RSHE) and computing curricula, while digital literacy is addressed in computing and RSHE.

On 15 July, the government published updated RSHE statutory guidance, introducing new content on artificial intelligence (AI), online safety and pornography, which will become mandatory learning in schools from 1 September 2026. Following publication of the independent Curriculum and Assessment Review’s final report on 5 November 2025, vital applied knowledge and skills in media and digital literacy will be embedded into the revised curriculum from 2028.

The department will engage with sector experts in working out how best to reflect this in the updated curriculum, including to ensure that the curriculum is accessible to pupils with special educational needs and disabilities and adaptable to remain current in a rapidly changing context. There will be a public consultation on the updated curriculum programmes of study to seek views on the content before it is finalised.

To support schools with teaching in the short and longer-term, Oak National Academy, an independent arm’s length body, provides adaptable, optional and free curriculum support for schools, including resources for computing and secondary citizenship, which can be found here: https://www.thenational.academy/.

In addition, the Educate Against Hate website hosts a series of online media literacy resources to support teachers and school leaders to build resilience to extremist narratives online in children and young people. The National Centre for Computing Education also provides teachers with subject knowledge courses and resources to support the teaching of computing topics, including digital literacy and AI.

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they intend to take to ensure that teachers are provided with up-to-date, relevant and engaging resources to feel confident to teach media and digital literacy in the new curriculum.

Answered by Baroness Smith of Malvern - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

Media literacy is currently covered in the citizenship, relationships, sex and health education (RSHE) and computing curricula, while digital literacy is addressed in computing and RSHE.

On 15 July, the government published updated RSHE statutory guidance, introducing new content on artificial intelligence (AI), online safety and pornography, which will become mandatory learning in schools from 1 September 2026. Following publication of the independent Curriculum and Assessment Review’s final report on 5 November 2025, vital applied knowledge and skills in media and digital literacy will be embedded into the revised curriculum from 2028.

The department will engage with sector experts in working out how best to reflect this in the updated curriculum, including to ensure that the curriculum is accessible to pupils with special educational needs and disabilities and adaptable to remain current in a rapidly changing context. There will be a public consultation on the updated curriculum programmes of study to seek views on the content before it is finalised.

To support schools with teaching in the short and longer-term, Oak National Academy, an independent arm’s length body, provides adaptable, optional and free curriculum support for schools, including resources for computing and secondary citizenship, which can be found here: https://www.thenational.academy/.

In addition, the Educate Against Hate website hosts a series of online media literacy resources to support teachers and school leaders to build resilience to extremist narratives online in children and young people. The National Centre for Computing Education also provides teachers with subject knowledge courses and resources to support the teaching of computing topics, including digital literacy and AI.

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.

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.

Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask His Majesty's Government what estimate they have made of the economic cost of the outages of Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure in October.

Answered by Lord Livermore - Financial Secretary (HM Treasury)

The Government monitors systemic risks to UK critical national infrastructure, including resilience measures and contingency planning, including cloud providers. The Government recognises the importance of robust protections for the services essential to our society and economy. That is why we introduced the Cyber Security and Resilience Bill on 12 November. The Bill will make sure more types of essential and digital services adhere to robust cyber security practices.

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