Asked by: Angus MacDonald (Liberal Democrat - Inverness, Skye and West Ross-shire)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, what measures her Department is implementing to help ensure big tech companies do not profit from fraudulent activity on their platforms.
Answered by Kanishka Narayan - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
The Online Safety Act lists fraud as priority illegal content, meaning in-scope services including social media and search providers must prevent and minimise fraudulent user-generated content from appearing on their services and swiftly remove it if it does. In-scope user-to-user services must also manage the risk that their service may be used to facilitate fraud offences.
Category 1 and 2A services (including large social media and search providers respectively) will have additional duties to tackle paid-for fraudulent advertising. Ofcom is responsible for designating categorised services and aims to publish the categorisation register in July.
Asked by: Angus MacDonald (Liberal Democrat - Inverness, Skye and West Ross-shire)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, what assessment her Department has made of the adequacy of the provisions of the Online Safety Act 2023 for tackling online scam advertisements.
Answered by Kanishka Narayan - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
The Online Safety Act lists fraud as priority illegal content, meaning in-scope services including social media and search providers must prevent and minimise fraudulent user-generated content from appearing on their services and swiftly remove it if it does. In-scope user-to-user services must also manage the risk that their service may be used to facilitate fraud offences.
Category 1 and 2A services (including large social media and search providers respectively) will have additional duties to tackle paid-for fraudulent advertising. Ofcom is responsible for designating categorised services and aims to publish the categorisation register in July.
Asked by: Angus MacDonald (Liberal Democrat - Inverness, Skye and West Ross-shire)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, what estimate he has made of the number of UK-trained scientists who have left the UK workforce following redundancies in the pharmaceutical and life sciences sectors over the past 15 years.
Answered by Kanishka Narayan - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
Government has not made an estimate of the number of UK-trained scientists who have left the workforce following redundancies in these sectors over the past 15-years. Over that period there have been both redundancies and the start of many new companies.
Life Sciences is a vibrant and growing sector supported by the recently published Life Sciences Sector Plan and over £2 billion of government investment. Skills England estimate that employment could increase by up to 100,000 by 2030 if past growth trends continue.
The Office for Life Sciences is working with Government colleagues and sector stakeholders to ensure access to a domestic pipeline of skilled workers. This includes support for RESILIENCE, the UK Medicines Manufacturing Skills Centre of Excellence.
Asked by: Angus MacDonald (Liberal Democrat - Inverness, Skye and West Ross-shire)
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 support the retention and re-employment of UK scientists alongside plans to recruit scientists from overseas.
Answered by Kanishka Narayan - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
The government is committed to ensuring universities and research institutions remain internationally competitive, with long-term career sustainability. DSIT has allocated £38.6 billion to UKRI over four years, including £14 billion for curiosity-driven research. DSIT supports talent at all career stages to help researchers build and sustain careers here, with over £5 billion of investment to attract and retain talent over four years. This includes government funding to train doctoral and postdoctoral researchers and deliver globally prestigious fellowship and professorship schemes through UKRI and the National Academies. The UK’s new Global Talent Fund has already announced eight leading researchers as successful awardees.
Asked by: Angus MacDonald (Liberal Democrat - Inverness, Skye and West Ross-shire)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, what assessment he has made of the impact of pharmaceutical and medical device R&D site closures on the trends in the levels of UK’s scientific research capacity since 2010.
Answered by Kanishka Narayan - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
The Government has made no formal assessment of the impact of pharmaceutical and medical device R&D site closures on trends in the UK’s scientific research capacity since 2010.
The Government does monitor the health of the UK life sciences sector, including R&D performed by UK businesses. Office for National Statistics data shows £9.3 billion of pharmaceutical R&D was performed by UK businesses in 2024, accounting for almost 17% of all R&D undertaken by UK businesses.
We are actively working with industry to boost the UK’s competitiveness and significantly grow the volume of private sector R&D and manufacturing in the UK over the next decade. For instance, the up to £520 million Life Sciences Innovative Manufacturing Fund and the pilot £50m Transformational R&D Investment Fund, which are supporting companies like UCB to invest in innovative early manufacturing in the UK.
Asked by: Angus MacDonald (Liberal Democrat - Inverness, Skye and West Ross-shire)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, what assessment he has made of the adequacy of the resilience of mobile communications infrastructure during prolonged power outages.
Answered by Kanishka Narayan - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
I refer the hon. Member to the answers I gave on 21 January 2026 to Question UINs 104628, 104629, and 104630.
Asked by: Angus MacDonald (Liberal Democrat - Inverness, Skye and West Ross-shire)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, whether his Department plans to request that Ofcom introduces new mandates for telecom resilience requirements, including adequate on-site, built-in resilience measures, particularly backup power via batteries at mobile phone masts and increasing the mandated minimum amount of backup power via batteries.
Answered by Kanishka Narayan - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
I refer the hon. Member to the answers I gave on 21 January 2026 to Question UINs 104628, 104629, and 104630.
Asked by: Angus MacDonald (Liberal Democrat - Inverness, Skye and West Ross-shire)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, what assessment he has made of the effectiveness of current mechanisms for reporting and removing extremist content from major social media platforms.
Answered by Kanishka Narayan - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
Under the Online Safety Act, platforms now have a legal duty to protect users. Since March 2025, services must proactively scan for and remove illegal content such as terrorist material, or that which stirs up racial hatred. In July 2025, additional new child safety duties came into force, placing a legal duty on services to protect children from content that is harmful to them, including that which is hateful or abusive. Services must ensure their algorithms do not promote this content and enable users to easily report where it appears on regulated services.
The Act requires the Secretary of State to review and report to Parliament on the effectiveness of the regime 2-5 years after the Act is fully implemented.
Asked by: Angus MacDonald (Liberal Democrat - Inverness, Skye and West Ross-shire)
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 in response to reports that social media platform algorithms may promote harmful or extremist content to users.
Answered by Kanishka Narayan - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
Under the Online Safety Act, platforms now have a legal duty to protect users. Since March 2025, services must proactively scan for and remove illegal content such as terrorist material, or that which stirs up racial hatred. In July 2025, additional new child safety duties came into force, placing a legal duty on services to protect children from content that is harmful to them, including that which is hateful or abusive. Services must ensure their algorithms do not promote this content and enable users to easily report where it appears on regulated services.
The Act requires the Secretary of State to review and report to Parliament on the effectiveness of the regime 2-5 years after the Act is fully implemented.
Asked by: Angus MacDonald (Liberal Democrat - Inverness, Skye and West Ross-shire)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, what assessment he has made of recent reports that social media platform algorithms may promote harmful or extremist content to users.
Answered by Kanishka Narayan - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
Under the Online Safety Act, platforms now have a legal duty to protect users. Since March 2025, services must proactively scan for and remove illegal content such as terrorist material, or that which stirs up racial hatred. In July 2025, additional new child safety duties came into force, placing a legal duty on services to protect children from content that is harmful to them, including that which is hateful or abusive. Services must ensure their algorithms do not promote this content and enable users to easily report where it appears on regulated services.
The Act requires the Secretary of State to review and report to Parliament on the effectiveness of the regime 2-5 years after the Act is fully implemented.