Asked by: Samantha Niblett (Labour - South Derbyshire)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, pursuant to the Answer on 4 June 2025 to Question 55787 on Government Departments: Software, what assessment his Department has made of the potential impact of the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 on (a) software licencing and (b) the Government's procurement of software.
Answered by Justin Madders - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade)
The Competition and Markets Authority has been awarded enhanced powers by the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers (“DMCC”) Act 2024 to protect UK consumers and businesses from unfair or harmful practices by the very largest technology firms.
The DMCC Act enables the CMA to provide opportunities to encourage the benefits of investment and innovation from the largest digital firms, while ensuring a level playing-field for the many start-ups and scale-ups across the UK tech sector. This should promote greater innovation, more choice and more competitive process across the sector benefiting UK businesses, consumers and government.
Asked by: Samantha Niblett (Labour - South Derbyshire)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, what assessment he has made of the potential impact of the new powers for the Competition and Markets Authority in the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 to tackle restrictive software licensing on (a) consumers, (b) businesses and (c) the wider economy.
Answered by Justin Madders - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade)
The Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 has empowered the Competition and Markets Authority to designate firms which exert significant control in respect of digital activities with “Strategic Market Status” (SMS), following an evidence-based assessment.
The CMA can carry out investigations to determine the most appropriate remedies for a specific competition concern. Remedies will ensure designated firms treat businesses and consumers fairly, promote more dynamic markets and help new competitors enter the market. The CMA has already exercised its new powers by launching three SMS investigations into large technology firms in January this year.
Asked by: Samantha Niblett (Labour - South Derbyshire)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, pursuant to the Answer of 4 June 2025 to Question 55786 on Public Sector: Digital Technology, whether his Department’s digital transformation strategy will include the (a) financial impact of software assets on departmental budgets and (b) impact of identified dependencies on those assets on cost efficiencies.
Answered by Feryal Clark - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
The State of Digital Government review, A blueprint for modern digital government and the Performance Review of Digital Spend, all published this year, have highlighted the need to reform digital purchasing.
The Government has launched a Digital Commercial Centre of Excellence, containing experts from the Digital and Commercial Functions, within the Government Digital Service (GDS) in my department. It is pursuing multiple strategies to improve value for money and outcomes including central buying of commodity services, development of a digital sourcing strategy, creation of technical enablers and joined-up management of strategic digital suppliers.
Asked by: Samantha Niblett (Labour - South Derbyshire)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, pursuant to the Answer of 4 June 2025 to Question 55785 on Public Sector: Digital Technology, what discussions his Department has had with the Digital Commercial Centre of Excellence on the impact of software licensing for Government software procurement on the digital transformation strategy.
Answered by Feryal Clark - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
The State of Digital Government review, A blueprint for modern digital government and the Performance Review of Digital Spend, all published this year, have highlighted the need to reform digital purchasing.
The Government has launched a Digital Commercial Centre of Excellence, containing experts from the Digital and Commercial Functions, within the Government Digital Service (GDS) in my department. It is pursuing multiple strategies to improve value for money and outcomes including central buying of commodity services, development of a digital sourcing strategy, creation of technical enablers and joined-up management of strategic digital suppliers.
Asked by: Samantha Niblett (Labour - South Derbyshire)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what assessment her Department has made of the potential impact of the UK comedy industry on (a) the economy and (b) society.
Answered by Chris Bryant - Minister of State (Department for Culture, Media and Sport)
While the Department has not carried out any recent assessments of the impact of the UK comedy industry, the government recognises the sector as a vital performing art which forms part of this country's cultural landscape, enriching lives, and shaping our collective identity. British comedy also generates substantial economic returns, with a recent Culture, Media and Sport Committee on Live Comedy estimating that the live sector generates £1 billion annually.
Our arms-length body, Arts Council England (ACE) funds numerous organisations and venues that support comedy. Between the financial years covering 2010/11 to 2024/25 ACE has awarded £12,296,254 in funding where an applicant name, project title or subclassifier contains the word “comedy”. In addition, DCMS will be convening a roundtable discussion in the coming months to hear about issues currently impacting this sector.
Asked by: Samantha Niblett (Labour - South Derbyshire)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether his Department has made an assessment of the potential merits of comedy within social prescribing.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department recognises the value that social prescribing can play in supporting people’s health and wellbeing. This includes activities such as the creative arts, as well as cultural activities.
Asked by: Samantha Niblett (Labour - South Derbyshire)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, whether her Department plans to make (a) solar panels, (b) electric vehicle charging points and (c) battery storage mandatory on new build (i) commercial and (ii) domestic buildings.
Answered by Alex Norris - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
The Government is committed to bringing forward the Future Homes and Buildings Standards later this year. These standards will ensure that new homes and buildings are future proofed with low carbon heating and high levels of energy efficiency. Solar panels will play a fundamental role in the new standards. We also expect other low carbon technologies, such as batteries, to play a role where appropriate.
With regards to electric vehicle charging points, Part S of the Building Regulations came into effect in June 2022. Part S requires new residential and non-residential buildings with associated parking spaces to have electric vehicle charging points.
Asked by: Samantha Niblett (Labour - South Derbyshire)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to collaborates with the Health Innovation Network to support local innovation in NHS care pathways.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government continues to fund and support the Health Innovation Network to help the adoption of local innovation into National Health Service care pathways, and digital innovation into local NHS services. Each of the 15 regional networks deliver services for their local population, as well as working as a national network.
The network’s Innovation Collaborative for Digital Health exemplifies their support for digital innovation in local NHS services, and the scaling of these innovations across the NHS, as the collaborative supports 487,000 people with technology-enabled remote monitoring at home.
Since 2020, over 340,000 hours of healthcare staff capacity has been released through the network’s national programmes.
Asked by: Samantha Niblett (Labour - South Derbyshire)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking with the Health Innovation Network to support digital innovation in local NHS services.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government continues to fund and support the Health Innovation Network to help the adoption of local innovation into National Health Service care pathways, and digital innovation into local NHS services. Each of the 15 regional networks deliver services for their local population, as well as working as a national network.
The network’s Innovation Collaborative for Digital Health exemplifies their support for digital innovation in local NHS services, and the scaling of these innovations across the NHS, as the collaborative supports 487,000 people with technology-enabled remote monitoring at home.
Since 2020, over 340,000 hours of healthcare staff capacity has been released through the network’s national programmes.
Asked by: Samantha Niblett (Labour - South Derbyshire)
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 to support (a) the Health Innovation Network and (b) other regional networks to help (i) support health technology SMEs and (ii) increase economic growth.
Answered by Feryal Clark - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
The Government continues to fund the Health Innovation Network to support health and social care teams to identify, test, and scale new solutions – including new health technologies – to major NHS challenges. Since 2018, HIN programmes have created or secured over 10,000 jobs and provided bespoke support to thousands of SME innovators, contributing >£2.6bn to UK economy with a 3:1 return on investment.
Other Government-funded regional networks include the NIHR Research Delivery Network, which enables the health and care system to attract, optimise and deliver research across England. This includes supporting the delivery of research funded by health technology SMEs.