Asked by: Iqbal Mohamed (Independent - Dewsbury and Batley)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, with regard to the Animals in Science Regulation Unit Annual Report 2024, published in December 2025, how the number of unannounced audits in 2024 compares with previous years; and whether she she is taking to help increase the number of unannounced audits in future years.
Answered by Sarah Jones - Minister of State (Home Office)
The numbers of unannounced audits conducted are reported in the published Animals in Science Regulation Unit (ASRU) Annual Reports.
Year | Number of unannounced audits |
2024 | 10 |
2023 | 14 |
2022 | 10 |
The Annual Report for 2024 can be found at:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/animals-in-science-regulation-unit-annual-report-2024
ASRU has planned to increase the number of unannounced audits as part of its work to strength regulatory oversight. ASRU has also increased its number of inspectors, enabling a greater volume of risk-based audits across the system.
Announced and unannounced audits play an important role in providing regulatory assurance. Audit numbers are only one indicator of the level of regulatory oversight; the quality, depth and scope of audits are central to assessing compliance effectively.
Asked by: Iqbal Mohamed (Independent - Dewsbury and Batley)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, what progress officials in UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) has made on developing target areas of research for alternative methods for animal testing; and whether UKRI has any plans to consult with civil society organisations who have expertise in this area as part of this process.
Answered by Kanishka Narayan - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
On 11 November 2025 the Government published Replacing animals in science: A strategy to support the development, validation and uptake of alternative methods, which outlines the steps we will take to achieve this. The Labour Manifesto commits to partnering with scientists, industry and civil society as we work towards the phasing out of animal testing. The Government consulted civil society, industry and academia during development of the strategy and continues to do so during delivery, including through regular Home Office meetings. We also intend to publish areas of research interest later this year. UKRI has an important role in this but is not the only delivery partner
Asked by: Iqbal Mohamed (Independent - Dewsbury and Batley)
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 social media companies on measures to support users, including young people, to identify false and misleading political information, in the context of proposals to extend the voting age to 16.
Answered by Kanishka Narayan - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
The Government recognises the importance of supporting people, including young people, to identify false and misleading information online.
Media literacy is an important part of our approach. DSIT is improving it through a cross-government approach outlined in the Media Literacy Action Plan published 16 March. In February we launched a pilot campaign and the Kids Online Safety Hub to help parents support children’s resilience to misinformation.
Asked by: Iqbal Mohamed (Independent - Dewsbury and Batley)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, what assessment she has made of the potential risks posed by AI-generated and manipulated content on young voters’ ability to assess political information during election campaigns.
Answered by Kanishka Narayan - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
The Government recognises that the huge opportunities offered by AI also come with risks, including potential challenges posed by AI-generated content for the online information environment.
The Online Safety Act regulates AI generated mis/disinformation. This includes the Foreign Interference Offence, requiring companies to take action against state-sponsored disinformation and state-linked interference targeted at the UK and our democratic processes.
Media literacy is also part of our wider approach, building young people’s resilience to mis- and disinformation, including AI-generated content. The government will ensure that media literacy is embedded into the new primary citizenship curriculum, from September 2028.
Asked by: Iqbal Mohamed (Independent - Dewsbury and Batley)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, what mechanisms exist for the AI Security Institute to receive systematic information about incidents involving autonomous or adaptive machine learning systems in critical national infrastructure as part of its intelligence capacity to research the development of AI capabilities that could contribute towards AI's ability to evade human control, as well the propensity of models to engage in misaligned actions.
Answered by Kanishka Narayan - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
The AI Security Institute (AISI) collaborates with leading AI developers to measure the capabilities of advanced AI and recommend risk mitigations, to ensure we stay ahead of AI impacts.
This close collaboration with industry enables information-sharing to mitigate risks. AISI’s testing has identified a large number of AI model vulnerabilities that labs (such as OpenAI and Anthropic) have addressed prior to release.
AISI is researching the development of AI capabilities that could contribute towards AI’s ability to evade human control, as well the propensity of models to engage in misaligned actions. AISI shares its insights with government departments to help manage the risks AI could pose to critical national infrastructure.
Through the Alignment Project – a funding consortium distributing up to £27m for research projects – AISI is supporting further foundational research into methods to develop AI systems that operate according to our goals, without unintended or harmful behaviours.
Asked by: Iqbal Mohamed (Independent - Dewsbury and Batley)
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 Cyber Security and Resilience Bill's incident reporting criteria for capturing novel failure modes arising from autonomous or adaptive machine learning systems in critical national infrastructure.
Answered by Kanishka Narayan - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
The Cyber Security and Resilience (Network and Information Systems) Bill makes vital updates to the Network and Information Systems (NIS) Regulations 2018 to ensure that providers of the UK’s essential services are reporting more forms of harmful cyber incident to their regulators. Where these incidents meet the threshold of a reportable incident, they will need to be reported to the relevant regulator regardless of the cause. This will include incidents caused by the failure of autonomous or adaptive machine learning systems within a regulated entity’s network and information systems.
Asked by: Iqbal Mohamed (Independent - Dewsbury and Batley)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, what progress has been made on the proposed AI datacentre site in Loughton, Essex, announced in January 2025.
Answered by Kanishka Narayan - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
Matters regarding specific delivery and commercial plans for any private project are for the lead private sector investor to confirm. The government engages regularly with the sector to support build out.
Asked by: Iqbal Mohamed (Independent - Dewsbury and Batley)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, what estimate her Department has made of the potential number of jobs that will be created as a result of CoreWeave’s investment.
Answered by Kanishka Narayan - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
AI Growth Zones are expected to create more than 15,000 jobs spanning construction activity, permanent operational roles and wider supply‑chain employment. Job creation will ramp up as infrastructure works progress, with full delivery projected by the early 2030s. These figures are based on information provided by project teams and should be treated as projections rather than firm forecasts.
Ultimately, hiring decisions sit with individual companies, but AI Growth Zones are designed to create high‑skill, long‑term employment in areas with strong potential for economic growth.
The Department does not hold central data that consistently categorises jobs into short‑, medium‑ and long‑term across all AI Growth Zones, nor comprehensive data on jobs created to date, as projects remain at an early stage of delivery.
Asked by: Iqbal Mohamed (Independent - Dewsbury and Batley)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, what due diligence her Department undertook before announcing Nscale’s proposed $2.5 billion investment in UK AI infrastructure in 2025.
Answered by Kanishka Narayan - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
Matters regarding specific delivery and commercial plans for any private project are for the lead private sector investor to confirm. The government engages regularly with the sector to support build out.
Asked by: Iqbal Mohamed (Independent - Dewsbury and Batley)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what steps her Department is taking to help ensure that the grassroots sport fund provides targeted support for swimming pools in areas with limited access to aquatic facilities.
Answered by Stephanie Peacock - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Culture, Media and Sport)
The Government recognises the importance of ensuring public access to swimming facilities, which are great spaces for people of all ages to stay fit and healthy, and which play an important role within communities.
The ongoing responsibility of providing access to public leisure facilities lies at local authority level, with funding levels set as part of the Local Government Finance Settlement. The Government encourages local authorities to make investments which offer the right opportunities and facilities for the communities they serve, investing in sport and physical activity with a place-based approach, to meet the needs of individual communities.
In June last year, we committed £400 million to transform sports facilities, including public leisure, across the whole of the UK over the next four years, supporting the Government's Plan for Change. We are working closely with sporting bodies and local leaders to establish what communities need, before setting out further plans on how future funding will be allocated.