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

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, how many FTE staff Ofcom has recruited to support its duties under the Telecommunications (Security) Bill; and how many FTE staff it plans to recruit for those duties in 2022-23 and 2023-24.

The Ofcom security budget for this financial year has been increased by £4.6 million. This funding will allow Ofcom to more than double the number of staff working on telecoms security by the end of this financial year. This includes hiring a multi-skilled team including technical, enforcement and legal experts.

We are committed to ensuring that Ofcom will have adequate resources to take forward its work under the Telecommunications (Security) Bill. Longer term security funding for Ofcom was agreed as part of the recent Spending Review and the government will be able to provide more details on this funding following the conclusion of the Government's business planning process.