Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, if she has plans to bring forward a UK cloud strategy.

In November 2021, DCMS published the National Data Strategy Mission 1 Policy Framework: Unlocking the value of data across the economy, which provides a framework for government action to set the right conditions to make private and third sector data more usable, accessible and available. The Framework identifies seven priority areas for action, three of which contribute to the goal of supporting the development of data sharing infrastructure within the UK. One of these is particularly focused on how the government can support the development of infrastructure that promotes wider economy data sharing for research and development purposes, which could include cloud services.

The recently formed Central Digital and Data Office (CDDO) in the Cabinet Office is also working on standardising the approach that government organisations take to the use of cloud services and data hosting.