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

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what assessment she has made of the readiness of organisations and businesses to implement the General Data Protection Regulation.

The Government and the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) recognise the challenges facing organisations across the UK economy in their preparations for the Data Protection Bill and the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). The ICO is leading on providing guidance and support to UK organisations and have already published a number of resources on the Commissioner's website (ico.org.uk) to help organisations prepare. The ICO has: launched a dedicated helpline service for smaller organisations; updated its 'SME toolkit' to reflect the requirements of the GDPR; simplified its "12-step" GDPR preparation guidance; and published tailored guidance for charities. There is still more to do in this space and the Government will continue to support the ICO to ensure the UK is prepared.