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

To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to strengthen UK defences against new threats posed by (1) misinformation campaigns, and (2) cyber warfare.

The Government takes the issue of disinformation very seriously. DCMS is leading work across Government to tackle it. The recently published Online Harms White Paper sets out our expectations for tech companies to take proportionate and proactive measures to minimise the spread of misleading and harmful disinformation and the potential sanctions they will face if they do not. The Government is also working closely with industry, civil society and international partners to mitigate against the threat of online disinformation campaigns. For example, ahead of the European Parliament elections, DCMS led a cross-government effort to monitor for any disinformation campaigns so that we were ready to respond to them quickly and effectively.

Cyber is a tier 1 threat and remains a national priority. This was made clear in The Strategic Defence and Security Review (SDSR) 2015 and reinforced by the National Cyber Security Strategy, published on 1 November 2016. The strategy sets out ambitious policies to protect the UK in cyber space, supported by a £1.9 billion transformational investment across ten years. Our vision for 2021 is that the UK is secure and resilient to cyber threats, prosperous and confident in the digital world.

The implementation of the National Cyber Security Strategy led to the establishment of the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) in 2016. The NCSC is a world-leading cyber security capability, providing the UK with a unified platform to handle national cyber incidents, replacing an array of bodies with a single point of contact in Government for the private sector.

The UK is also building a dedicated capability to counter-attack in cyber space as part of our full-spectrum capability. Defence is delivering this capability in partnership with GCHQ through the National Offensive Cyber Programme.