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.
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 potential implications for his policies of recent reports that social media platform algorithms may promote harmful or extremist content to users.
Answered by Rushanara Ali
Social media companies must keep people safe on their platforms and holding them accountable is a departmental priority. Under the Online Safety Act, services must tackle illegal content, including terrorist content and that which stirs up hatred based on religion or race, or incites violence. They must also protect children from additional forms of legal content, including that which is hateful or abusive.
The Act is clear that services should take steps to ensure their algorithms do not promote these kinds of content. Ofcom also has robust information gathering and enforcement powers to ensure that services operate their algorithms safely.
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, pursuant to the Answer of 23 September 2025 to Question 76225 on Mobile Phones: Inverness, Skye and West Ross-shire, whether his Department has made a comparative assessment of the number of not-spot areas in (a) Inverness, Skye, and West Ross-shire constituency with (b) the rest of the UK.
Answered by Kanishka Narayan - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
The regulator, Ofcom, publishes data that allows for this comparison to be drawn. In Ofcom’s Connected Nations Spring Update, published on 8 May 2025, it is reported that approximately 24% of the constituency of Inverness, Skye and West Ross-Shire has no 4G geographic coverage from any mobile network operator (MNO). This compares to approximately 4% of the UK landmass not having any 4G geographic coverage from any MNO. Similarly, while around 20% of premises in the constituency lack 5G coverage outside from any MNO, approximately 4% of UK premises lack 5G coverage outside from any MNO.
A further update to this data is expected to be published later this year, providing the latest mobile network coverage data, including at a national and Westminster Constituency level.
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 ensure that rural households are offered appropriate mitigation measures before being switched from analogue to digital telephone services.
Answered by Kanishka Narayan - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
The Government is committed to ensuring that any risks arising from the industry-led migration of the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) to Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) are mitigated for all customers across the UK.
The Government has published guidance for communication providers on providing vulnerable customers with supported journeys where necessary. This includes customers who are landline dependent, perhaps due to living in rural locations with less mobile connectivity. Communication providers have committed in the Non-Voluntary Migrations Checklist that these customers will be provided with a battery back-up unit for use in case of a power cut.
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 ensure that the vulnerability registers maintained by energy providers are shared with telecommunications providers to prioritise additional support for vulnerable customers during the Public Switched Telephone Network migration.
Answered by Kanishka Narayan - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
The Government is committed to ensuring that vulnerable people are identified and appropriately supported during the Public Switched Telephone Network migration. For legal and data protection reasons, data on vulnerable people from energy providers cannot be shared with communication providers. Instead, communication providers committed in the Non-Voluntary Migrations Checklist to sign data sharing agreements with local authorities to identify vulnerable people.
In addition, BT and Virgin Media funded, with government support, a national communications campaign to encourage vulnerable people to self-identify. Communication providers have also used data from alarm receiving centres, alongside their individual/standard approaches to identifying vulnerable customers via outreach.
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 discussions she has had with Ofcom on the resilience of mobile masts serving rural communities to prolonged power outages.
Answered by Kanishka Narayan - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
Whilst telecommunications services are generally resilient, they can be disrupted, and we recognise the impact that prolonged power cuts can have, especially on rural communities. In December 2023, Ofcom launched a public Call for Input on the power back-up at mobile access sites across the UK. They published an update on their work in February this year, confirming they are completing further analysis to determine the appropriate and proportionate measures that mobile operators should put in place. The Department has supported this work and looks forward to its conclusions.
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, pursuant to the Answer of 23 September 2025 to Question 76223 on Project Gigabit: Inverness, Skye and West Ross-shire, whether his Department has made a comparative assessment of the number of premises without access to gigabit-capable broadband in (a) Inverness, Skye, and West Ross-shire constituency with (b) the national average.
Answered by Kanishka Narayan - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
According to the independent website ThinkBroadband.com, 68% of premises in Inverness, Skye and West Ross-shire constituency and 89% of UK premises can access gigabit-capable broadband.
As per the answer to question 76223, the Open Market Review process in Scotland is carried out by the Scottish Government. It will have the most up to date information on the hon. Member’s constituency.
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, pursuant to the Answer of 23 September 2025 to Question 76224 on Broadband: Inverness, Skye and West Ross-shire, whether his Department has made a comparative assessment of the number of households with copper-based broadband connections in (a) Inverness, Skye, and West Ross-shire constituency with (b) the national average.
Answered by Kanishka Narayan - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
As stated in answer to question 76224, we estimate 18,540 households (35%) in the Inverness, Skye and West Ross-shire constituency are reliant on copper-based broadband. Using data from the same source (Ofcom’s Connected Nations 2025 Spring Update), we estimate 33% of residential properties in Scotland and 26% of residential properties in the UK are reliant on copper-based broadband connections. Most of these premises may also have recourse to connectivity through fixed wireless access.
These figures are accurate as of January 2025.
Figures for copper-based connections include broadband delivered by mixed technologies such as gigabit capable coaxial cable, fibre-to-the-cabinet (FTTC), as well as solely copper-based technologies such as ADSL.