Asked by: Andrew Ranger (Labour - Wrexham)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, what steps his Department is taking to help tackle the sale of (a) unlicensed band merchandise and (b) other counterfeit goods on (i) TikTok and (ii) other social media platforms.
Answered by Feryal Clark - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
The Government is committed to protecting IP rights for our businesses and protecting unsuspecting consumers from those who seek to profit from all forms of intellectual property infringement. Trading Standards are primarily responsible for enforcing Intellectual Property Rights and are working with platforms of all sizes to remove counterfeits from their online stores.
The Intellectual Property Office also regularly meets many of the major social media and e-commerce trading platforms in the UK and overseas to help ensure they have policies in place to remove goods identified as counterfeit, advertisements of counterfeit goods, and persistent sellers of counterfeit goods.
Asked by: Andrew Ranger (Labour - Wrexham)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, what steps he is taking to ensure equal access to digital skills training and technology.
Answered by Chris Bryant - Minister of State (Department for Culture, Media and Sport)
The government is taking action in both these areas. The Digital Inclusion Action Plan sets out how we have, for example, launched a device donation pilot scheme in partnership with The Digital Poverty Alliance to refurbish end-of-life government laptops from three departments and get them to those that need them most.
The government is also supporting digital upskilling, for example through Essential Digital Skills (EDS) provisions funded by the Department for Education’s Adult Skills Fund. We will also be enhancing support for the EDS framework, which supports businesses and individuals to get the digital skills they need.