Asked by: Lord Nash (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask His Majesty's Government how many in-person and virtual meetings ministers, senior aides or officials in the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology have had with representatives of any providers of social media or gaming platforms, including trade bodies for those businesses, since June 2024; and how many of those meetings took place after 1 September 2025.
Answered by Baroness Lloyd of Effra - Baroness in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)
Ministers, aides and officials meet regularly with representatives of technology companies that provide social media or gaming platforms, including their trade bodies, to discuss issues within the department’s remit.
Asked by: Lord Nash (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Attorney General:
To ask His Majesty's Government when a decision will be made and communicated as to whether a fiat will be granted to enable an application to the High Court to reopen the inquest into the death of Julian ‘Jools’ Sweeney.
Answered by Lord Hermer - Attorney General
After careful consideration, the Solicitor General gave permission to Ellen Roome to make an application to the High Court for a fresh inquest into Jools' death. The Solicitor General believes there is a reasonable prospect the High Court will order one and wrote to Ellen Roome’s legal representative on the 13th of March to confirm this.
Asked by: Lord Nash (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made, if any, of whether civil society, charitable or academic organisations or individuals responding to the Growing up in the online world consultation have relationships with investors in, or providers or promoters of, technology services that give rise to conflicts of interest.
Answered by Baroness Lloyd of Effra - Baroness in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)
The Government welcomes contributions from all individuals and organisations to the Growing Up in the Online World consultation. Respondents may contribute either as individuals or on behalf of organisations; where organisations choose to provide information about their interests or affiliations, this will be considered as part of the standard analytical process. All consultation responses will be assessed in line with established Government standard practice. Officials will consider all relevant information submitted to ensure that the analysis is robust, balanced, and transparent.
Asked by: Lord Nash (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask His Majesty's Government which civil society, charitable or corporate organisations, if any, were invited to comment on or provide input to the content of the Growing up in the online world consultation prior to its publication on 2 March.
Answered by Baroness Lloyd of Effra - Baroness in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)
We regularly meet with civil society stakeholders to discuss online safety policy.
Any civil society, charitable, or corporate organisation mentioned in the consultation was asked to check that the specific references to them were factually accurate before publication.
All organisations are invited to respond to the consultation.
Asked by: Lord Nash (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask His Majesty's Government which academics or consultants will design and supervise the pilots announced as part of the Growing up in the online world consultation; and whether they will publish the protocols for those pilots.
Answered by Baroness Lloyd of Effra - Baroness in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)
The Government is working with Savanta to design and supervise the pilots.
Officials have sought expert advice from the Government’s Chief Scientific Adviser, Dame Angela Mclean, and the Government Office for Science (GO-Science). In February, Dame Angela convened and chaired a roundtable with academics, researchers and others with expertise in digital safety and evaluation design; to consider the objectives and methodologies for the pilots to ensure they can effectively inform future policy decisions.
Further information on the pilots will be provided in the coming weeks.
Asked by: Lord Nash (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask His Majesty's Government who will select academics to join the academic panel announced in the Growing up in the online world consultation; on what basis those academics will be selected; and what steps they will take to ensure that any actual or potential conflicts of interest, including research funding relationships, can be publicly disclosed by those on the panel.
Answered by Baroness Lloyd of Effra - Baroness in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)
DSIT has received advice from the Government Office for Science (GO-Science), academia and members of the research community on the potential makeup of the panel.
Prospective members will be required to declare conflicts of interest, which the Department will review before any appointment. The declarations of all panel members will be made public.
Further information about the panel will be made available in the coming weeks.
Asked by: Lord Nash (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask His Majesty's Government how many investigations Ofcom has commenced under the Online Safety Act 2023 in relation to regulated user-to-user services as defined in that Act; how many penalties have so far been imposed as a result; and how many of the fines imposed have been paid.
Answered by Baroness Lloyd of Effra - Baroness in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)
Ofcom, as the independent regulator for online safety, publishes information on its website about the enforcement action it takes, including details of the investigations it has opened into potential breaches of online safety duties. As a result of this work, Ofcom has exercised its powers to issue financial sanctions in several cases, with at least one regulated service having already paid its fine.
Asked by: Lord Nash (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask His Majesty's Government what happens to, and who owns, data digitally captured under the new Reception Baseline Assessment; and what if any commercial use could be made either of the response data itself or of any other metadata.
Answered by Baroness Smith of Malvern - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The reception baseline assessment (RBA) is a short, interactive assessment of early mathematics, language, literacy, and communication. Its purpose is to provide baseline data for primary progress measures, which will show the progress pupils in a school make from reception until the end of key stage 2.
RBA data is owned by the department. From the 2025/26 academic year, data from the assessment will be collected via the Standard and Testing Agency’s digital assessment platform, after which the data necessary to calculate school-level progress measures will be transferred to the National Pupil Database (NPD). This data will be stored in the NPD until the relevant cohort of pupils reaches the end of key stage 2. Some data and metadata will be used to support operational delivery of the assessment, for example to support helpdesk queries. The use of the data is governed by the RBA Privacy Notice which is available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/reception-baseline-assessment-privacy-notice. RBA data is not available for commercial use.
Asked by: Lord Nash (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask His Majesty's Government what proportion of the £1.3 billion in co-investment reported by UK Research and Innovation in the report Annual Report and Accounts 2023–24, published on 24 July 2024, was independently verified after project award.
Answered by Lord Vallance of Balham - Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
UKRI verifies co-investment commitments at several stages of the grant lifecycle. Verification processes are managed according to the terms and conditions of specific grant awards and vary depending on the size of the awards. For large co-investment commitments, UKRI engages third parties to conduct verification.
At the application stage, UKRI portfolio managers verify co-investment commitments as part of usual due diligence checks, with host research organisation also undertaking due diligence to confirm that information included in applications is accurate. For completed awards, grant holders are able to report actual co-investment values via the research outcomes process.
The co-investment figure of £1.3 billion provided in the 2023-24 UKRI Annual Report and Accounts reflects project partner contributions declared at the point of application.
Asked by: Lord Nash (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask His Majesty's Government whether they will place in the Library of the House copies of any contracts between the Department for Education and the Made Tech Group other than the one concerning the Reception Baseline Assessment.
Answered by Baroness Smith of Malvern - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The reception baseline assessment (RBA) is a short, interactive assessment of early mathematics, language, literacy and communication. Its purpose is to provide baseline data for primary progress measures.
The department appointed Made Tech Ltd in September 2024 on a four year contract to provide digital and data capabilities with the Standards and Testing Agency (STA) to continue to deliver and build its digital assessment platform, including in relation to the RBA. This followed an open procurement, in line with the Public Contracts Regulations 2015 process, launched in spring 2024. As with all government contracts above a certain value threshold, the contract with Made Tech can be found on the contracts finder website and accessed here: https://www.contractsfinder.service.gov.uk/notice/4723159e-e752-4658-8309-b2db3552d199?origin=SearchResults&p=1.
Additionally, the department has a contract with Made Tech for Technical Architecture Services. This can be found here: https://www.contractsfinder.service.gov.uk/notice/99cb71d8-8df0-498a-b5c2-9712472f8897?origin=SearchResults&p=2.
A copy of these contracts will also be placed in the Libraries of both Houses.
The department does not have a central record of all conversations with Made Tech. The department manages the relationship with Made Tech following best practice in supplier management, based on Cabinet Office guidance.