Asked by: Chi Onwurah (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne Central and West)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, pursuant to the Answer of 8 December to Question 96656, if she will make an assessment of the a) the proportion of chatbots which use search and b) the characteristics of chatbots which use search.
Answered by Kanishka Narayan - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
Chatbots that use search capabilities are designed to generate responses for users by actively searching the live web. This functionality means they would be captured by the Online Safety Act’s duties as a search service.
The Secretary of State confirmed in Parliament that the government is considering how AI chatbots interact with the Act and has also urged Ofcom to use its existing powers to ensure that AI chatbots are safe for children.
As part of this work, the government continues to assess the prevalence and nature of chatbot services.
Asked by: Chi Onwurah (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne Central and West)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, whether Innovate UK will resume its Smart Grants funding stream to support innovation-led start-ups.
Answered by Kanishka Narayan - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
The Smart grants programme has been paused while Innovate UK redesigns its funding programmes to best suit the needs of innovative businesses and align to the objectives of the Government’s Industrial Strategy.
However, Innovate UK has launched a new £130 million ‘Growth Catalyst’ Innovate UK scheme focused on scaling innovative businesses in Industrial Strategy growth sectors. This offers grants, aligned private sector investment, and tailored support to companies, and this approach has a track record of driving 10:1 follow-on investment.
Asked by: Chi Onwurah (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne Central and West)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, what information her Department holds on the proportion of chatbots deployed in the UK that use search-based functionality as part of their responses; and what assessment she has made of the whether AI chatbot users in the UK are adequately protected from harmful content.
Answered by Kanishka Narayan - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
Generative AI services, including chatbots, that allow users to share content with one another or that search live websites to provide search results are regulated under the Online Safety Act and must protect users from illegal content and children from harmful and age-inappropriate content.
The Secretary of State confirmed in Parliament this week that the government is considering how AI chatbots interact with the Act and also urged Ofcom to use its existing powers to ensure that AI chatbots are safe for children.
Where evidence demonstrates that further action is necessary to protect children and the wider public, we will not hesitate to act.
Asked by: Chi Onwurah (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne Central and West)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, pursuant to the Answer of 5 November 2025 to Question 85758 on Science: International Cooperation, what information her Department holds on the funding for the Japan Science Partnership.
Answered by Kanishka Narayan - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
The Department collects the following information for ISPF programmes with Japan.
Partner organisation name, Partner activity description, Relevant sector and ISPF theme, Total applications, Total awards, Activity status (live or closed), start and end dates, other countries involved (if multi-country programme), Original commitment figure, forecast spend, Actual spend.
We will confirm plans for publication of relevant data in due course.
Asked by: Chi Onwurah (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne Central and West)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, with which countries does the UK operate international science partnership funds; and how much and what proportion of the funding for the partnership with Japan is from (a) public and (b) private sources and (i) domestic and (ii) foreign contributors.
Answered by Kanishka Narayan - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
The International Science Partnership Fund currently operates in:
United States of America, Japan, Canada, India, South Korea, Switzerland, Australia, Germany, Israel, Taiwan, China, Ireland, France, Netherlands, New Zealand, Denmark, and Latvia (non-ODA)
South Africa, Kenya, Malaysia, Thailand, Brazil, Egypt, Indonesia, Jordan, Philippines, Vietnam, Turkey, and Ghana (ODA)
Information on spend in Japan is not provided under the exemptions in the Ministerial Code that cover information that is not currently held and where there would be a disproportionate cost to gaining it.
Asked by: Chi Onwurah (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne Central and West)
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 science and discovery centres on their financial resilience since the covid-19 pandemic.
Answered by Kanishka Narayan - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
The Government recognises the important role these centres play in engaging the public with science and inspiring young people. As set out in the answer of 29 October 2025 to Question 84033, Minister Vallance has followed up with the Department for Culture, Media and Sport to explore a coordinated approach to supporting these centres. I refer my honourable friend to that answer for further detail.
Asked by: Chi Onwurah (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne Central and West)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, what discussions his Department has had with Innovate UK on (a) when it plans to open the next Biomedical Catalyst grant awards and (b) steps being taken to ensure a wide range of biomedical businesses can apply for grants via that programme.
Answered by Kanishka Narayan - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
The Biomedical Catalyst has a suite of competitions designed to support small and medium sized businesses to progress projects at different stages of development.
There is currently one grant opportunity open - Innovate UK Biomedical Catalyst Accelerator – Hospital to Community - which closes on the 31st of October. The next round of industry-led R&D funding is under preparation and expected to be launched early Nov and open for 4 weeks.
Innovate UK promotes R&D funding opportunities through social media and other communication channels. Biomedical Catalyst also utilises Business Connect services to engage with UK businesses by offering bespoke, sustained 1:1 support as well as providing advice and access to resources that can help promote Biomedical Catalyst, and support with applications and funding.
Asked by: Chi Onwurah (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne Central and West)
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 the resilience of Government Digital Services to outages.
Answered by Ian Murray - Minister of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
In the 2025 State of Digital Government review, cyber security and digital resilience risks were identified as critically high across the public sector, and we are taking immediate action to make Government services more secure, resilient and reliable.
Government has a robust set of policies that ensure there are well-defined and tested incident management processes in place, providing continuity of essential functions in the event of system or service failure.
Furthermore, the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) will publish the Government Cyber Action Plan this Winter, which sets out a clear approach for Government and the public sector to manage cyber security and resilience incidents.
Asked by: Chi Onwurah (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne Central and West)
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 the AWS outage on 20 October 2025 on Government Digital Services.
Answered by Ian Murray - Minister of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
The Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) is leading Government’s response to the AWS outage that took place on Monday 20 October 2025. DSIT continues to work across government and with businesses to understand the full impacts of the outage. All AWS services were restored on Monday evening and DSIT is in contact with AWS to understand how such events can be mitigated in the future.
The outage affected a number of suppliers and departments, and it will take some time to fully understand the scale of the impact. DSIT will be gathering a full picture of the impact on government in the coming weeks.
The Department for Science, Innovation and Technology will publish the Government Cyber Action Plan this Winter, which will set out a clear approach for the Government and the Wider Public Sector to manage cyber security and resilience incidents.
Asked by: Chi Onwurah (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne Central and West)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, what proportion of Government cloud services are hosted on (a) AWS, (b) Google and (c) Microsoft infrastructure.
Answered by Ian Murray - Minister of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
The State of Digital Government report estimates up to 60% of the government estate is currently hosted on cloud platforms, mostly using AWS, Microsoft and Google. More granular data on the split between AWS, Google and Microsoft infrastructure is not currently held. However, the Government Digital Service in DSIT is developing a cloud consumption dashboard to provide government with greater visibility of cloud usage and costs across the public sector.