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

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what discussions she has had with the Secretary of State for International Trade on supporting the semiconductor industry to export.

The Department for International Trade have a range of existing support for UK semiconductor exporters, including the Export Support Service and new trade and investment hubs in the UK. DIT will also be supporting UK tech companies at international exhibitions in 2022, such as the Consumer Electronics Show, Mobile World Congress and Photonics West. Such programmes bring benefits of the government’s global trade policy to the whole of the UK, with the semiconductor sector widely dispersed across the UK, including the South Wales Compound Semiconductor and Applications Cluster.

Due to the ongoing semiconductor shortage and the importance of semiconductor technology to the wider digital ecosystem, DCMS are leading a review of our international and domestic approach to semiconductor supply chains. This will include an assessment of measures that could improve long term resilience within the semiconductor supply chain. We will be working closely with DIT as we do this, to establish where closer trade and investment links can add most value.