Asked by: Will Stone (Labour - Swindon North)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, whether under-16s will be able to access political content on social media.
Answered by Kanishka Narayan - Minister of State (Cabinet Office) (Jointly with the Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Technology)
Government recognises the importance of young people being civically engaged.
On 15 June, the government announced its intention to ban social media companies from offering their services to under 16s.
Social media is not the only – nor always the most reliable – source of high-quality news content. We are helping young people engage with trusted high-quality local and national journalism online. We are strengthening media literacy in the national curriculum to help young people identify mis- and dis-information. State funded schools throughout the UK already have digital access to around 150 newspapers through the Newspapers for Schools News Library.
There will also be a defined list of exemptions, including, for example, educational services.
Asked by: Will Stone (Labour - Swindon North)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, if he will consider Panettoni Park in Swindon North constituency for Government funding for jobs in science and technology.
Answered by Feryal Clark
The Government is supporting local leaders to unlock their regions’ innovation potential. This includes Innovation Accelerator pilots, with innovation clusters sharing £100 million; the Launchpad programme, with 11 sites each receiving up to £7.5 million for innovation projects; and the Strength in Places Fund, which is investing £316 million in 12 projects to develop research and development capacity.
I understand Panettoni Park may host data centre space. The Government is reviewing and improving grid connections and exploring other ways to enable data centre capacity, with over £40 billion in private investment in new UK data centres announced since July 2024.
Asked by: Will Stone (Labour - Swindon North)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, if he will make an assessment of the potential merits of (a) requiring social media accounts to be linked to a form of ID and (b) preventing people with certain convictions from interacting with users under the age of 18.
Answered by Feryal Clark
The Online Safety Act gives online platforms new duties to protect users from illegal content and safeguard children.
The Act stipulates that where there is a risk to children from the most harmful types of content (‘primary priority content), in-scope services including social media sites must use highly effective age assurance.
Ofcom’s draft codes also propose additional protections for under 18s to keep their accounts private and prevent them being contacted and groomed by strangers.