(3 weeks, 3 days ago)
Commons ChamberUrgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Fundamentally, this is a question about resilience across British industry. These attacks are costing British industries millions of pounds a day. What are the Government doing to facilitate knowledge-sharing within industry to boost resilience and guard against operational technology attacks? I know from personal experience that people in the cyber industries like to share information together, but require a forum to do so.
The hon. Member is right. For that matter, I suspect that every single Member of the House will have had some kind of attempted cyber-attack, whether that is phishing or vishing or whatever it may be on their mobile phones, where something comes up that looks remarkably possible. Then you say to yourself, “Oh, no, HMRC probably wouldn’t ask me to do that.” I urge all Members, incidentally, to take their own personal cyber-security seriously, and the House provides facilities for that. One other thing that we can do is for all companies to follow the cyber governance code of practice and provide board training. The more that board members understand these issues, the better.
(8 months ago)
Commons ChamberI have already had several conversations with the owners. It is a brilliant facility. As I said in my first speech today, we have a large number of studios. Incidentally, I am delighted that we launched the Labour campaign for Earley and Woodley just outside those studios. That obviously brought us good luck. Of course, I am happy to visit when time allows.
I am not sure that I will be able to answer every single question that has been asked, but there was one subject that exercised quite a lot of Members: access for all to the arts and creative industries.
I thank the Minister for giving way; it is very gracious of him. Many young farmers in Wales have told me that they would love to watch the output of the UK creative sector, particularly on Netflix, but they cannot. They are not able to download Netflix because their broadband is not good enough. What would the Minister advise them to do?
They should get in touch with the Telecoms Minister, but unfortunately he is rubbish. That is me. I am very happy to talk about the broadband issues in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency at any point, and if he wants a meeting with Building Digital UK, we can go through the specifics area by area. I have offered that to as many Members as I can.
Getting back to the creative industries, my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Gareth Snell) was channelling his inner Frank Sinatra; he basically said, “If we can make it here, we’ll make it anywhere.” He made a very good point: we need to make sure that creativity is perceived not as something that we see only in the big cities of this country, but as something that we need to exercise in every single part of the country. My hon. Friend the Member for Barking (Nesil Caliskan) made a very similar point about her constituency. My hon. Friend the Member for Leigh and Atherton (Jo Platt) made precisely that point—that creativity is not just about cities, but towns—as did my hon. Friend the Member for Hexham (Joe Morris).
The hon. Member for Guildford (Zöe Franklin) said, “If only we could recruit from not just one demographic.” I feel that so strongly. Perhaps the most famous actor from my constituency was Sir Stanley Baker from Ferndale, famous for “Zulu”, a film that every Welsh person has to watch about 52 times a year. Bringing people into the creative industries from every demographic is a really important part of what we need to do.