Science, Innovation and Technology Committee 

Oral evidence: Work of the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, HC 488

Wednesday 8 July 2026

Ordered by the House of Commons to be published on 8 July 2026.

Watch the meeting

Members present: Dame Chi Onwurah (Chair); Tom Collins; Emily Darlington; Maya Ellis; George Freeman; Dr Allison Gardner; Kit Malthouse; Samantha Niblett; Freddie van Mierlo; Martin Wrigley; Daniel Zeichner.

Questions 1 - 105

Witnesses

I: Rt Hon Liz Kendall MP, Secretary of State, DSIT; and Emran Mian, Permanent Secretary, DSIT.

Examination of witnesses

Witnesses: Liz Kendall and Emran Mian.

Q1                Chair: Welcome to today’s meeting of the Science, Innovation and Technology Committee. We are pleased that today we will hear for the second time from the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, Liz Kendall, and from the permanent secretary to that Department, Emran Mian.

I want to start by thanking our witnesses, and everyone here in this incredibly hot room in London. We will try to keep the meeting to time. If it is necessary, we may take short breaks.

Secretary of State, it is a little less than a year since you were appointed. What do you see as your most significant achievements in that time?

Liz Kendall: I think there are three things I am most proud of. First, there is the action that we have taken to back more British AI companies and give us greater leverage and sovereign control. That includes our sovereign AI fund, backed by £500 million, and our £1.1 billion AI hardware plan. If you believe, as I do, that AI is the most powerful technology of our lifetime—it is now the engine not just of economic power but of hard power—and if you believe that Britain is world-leading in this, but that we need to do more to shape this powerful technology to work for all and not just a powerful, unaccountable few, I believe those measures, as a start, are critical to the future of the country. That is No. 1.

Secondly, I think the ban on social media companies providing services to under-16s will be a significant change in this country, to give children their childhood back and give parents more control. It will reset cultural norms for future generations.

Thirdly, as a woman Secretary of State, I have put women in science and tech at the forefront of everything I have done, not only setting up our Women in Tech Taskforce, to get more women in tech and more tech that works for women, but last week publishing our women in research charter, which sets a minimum standard that women in research should get the maternity leave and pay, adoption and baby loss leave, and return-to-work policies that they deserve—because we want more women in science, not only because they deserve equality but because we need more science that works for women, too. Those are the three things that I am proudest of from the last 10 months.

Q2                Chair: Thank you very much, Secretary of State. Those are three really important issues, and I know we will dive more deeply into them. I echo your remarks, particularly on women in tech and science, as a woman who worked in tech for 20 years before coming into Parliament. The action that you have taken has been very well received.

Liz Kendall: It was because of women scientists and people who campaigned on tech in Parliament, whom I met in my first week as Secretary of State and who raised these issues with me, including Lauren Sullivan, who is now my PPS, and some of your members here, including Samantha. That epitomises it to me: it is because we have more women in this place that they are raising the policy issues that matter. It is due to women in Parliament, not just me.

Q3                Chair: This has been a very busy time. We have a lot to discuss with you and many questions to ask. Before we dive deeply, I want to ask you how you feel about “buckets”. The UKRI’s significant—in fact, £10 billion—public spend has been divided into buckets, as part of the bucket approach. We cannot use the term without putting it into inverted commas. We will be going into some of the details, but I have heard from people in the sector who feel that the term “buckets” infantilises what is incredibly important for my constituents, and for our competitiveness on the global stage, as well as the lives and livelihoods of many individuals around the country. Are you sticking with the bucket approach?

Liz Kendall: What we are sticking with, first of all, is that we have given the biggest funding for R&D ever.

Q4                Chair: I am thinking about the terminology.

Liz Kendall: That is right, but the big picture issue is that this Government have done more to back R&D than any Government ever before. It is correct to ask: what is that money being spent on? It is, absolutely, more money than ever on curiosity-led research, because we know that that has been the foundation of so many great innovations.

Q5                Chair: I am sorry, Secretary of State, but are you sticking with “buckets” as the term for how we spend our money?

Liz Kendall: I talk about what our priorities are for the use of taxpayers’ money. The second one is that we should focus it on Britain’s key national strengths. Thirdly, we should prioritise issues that the Government are focusing on—our eight industrial strategy sectors. I think that is the correct approach. We could have a long debate about terminology—buckets, groups or a framework—but underneath it what are we trying to do? I absolutely back that approach. I should say they are all interlinked. You cannot completely separate them.

Q6                Chair: We are going to mix our metaphors if we have buckets and frameworks.

Liz Kendall: I am sure you do not want to get into a language discussion. It is how I like to think about it—as those three areas.

Chair: No, but people have raised concerns with me about having to use a phrase that always has to appear in inverted commas to be understood, in such a highly important area, where we also need the public’s support for what we are doing. Let us move on now. I will ask Daniel to raise some of those important issues.

Q7                Daniel Zeichner: Good morning, Secretary of State. I want to press you a bit on some of the relationships with UKRI and some of the issues that the Committee has been looking at around changes in funding—particularly at the Science and Technology Facilities Council. My only question is where the decision-making process lies. What is your involvement, and how much do you direct UKRI?

Liz Kendall: I think it is right that UKRI, as the lead body, is responsible for determining where the research funding goes, in detail. It is not for me personally to do that. Underneath that is the STFC, as you know. There has been lots of real debate, and concerns have been raised about issues there, and I am more than happy to go into that. They are themselves guided by an independent committee of experts looking at their funding and the science base, and saying, “Where should this go? Where do we, as experts, think the priorities are?”

I see the role of the Government and politicians, accountable to the public, as setting the broad framework—I am not going to use the word. It is for UKRI and the bodies underneath it to set the specific areas where the research funding would go.

Q8                Daniel Zeichner: You will know that there has been a lot of concern about STFC funding, going back some time, and there is an expectation that there will be a response to its consultation. Do you know when that response is likely to happen?

Liz Kendall: I hope that will be as soon as possible, not least because lots of people are concerned about these issues, and they need clarity as quickly as possible. I hope it will be soon.

Q9                Daniel Zeichner: Do you have any sense of what the outcome of the consultation will be?

Liz Kendall: As you know, the STFC’s budget, as a whole, is remaining flat over the spending review. We will have to wait to see their decisions about where it goes, informed by their independent committee of experts, but I am absolutely sure that they will want, first, to fulfil our international commitments—because science is by its nature international—and, secondly, to make sure the talent pipeline is there and is strong. Thirdly, there are obviously pressures on their budget—particularly energy costs—but they will want to make sure that we focus on our key strengths and the most important issues, as far as their independent experts assess them.

Q10            Daniel Zeichner: You will be aware of the very strong feeling on these issues. A piece of research shows that, of 457 early-career PPAN researchers, 74% said they were actively considering leaving the UK to take up a position elsewhere. How did we get to this place?

Liz Kendall: I agree with Patrick Vallance’s assessment of the situation, as you would expect. I think he said to the Committee in the other place that he thought it had been badly handled. The STFC’s budget is not being cut, as a whole, but they do have to manage that budget. That is inevitable, and they do have particularly high energy costs, but I am sure that the number of PhD starts and postdoctoral positions in this area will remain the same. We will remain committed to our big international research projects. That is absolutely clear. I think it could have been handled better, but I know their commitment to having a leading position in science—and I would say to those people who are worried, which I understand, that I want more people doing physics in this country.

In fact, the Government are backing this. If you just look at quantum, we desperately need physicists with expertise and knowledge in quantum. We have put a £2 billion big bet on quantum as a technology for the future. I understand why they are worried. I hope that, when the final decisions are taken, they will see our commitment to keeping Britain’s world-leading position and will also see, not least through our commitment on new technologies such as quantum, that we value people going into physics and this profession, because they are so important for the country.

Q11            Daniel Zeichner: It has been consistently badly handled, hasn’t it? The chief executive admitted to us that communication had been bad. Now we hear that the minutes of some of the meetings have been updated and then re-updated after the event. As the Secretary of State, where does responsibility lie for this?

Liz Kendall: As you will imagine, I am not shy in coming forward and saying that this could have been handled better. I have had a number of discussions about that, including with UKRI. It is extremely important, not least because, for precisely the reason you raise, I want people to see how much we value this whole area, and how important we think it is. I think some of the bad handling of it has drawn attention to that rather than to the good things that the Government are doing. We all learn lessons as we go forward, which is why we want to make sure the next stage is handled as effectively as possible.

Q12            Daniel Zeichner: I totally agree. My final question would be how you are going to repair the damage that is clearly there when we have leading scientists coming to Parliament, clearly feeling disaffected, at the same time that the overall budget is increasing.

Liz Kendall: Yes, that is a great frustration. My message today, and in my communications with UKRI and the sector as a whole, is that there is no future for science or for growth in this country without their contribution at the heart of it. My commitment is that I want to see the number of people going into this sector remaining the same or increasing. I want to put funding into the sector, including our international commitments, and I want to back the technologies of the future, where physics is at the heart. That is my message to them and, believe me, I will make sure I go over the decision with a fine-toothed comb to make sure all those commitments are upheld. That is what I know Ian Chapman and UKRI really want to do.

Q13            Freddie van Mierlo: I need to declare an interest. We will talk later, I think, about pharmaceuticals. My wife works for a pharmaceutical company.

On PPAN, a constituent of my neighbour in Didcot and Wantage, who works at the Harwell campus, reached out to me and is really concerned about what the Secretary of State has described as a flat budget. That equates to real-terms cuts, particularly as she rightly also mentions rising energy costs, which are important for a lot of the assets on that site. She also mentioned the importance of female researchers and sovereign capacity. The person who reached out to me works in both those areas, and is a woman. Can she tell my neighbour’s constituent why her rhetoric does not match the reality on the ground?

Liz Kendall: First, if you want to pass on her contact details and all the issues that she has specifically raised, I will be more than happy to respond to her directly, setting out my position and view.

We have put more investment as a whole into R&D than any Government ever—both over the spending review and in the decisions that have to be taken within different fields. Within the STFC in particular, there have been rising costs. Those are due to energy, subscriptions to our international commitments, and exchange rates. Everybody has to manage their budget within those costs.

I would say to her that the decisions are not being taken by politicians; they are being informed by an independent expert committee of advisers. I think their names are public. I am sure that when the final decisions are taken, they will set out the reasons why some things are being prioritised and some areas are not. It is on the basis of what is best for research and best for the science. It is hard for me, until I know the specifics of her area, to answer directly.

I would also say that it is the STFC, as the experts, who will have to set out the reasons why they are doing it. That is what is coming up soon.

Freddie van Mierlo: I am very grateful for the answer and will definitely follow up with the details.

Liz Kendall: Please do.

Q14            Freddie van Mierlo: I have just one further question, and I will check my notes to make sure I say this correctly. Harwell campus hosts the UK’s national synchrotron light source facility. It is a large facility, and enormous investment has gone into it. Yet, as a result of the savings that are required, it may well lose jobs and have to reduce activity. Does it make sense, where such investment has gone into scientific assets, for them to go unused?

Liz Kendall: We will have to wait and see what the final decisions are. I understand why people are concerned, but I cannot pre-announce things that have yet to be signed off—signed, sealed and delivered. We have seen this in a number of areas, where people have asked not only about that, but about what is happening with CERN and other organisations. My argument is that we still have those commitments. On a different topic that I know about, and which many people have raised, we will remain the second largest contributor to CERN, as we have for the last eight years, and a number of other projects, too. You will have to forgive me that the final details have not yet been announced.

Emran Mian: I think that is right. We are not in a position to comment on individual projects at this stage. The STFC has been going through that consultation. Yes, individual projects, including the one you mentioned, have been asked to look at what scope they have to manage their costs differently. The STFC now has all that information and will make final decisions on that basis.

Q15            Chair: I just want to bring you back briefly to what Daniel mentioned—the extraordinary council meeting of the STFC in December, and the extraordinary doctoring of the minutes of that meeting. That is the only way to describe it. Secretary of State, have you looked at the way the minutes were changed substantively to reflect different interpretations of the shift in funding that was described, and how that reflects on the concerns this Committee has already raised about governance at the STFC? What action are you going to take as a consequence?

Liz Kendall: As a Labour MP, I know how important minutes of meetings are. They should be open and transparent, and they should not change. I do not know about this particular issue, but I will ask Emran to look into that.

Chair: It is quite extraordinary.

Emran Mian: Yes, that is right. As you would expect, accuracy of the minutes is a matter for UKRI.

Q16            Chair: You have not seen this or looked at it?

Emran Mian: If the minutes have been updated for accuracy purposes, that is one thing.

Q17            Chair: No, it was substantive change. It was a change to the interpretation of the shift in funding.

Emran Mian: I think probably the best thing we can offer to do is to get you information from UKRI as to what happened with the minutes, and write to you.

Q18            Chair: Also, perhaps, as you have a responsibility for how effective UKRI governance is, on how you will respond to what I think is an extraordinary lapse in effective governance.

Liz Kendall: Let us get back to you with chapter and verse on our understanding of what has happened, and if there are any problems that need addressing.

Chair: Just to be clear, it was changing how these cuts—whether or not they reflected a shift in funding from curiosity-driven research to priority areas, which is at the heart of some of the concerns that many physicists and PPAN have written to us about.

Q19            Kit Malthouse: Just quickly, for clarity, are you saying, among all that talk, that the STFC are basically on their own—so that, whatever the decision, that is it and they are on their own and deciding their own fate? Are you saying that there will be no rescue boat, whatever the circumstances for our physics base?

Liz Kendall: What I am saying is that their decisions are based on advice from an independent advisory council.

Q20            Kit Malthouse: But if they decide that there will be a huge impact on the physics base and they have to cut all these jobs, you are not going to ride to the rescue?

Liz Kendall: I am saying that they have a responsibility to put their case, and then UKRI as a whole is responsible for that. I believe that, when the announcement is made, obviously you will get all the information you need on that as a Committee. If you would like to bring us back for more conversations, I am sure we would be happy to do that.

Q21            Chair: When the Minister, Patrick Vallance, says there will be no cuts to physics, which is something he told the Committee, are you saying that it is actually UKRI’s decision, and not the Minister’s?

Liz Kendall: He is right to say that the money that we are putting in, as a whole, has not been cut.

Q22            Chair: Right, but that is not what he said. What he actually said was that there would be no cuts to physics.

Liz Kendall: And he is right to say that their budget as a whole is not being cut. All organisations have to manage their budgets and the cost pressures within that. It is not for Ministers to take individual decisions in these areas. We have set out the overall framework—I am not going to use the B-word—for UKRI as the responsible body.

Q23            Chair: The issue here, in terms of accountability, is that we have huge concern, which Daniel, Freddie and Kit have addressed, about what is happening to our physics base. We have early-career researchers who feel that their careers are finished as a consequence of cuts that you say do not exist and, if they did exist, they would be the responsibility of somebody else. Is that a yes?

Emran Mian: No, it is the responsibility of UKRI to manage within the budget that the Government have set for them. The Government are accountable for the budget and priorities that we set for UKRI. It is then the responsibility of UKRI and individual research councils within UKRI to manage within that budget. The STFC’s budget is not reducing, but it is flat. Some of their costs are increasing, so they have to make choices in that context.

Q24            Chair: I do not think that is an acceptable response, particularly given the importance of nuclear physics to our economic and defensive security. We have a lot of other subjects to go into. The Committee is very confused as to who is accountable and responsible, and it does not seem that you can address our confusion.

Liz Kendall: I think Emran has set out the accountability. What I would say is that, when the decisions have been taken about the individual budgets within those councils, they will be put forward; and if you want to scrutinise that, with the STFC and/or Patrick Vallance, I am sure that they will be very happy to come before you and answer all your questions about it.

Q25            Emily Darlington: I will just ask a final question on this area. If you feel that the decisions that the STFC make, with their expert panel and consultation, put UK physics at risk, will you overrule them?

Liz Kendall: Forgive me for not answering a hypothetical about a decision that has not been taken. You are asking if I will do something—if, if, if. I am not in that game. I am saying we are responsible for how much money we put in and the broad framework for UKRI, and for the three areas that we as a Government have decided are the right way forward. UKRI and, underneath them, the STFC and a number of other organisations are responsible for those budgets. I want to make sure British physics remains world-leading. I will of course look at any of these issues, but when the actual proposals come forward, you as a Committee will want to scrutinise them with UKRI and the STFC. I am sure you will ask Ministers to come forward too, and we will continue this discussion.

Chair: Thank you very much. I think we need to move on now. I am not sure that we have been able—

Q26            Kit Malthouse: The base is at risk at the moment.

Liz Kendall: It is not. We are protecting—

Q27            Kit Malthouse: You said it was.

Liz Kendall: May I say for the record that I have not said that? I have said the complete opposite, and it would be wrong to put that on the record.

Q28            Kit Malthouse: Emily asked you to say the opposite, and you would not answer the question.

Liz Kendall: No. I said I am not going to speculate on decisions that have not yet happened. I have also very clearly said that I want, and we as a Government have funded, a record settlement. I believe that UK physics can, must and will remain world-leading in this area, but on individual decisions, let us wait and see what the STFC says.

Q29            Chair: I am going to move on now. We have a lot to cover. I think the test, Secretary of State, will be whether your words have provided the reassurance that the PPAN community is looking for, and I am not sure that they have.

Liz Kendall: I do not think they will be reassured until they see the actual proposals. It is really difficult, because we have not seen the proposals or the basis on which they have been taken, but we are clear about how we want British physics to remain world-leading.

Q30            George Freeman: Having come back to work cross-party in support of this mission, I support quite a lot of what the Government are doing. I think the framework is right—I would call them pillars, not buckets—but I have some concerns, two years in, and it is our job to start to raise them. One of them is the vulnerability of our universities, which I want to talk about. To declare an interest, Chair, I advise the Quantum Biology Foundation, a UK charity promoting quantum biology, the Pioneer Group, with their global fundraising for UK clusters, and Firgun Ventures, a quantum fund; and I do some pro bono work for other UK ventures.

I wanted to ask about universities. You will know—you have said, announced and made it very clear—that they are the jewels in the crown of our innovation and science economy. That is not just Oxford, Cambridge and the golden triangle, but around the country: Sheffield in advanced manufacturing, Lincoln in agritech, Norwich, Liverpool—

Liz Kendall: Leicester.

George Freeman: Leicester, Strathclyde and Newcastle. One of my concerns is that the Department has become very AI-focused and feels very London-focused. I think some of the regional clusters feel a bit left behind.

I wanted to ask about economic vulnerability. Many of our universities have become very dependent on overseas research money to supplement tuition fees, which are really not adequate. There has been a lot of China dependence built into that. Quite a lot of universities are now running big deficits. Emran will know the numbers. I am told it is 42% today, but 80% are on track to run deficits. I want to ask how confident you are that our top universities are not being held back by a funding model that does not really allow them to be elite global universities, and how vulnerable the other 20 or 30 key universities really are. They are not insured by Government. I think traditionally there was an understanding that the Government would underwrite them, when 7% went to university, but they are not. Can you give them, and us, some reassurance that these are secure jewels in the UK crown?

Liz Kendall: I will kick off, and then I am sure Emran will want to come in, because, as you know, responsibility for universities crosses between ourselves and the DFE. It has moved around different parts of government over many years. It is absolutely essential that we have a pretty joined-up approach to that. I am especially aware, as I know from my own universities, how reliant universities are on overseas students. We are working extremely closely with the DFE on these questions because we are extremely aware of that.

Somebody described our universities to me as our secret sauce. It does not matter how much extra money other countries try to put into their universities, our past centuries of expertise are absolutely critical. That is the first point.

Secondly, I rebut your suggestion that we are a Department only of AI, or that we are interested only in the golden triangle. I recently visited the materials chemistry cluster of excellence in Liverpool to see what they are doing. This is absolutely essential to the future of the country. We are very aware of the pressures under which universities are operating. We are making sure that our support regionally, including through our R&D programmes—I am happy to say more about them—and those grants are protected, but we continue to be in discussions with the DFE to make sure our universities have a secure and stable future.

Q31            George Freeman: When I was a scientist, I was surprised to discover that the university portfolio had been taken out of the Department. Back in the day of William Waldegrave, David Sainsbury and David Willetts it was always linked. Is there a coherent structure for DSIT and DFE? Do you meet the Secretary of State to talk about this? Do the Science Minister and the Universities Minister meet? Is there a structure for that, or is it ad hoc?

Liz Kendall: Yes, there is.

Emran Mian: There are regular discussions between Ministers, as you would expect, and between senior officials as well. We worked very closely together on the post-16 skills White Paper, which is where I think we did the most to try to set out the challenges facing the sector and what the responses might be.

If I may add a few more thoughts on your question, a big part of our strength in AI comes from our universities, so I would not put the two things in opposition to each other. Indeed, a few days ago we announced £60 million of UKRI funding that would be going into two university consortia to develop UK AI models, recognising that the talent and capability to do that work is in our universities. Even where we are focused on AI, we see universities as absolutely central to that, although, as the Secretary of State said, AI is absolutely not the limit of our focus on science and technology.

In the post-16 skills White Paper we began to set out some of the things we can do to ease these pressures on universities on the research funding side. There will undoubtedly be more to do. For example, UKRI has updated its terms and conditions on funding equipment costs—it has gone up to 80%—and raised the capital threshold it is willing to fund. It has clarified that it does not insist on matched funding, which I know is a burden that universities sometimes experience. We have also announced changes to the research excellence framework the next time that exercise is run to reduce the burdens associated with that, which I know is a big issue for many university departments. Alongside increasing the overall R&D funding, we are mindful that we need to look at ways in which we can deal with these practical pressures for universities on the research-funded side. Protecting the block grant is another important part of doing that.

Alongside that, we work closely with the DFE in thinking about funding on the education side of what universities do. Tuition fees for domestic students are about to go up for the first time in many years. We work pretty closely with them and the Home Office in ensuring that, when decisions are being made about immigration routes for international students to come to our best universities in the UK, they continue to function.

Q32            George Freeman: That is an encouraging answer. Can I ask who the Universities Minister is and when you both last met them?

Emran Mian: When I last met them personally?

George Freeman: Yes.

Emran Mian: I think Minister Vallance meets Jacqui Smith very regularly. I do not know offhand the last time they met.

Q33            George Freeman: Secretary of State, did you have a meeting with the Education Secretary to talk about the vitality of these institutions?

Liz Kendall: I discuss with Bridget Phillipson regularly the importance of that, but it is Patrick and Jacqui who are leading the work.

Q34            George Freeman: In the two minutes I have left, can I switch to social sciences, the humanities and the arts? You might be surprised that, as a card-carrying science advocate, I have come to see how vital they are. Of course, the creative industries are bigger than AI for the UK at the moment—they are huge. As a trade envoy, I saw the power of those industries. The Government have done a lot with the creative industry sector plan, clusters and growth fund. We have heard from some universities that that is all great, but funding for the core institutions in the creative industries is being reduced for the commercial work. That goes back to the three pillars. It may be that it is the right thing to do, but can you comment on how we maintain excellence in the creative industries at university level while also supporting growth and the GM £20 million?

Liz Kendall: We look very carefully at the areas of funding for which we are responsible, of which a large chunk is the UKRI budget. To give one example of how we are focusing more on the social sciences aspect, we have some big goals that we want to achieve as a Government: halving violence against women and girls, and making sure that the biggest ever proportion of kids start school ready to learn. UKRI has research programmes specifically in those two areas to look at the gaps in evidence and what we can do to fill them. That is absolutely about funding the humanities, social sciences and others.

Of the eight industrial strategy sectors, obviously one is our brilliant creative industries. Coming back to AI, we have appointed an AI champion in that sector. She is working really hard to make sure that AI and our creative sector, including working with universities and others, are at the forefront of that, because for all the challenges we have with our creative sector and AI over copyright, they are one of the largest adopting sectors. As a history graduate myself, you would expect me to understand that the world is interlinked.

Q35            George Freeman: The complaint we have heard—just to share this with you—is that universities say that more of the UKRI pillar allocations are going into creative industries, innovation and commercial, but the goose that lays the golden egg is the core undergraduate and graduate research work.

Liz Kendall: Yes, I understand, but my view is always that—

George Freeman: To be clear, I am talking about the social sciences, humanities and the arts.

Liz Kendall: As for social sciences and the humanities, UKRI is boosting research in the specific areas I have talked about, which are part of the Government’s key objectives. Perhaps this Committee and the Education Committee might want to delve further into this issue jointly. You know there are perennial issues. Where do universities sit between different things? I am sure you will do that.

George Freeman: We will, thank you. When we get the data that you have kindly undertaken to work on for our “Flying Blind” report on the allocation of money, that will be an area where I think we would be looking for some reassurance.

Q36            Chair: I would like you to confirm, Secretary of State, that there is no shift of funding that you are promoting from the arts and humanities into the science base.

Liz Kendall: No. I am looking at what is UKRI—

Chair: That is not happening? Great.

Liz Kendall: No. I am looking at UKRI.

Q37            Maya Ellis: I have a follow-up on the universities question. I raised in Parliament last year that none of the global talent fund in UKRI went to a northern university. As a Lancashire MP, I am really disappointed on many levels about the fact that business support and innovation funding now has completely stopped essentially for non‑mayoral areas of the UK. For universities that serve my area, such as the University of Lancashire, it is not just about innovation. I am concerned about the impact on innovation that we can build in places like Lancashire, but it is also the wider role that those universities play—for example, in the regeneration of Preston where the University of Lancashire is based—and they have had a significant role in that. All these cuts and restrictions impact not just our research base but the wider economic strength in our region.

I want to get your freshest thinking, particularly in anticipation of a possible new northern-minded PM, about your Department’s role, not just in innovation development but in the distribution of innovation development, making sure that all people in all parts of the country have access to that, particularly in non-mayoral areas, and how you are working with DBT and MHCLG in getting them to understand the importance of your Department in that economic development role.

Liz Kendall: I would say three things about that. In the next few weeks UKRI will publish its annual update on R&D investment, including at regional level. That is extremely important. Secondly, in the autumn we will be updating our innovation clusters map with information on what is happening right across the country. Thirdly, you may be aware that three weeks ago I announced that the local innovation partnership fund, which is precisely to boost clusters, will be devolved to established mayoral authorities in the next spending review. That is currently a £500 million fund. I went to launch this with Steve Rotheram in Liverpool, looking at their materials chemistry cluster with the universities and spin-out businesses to see how that is working locally.

That is a big change in approach. We have always wanted to see growth in every part of the country. There are things going on here. In our response to your “Flying Blind” report, we have committed to doing more to publish the data regionally and look at what is being spent and the outcomes it is achieving. First, that is really important to understand what works, but, secondly, we are also devolving actual money and powers.

Q38            Maya Ellis: But what responsibility do you take both in your role in the Department and as part of the Cabinet for an area like Lancashire that does not have a devolved mayor? Essentially, from a broader economic development and regeneration point of view, are you saying, “We have devolved it to those areas. We are not worrying about this any more”? Who is going to look after the point about Lancashire, and how?

Liz Kendall: No, I am not saying that. Leicester does not have a mayor. I feel what you are arguing here. We know there are two things that have to happen. First, our areas need to move—and quickly—towards being part of that as more power, control, responsibility and funding are devolved. In part, we have to get that going. Secondly, we have begun to make a much bigger push already in making sure that big bodies like UKRI with £39 billion-worth of funding very much see a responsibility for publishing the data, the research and the information, not just at mayoral level but in every region. We have to come at it from both angles, but I want to say personally, as somebody who is in the same position with two incredible universities, including one that is leading on space and the space sector, that I am acutely aware of that and am on it.

Chair: We really appreciate those reassurances.

Q39            Emily Darlington: I am going to kick off the section on online safety, and other colleagues will come in on this. I want to ask a broad question right at the beginning. This area is so fast-moving. How do we stay up to date with legislation? There have been several suggestions made that perhaps a standing committee that is active in this area could move things along quicker to stay up to date with how quickly things are moving. You may have some other ideas, because it is clearly an issue for us, being quite slow in Parliament.

Liz Kendall: The thing that has struck me most in this area since becoming Secretary of State, despite the best efforts of our parliamentarians, is how the process is unbelievably and probably unacceptably slow. If you look at how long it took from the initial idea, it is not yet even fully implemented. The Online Safety Act has taken eight years. That is just not good enough. I think that, collectively as a Parliament, we need to think through how we act much more quickly and be more up to date while retaining parliamentary scrutiny and accountability.

Just look at AI chatbots. They were not really around when the whole OSA debate started. My worry is that, when you come up with a load of specific recommendations, technology will find a way round it and there will be something else next month. That is not really with my DSIT hat on; that is with my parliamentary hat on. At a very minimum, MPs have a vote on a Finance Bill every year. Eight years does not cut the mustard, but we should probably have a discussion within Parliament about those different options. I am prepared to look at anything to keep us more up to date. It has to be done in a way that does not somehow give Henry VIII powers to the Government to do things that parliamentarians cannot scrutinise, but it is a very interesting and important topic.

Q40            Emily Darlington: Perfect. I think we would agree. Maybe we should discuss it and make suggestions on how that might work in future.

I want to come to online safety, starting with children. As you know, we are doing a digital childhood inquiry at the moment. We have had some fantastic submissions, both oral and written, from neuroscientists and others across the UK. That has helped to shape the discourse within this Committee in terms of where we should take action. I know you have talked about bringing in a ban and the legislation in December, but also bringing in additional things. What is the motivation for these social media companies to take some of the other actions that we know will protect childhood and children, including time spent online, parental controls and controlling and monitoring the quality of material online if there are no children on their social media sites?

Liz Kendall: There will be kids on those sites—we know that when Australia brought in a ban, kids tried to get round it and succeeded—even when we put in highly effective age-verification measures particularly for kids. I have tried to be as open about this as possible. This is not an either/or. We expect all the measures in the Online Safety Act still to be fulfilled, because we know from experience that children will try, and many will succeed, to get around the ban. That is why I have also said that, for me, it is probably even more about future generations that we are putting the ban in place to change social norms and cultural expectations. When I met Ian Chapman yesterday, for the first time since he became chair, I was really clear that this is not an either/or; we are having to do both.

Q41            Emily Darlington: That is really helpful. In doing both, is it your intention that we will take more of a Canadian approach where there is a temporary ban, but if they fulfil things like time online, banning high-risk functionalities, parental controls and controlling the quality of what children are seeing, these platforms could have the ban lifted?

Liz Kendall: I am not going to lift a ban before we have even legislated for it. I am clear about the ban.

Emily Darlington: I was just thinking longer term.

Liz Kendall: I have spoken about this with Evan Solomon, their Tech Minister. They have taken a slightly different approach. The Government’s strong view is that saying to children, “You won’t be on social media until you’re 16,” is absolutely the right approach overall. It is about giving parents more control and giving children their childhood back. Emily, you will know that in all this debate we hear, “Why don’t you say it should be safe by design?” But, you know, they had their chance to make it safe and they failed, so we are stopping them making their platforms available to children. That is where I come from on this, because they have had countless opportunities and they have failed. That is why we are doing it.

Q42            Emily Darlington: As you know, I have no sympathy with social media companies and their lack of making platforms safe, not just for children but for everyone, quite frankly, so I totally get where your frustration comes from.

Liz Kendall: Maybe new types of things will become available, but if they fulfil the criteria that we have set out for defining social media—we are saying we will follow the Australian approach—they will not be allowed to provide those services to kids under 16.

Q43            Emily Darlington: One of the key things their scientists are telling us is that it is about the total amount of time spent online. It does not matter if it is on TTRockStars, which is an educational platform, or TikTok, if they are seeing appropriate material. How can we deal with the fact that the biggest impact on mental health is lack of sleep due to the amount of time spent online? What mechanisms can we put in place? The social media ban is only for social media platforms, not gaming platforms, which have different rules that you are bringing in, which is great, but that does not restrict time on Discord, where we know there are problems, or on Roblox or YouTube, if it gets an education exception, or any other platform. What more can we do to limit the biggest correlational link that neuroscientists are telling us they know in terms of children’s mental health, which is the total amount of time spent online?

Liz Kendall: I cannot wait to see the evidence on this. Before I was in this place, I ran a kids’ charity that was looking at early years and brain development, and at what affected that. We are working closely with the Department for Education. They have already done screen time guidance for the under-fives, which I think is unbelievably helpful. They are now also developing it for older children. Before Parliament goes into recess, I hope to come back with further announcements—for example, overnight curfews for 16 and 17-year-olds, so you would be switched off from, say, 12 to 6—maybe you would have it on by default—and breaks in infinite scrolling. I will be interested to see the evidence given to your Committee about the whole age range, but we as a Government are providing that guidance.

Q44            Emily Darlington: That is fantastic. This is a really quick question. The second biggest issue that they tell us is affecting children’s mental health is the type of content they are seeing. The BBFC has come forward with some quite interesting proposals on how it could work with all platforms, social media through to gaming platforms, using the structure that we all know as parents. We all know about U and PG. I wonder whether you have been able to meet them and what you think of their proposals.

Liz Kendall: I have not personally met them yet, but we are being clear that under-16s will not be on social media platforms. As for other types of services, it is an interesting discussion but, again, it is about the enforcement. You can put as much on it as you want, but if companies get round it and say something is adult but allow children to see it, you are in a bad position.

Q45            Emily Darlington: I am running out of time, but I have one last question. The impact of AI-generated fake news and deepfakes is, as we know, challenging our democracy. A colleague has been a victim of it. Most female MPs have been victims of some sort of degrading AI-generated material. I have tabled various amendments to the Representation of the People Act. I met your officials and MHCLG officials. They are telling me they will not proceed because it is not a big problem, or that it is too big a problem and they cannot do it, or Ofcom should already be doing it but has not taken any action. What is the plan to protect our democracy online?

Liz Kendall: How long have I got? What is the planned end time? On the specific issue, we are absolutely going to deal with the issue of these deepfakes and digital replicas for politicians, and in the creative sector we are launching a big consultation about that. We are also looking at AI labelling over the summer and autumn.

On misinformation and disinformation, there are three areas—I was about to say “three buckets”. There is a big set of issues about foreign interference. There are already some requirements under the Online Safety Act, but some interesting suggestions have been made, including one by a fellow Committee, the Foreign Affairs Committee, to look at what other countries have done to set up organisations looking at disinformation, whether that is about Ukraine, France or Sweden. That is a big step.

There is a set of questions about what we do during moments of crisis, for example what we have seen from Southport, Belfast and beyond, and what we saw during the pandemic with disinformation about vaccines. There are some broad questions there about how we boost trusted sources of information and how we enable people much more easily to reset their algorithms. Then there is the very tricky issue about misinformation and all the debates about freedom of speech. That happens all the time, not just at moments of crisis, but it may become particularly pertinent during election periods.

I have said that I want to look at all these issues. I have spent a lot of my time focusing on the under-16s, you will understand. Now I think this is where the debate will move over the coming months, not least because of parliamentarians pressing it.

But on the specific issue about replicas, consultation and AI labelling, we are now moving more swiftly on that, but I do not pretend that that is the sum total of the answer.

Emily Darlington: All of my amendments deal with exactly that, so we should do it now and not wait and push it into the long grass.

Chair: I am going to come to Tom now, but I want to give another shout out for the Committee’s report published almost exactly a year ago, which made specific recommendations on misinformation and AI content.

Q46            George Freeman: On a political point, having been the victim of the appalling idea that I joined Reform, it is a serious point. Our democracy is vulnerable. Can I make a plea for principles-based legislation, not whack-a-mole and looking busy? I am not accusing you of that, but I think there is a tendency in Whitehall to keep looking busy. If we said that tech platforms are responsible and directors will go to prison if they break the law, and it is a crime to steal someone’s identity, although principles-based regulation has gone out of fashion, it will send a clear message.

Chair: I think that is a yes from the Secretary of State.

Liz Kendall: I know that you and the Foreign Affairs Committee are already there, and that amendments have been tabled by individual Members, including Emily and others. Having gone through this big chunk on what we are doing about young people, this is now a big issue for us to be looking at. I am always open to ideas and suggestions that you have rightly put forward.

Chair: Having come to online safety, I need to declare an interest. I worked for Ofcom for six years before coming into Parliament. My view is that how Ofcom acts as an independent regulator is nevertheless heavily influenced by the political will of those in the Government. I think that reflects on this Government. I will ask Tom to take us forward now.

Q47            Tom Collins: I am sure my colleagues will go a little further into the wider political impact of social media, which I know is coming up. I would now like us to zoom out from content and think about this from a systems perspective. We recognise innately that social media offers huge potential value. As we have defined it as a social tool for connecting people, that should be tremendously valuable, but we have also recognised that the way it is being designed and operated now can be very harmful, hence the ban for children.

I am very mindful that these systems are increasingly highly optimised and adaptive. We know they are accessing our reward systems and our stress systems. Those harms do not apply just to young people; they apply to adults. In fact there are many types of vulnerability among the population—it might be psychological, neurological, experiential, economic or social—which mean that these systems may not be safe for adults. Similarly, at a total societal level it could be injecting all sorts of damage into our social systems and integrity that we have never really had the chance to think about before.

I am interested to know, from your perspective as Secretary of State, how you intend to navigate the question of what is safe and how we get to safe, and where we are going beyond bans to take us to a sustainable condition for everybody.

Liz Kendall: I have thought a lot about this. This was most acute when considering under-16s. The reason we went for the ban was the simplicity for parents. They were crying out for help, and the overwhelming response we had from the public about the best way forward, as I said, was a reset. You are asking about features such as infinite scrolling, and monetising violent, aggressive or misogynistic content, which for some people—particularly vulnerable groups—are also a risk and how we are thinking about that.

It is really important that we do not forget what the existing Online Safety Act is supposed to do, which is to remove all illegal content. Even during what happened in Belfast, I asked Ofcom to remind the platforms of their duties under existing legislation, and I asked it to bring forward its crisis protocols. I am aware that there is more to do to ensure that enforcement of the existing legislation works, and indeed I have asked the new chair of Ofcom, whom I met yesterday, to conduct an urgent review of its capabilities, experience, skill, priorities and focus to see whether what it has in place is fit for purpose. It will come forward with the results of that in the autumn. That is one part of the answer to the question.

The second part is this broader discussion about misinformation and disinformation. I have said that is absolutely where my attention will now focus. That does not answer all your question, but I hope it indicates current thinking.

Q48            Tom Collins: You mentioned, of course, that it is back to content. The discussions I have had with expert researchers in this field suggest that, regardless of the menu of content, the content in the system is provided by users or other sources. What it displays to you is not a representative distribution of the available information. In fact, the learning algorithms tend to show you something that is highly extreme and opposite to your world view, because it is likely traumatising you into a more polarised position, and that makes you as a human being psychologically far easier to maintain engagement with. That is nothing to do with the menu of content that it has; it is how it handles that content.

Liz Kendall: That is right. You all have it, I bet you. I know exactly what my algorithms are giving me—what they are piling on to me. I know exactly what that is and where that has come from. Many groups of people such as young men and boys experience the same thing and what they are being fed, which can absolutely shift a world view into thinking certain behaviours are acceptable. I am interested in what more we can do to make it easier for people to reset their algorithms and what more we can do to follow the money. That is why we have this joint work with DCMS on advertising and what steps we could take. If you get people hooked with more extreme stuff and you are advertising there, that is how you monetise content. There are different routes into that which we are looking at as well as content. At the minute, the legislation that we have that took us eight years to pass, which Parliament decided was the right way forward, was based on content, so I need to make that existing legislation work as well as start looking at more of these features and functions.

Tom Collins: Chair, how are we for time?

Chair: We are running out of time. I am going to have to ask the Secretary of State to be a little more concise in her responses. I know it is a very interesting topic.

Liz Kendall: You did ask me how I would protect our democracy.

Chair: There are big issues in your brief. We are very aware of that. If it is okay, I will now move on to Allison.

Q49            Dr Gardner: My topic is online misinformation. You have touched on a lot of it. I want to mention copyright very briefly as well. We have talked about the attack on democracy. We wrote a report, which has been referenced already, “Social media, misinformation and harmful algorithms”. We have had civil unrest, and we have just had the unrest in Belfast. Following that unrest, the Committee wrote to ask how you will require social media companies to tackle viral algorithmic amplification of material that can incite that civil unrest. During our previous inquiry, it was interesting to find that an awful lot of this information is generative AI and fake videos, which we have touched on a little bit, but also people quickly moved into messaging platforms such as Telegram to do the organising. There was a significant indication of that happening in Belfast, even to the point of making sure that people wore very similar clothing so they could not be identified.

In your response to that letter, you said that the crisis response updates to Ofcom’s codes of practice will be expedited, but these will only be for user-to-user services and that messaging and generative AI would be in scope only if they met the user-to-user definition. I query this user-to-user definition because it is in the Online Safety Act as well. How are they not, by definition, user-to-user? My concern is whether we are taking into account this quiet organisation via messaging services.

Liz Kendall: We are acting within the current legislation and the framework that I set out in the letter. I specifically asked Ofcom to bring forward its new crisis protocols. I had done that pre-Belfast. This all started off post-Southport, and my predecessor, Peter Kyle, did it. I asked Ofcom to bring it forward. I specifically contacted it to say, “I want you to write to all of the social media companies to remind them of their requirements under the legislation.” Those new crisis protocols have now been laid, requiring companies to do a whole range of things like setting up dedicated crisis teams and having much better communication with law enforcement so that they remove content more quickly, and I expect those companies to follow that. We know that people then move off on to messaging services. I am acting as best as I can within the current legislation, but we are well aware of how it is being used to organise. My view is that there is more that we can do. I have asked Ofcom to give me an update on what those companies did in response to what happened in Belfast so that I can be reassured that at least the social media platforms are doing everything within their power and as required under the legislation to put a stop to this.

Q50            Dr Gardner: This also includes things like private Facebook groups. I have concerns about the level of control over those. It is not just what is coming up in your feed; it is that type of communication level.

Coming back again to the business model, I have a real issue with social media’s business model. It is based on advertising. They want the clicks, they want the views and they want the amplification because that is where they make their money. Can self-regulation for social media be viable when companies are motivated to promote any content that drives engagement, even if harmful, to bring in advertising revenue? Are we tackling their business model?

Liz Kendall: We have a joint taskforce with DCMS, which Ian Murray chairs, looking at those precise issues. We have asked it to look at how advertising promotes or funds harmful content.

Q51            Chair: Secretary of State, we know that. We know it has 11 workstreams or so, but we do not know what it has actually done, said or recommended. That gets to the heart of Allison’s question.

Liz Kendall: We have not produced recommendations yet. Emran may want to say more about this. It has had a series of meetings with civil society. These are not simple things to address.

Q52            Chair: I know, but Allison is asking what action is happening.

Liz Kendall: It has not published its recommendations yet, but it is looking at two broad areas. One is how we can make sure that advertisers are much more aware of where their adverts are being put, because if they knew where it is happening, they may not be happy with where their products are being advertised. Secondly, there are some more difficult and challenging questions about whether, if you are producing harmful content as a content creator, you should be able to monetise your actions. Those are the broad areas it is looking at. You will want recommendations as quickly as possible. Considering the numbers of questions that I have had from hon. Members, I would like that as quickly as possible.

Q53            Dr Gardner: I agree. Looking at the advertisers and content creators is one good route, but we also need to hold the social media companies to account. You mentioned illegal content and removal of illegal content. Sometimes the definition of what has crossed the line from legality to illegality can be quite difficult to ascertain. Will the online advertising taskforce address incentives for platforms to promote legal but harmful content—it can be legal but still harmful—as well as illegal content?

Liz Kendall: The illegal stuff should not be on there, so it is precisely looking at the harmful question.

Q54            Dr Gardner: I am going to take a tangent to look at the impact on copyright. In March, you were quite right to row back on some of the issues with copyright and weaken some of the stances that we were going to take. The problem we have is that creators can only get paid, or even give their permission, if they know their content is being used. I was quite interested that the CEO of Cloudflare—about a fifth of the world’s internet gets fed through that—said that the behaviour of some of these AI companies is a little like North Korean hackers, the way they are scraping this data.

I am aware that there is a private Member’s Bill going through—it is not mine. I am not promoting my own work. They are looking at these bots that scrape the data. The Bill asks that these bots identify themselves and why they are scraping the data and what the use would be for. It would be a very light-touch approach to looking at transparency to support creators. You look like you are not aware of it. This is just something I am suggesting that might be worth looking at.

Liz Kendall: I will have to look at it anyway. I do not know whose it is, but the sooner I can find out the sooner I can look at it. We have said a bunch of things following the pause that we have put in place that we are looking at. I have talked about digital replicas and AI labelling. We are still looking at transparency. Critically, you talked about payment and whether there is more we can do for smaller creatives to make sure they can be properly remunerated. The big guys, the famous guys, are more likely to be able to do deals, and I am very concerned about smaller independent creatives and how they can be funded. If there is a PMB—I am aware of the Chair’s stare to make sure that I keep things brief—I will take a look at that. I have not seen it.

Q55            Dr Gardner: I close this round of conversation with a personal annoyance, and it goes back to deepfakes. I believe that people should have rights to their own voice and their own image.

Liz Kendall: I have had some choice ones of me.

Dr Gardner: I can believe it. Is that also something you are looking at?

Liz Kendall: Definitely. This is a really big deal. That is why we are going to have a look at it over the summer, as well as AI labelling, on which there is more of a nuanced picture. Some people want everything labelled, but some creatives will say, “We might use it a bit, but not too much. Do we want everything AI labelled?” The individual replica of your face and your voice is absolutely a priority for me to look at, and that will be over the summer and in the autumn.

Dr Gardner: Finally, as a woman in science and tech, I have to say thank you for everything you are doing. It is a very fresh approach. The approach that you are taking is absolutely right: to allow 50% of the population to have equal access and rights will only benefit them and our economy.

Q56            Tom Collins: We are staying online but moving into the issues of violence against women and girls and sexual exploitation. The Government’s violence against women and girls strategy talks about tackling online sexual exploitation. From your perspective, what does that mean in relation to sexual content online?

Liz Kendall: These are shared responsibilities across Government between us, the Home Office and the Ministry of Justice. My responsibilities are to ensure that the online world fulfils its commitments under the current legislation, and that is basically that the platforms have to take responsibility for the risk of illegal activity being promoted on their sites. We have done a lot on this. There is much more to come, particularly around deepfake intimate images and the abuse there. We have passed a whole range of new legislation on that. It has to be taken down within 48 hours; women should only have to notify people of it once; banning nudification apps. I know there are real concerns still, which I deeply share, about sites that are being used to traffic women and abuse women. I have had a letter recently from the Independent Anti-Slavery Commissioner about all this. She has written to the Committee saying, “Are you going to do an inquiry into OnlyFans and all of that?” It is a joint responsibility, but I take my DSIT tech platform part of that very seriously.

Q57            Tom Collins: I am glad you raised that. That is exactly what I was going to discuss next. We have seen in the news recently those concerns about exploitation through OnlyFans, but I am sure that is not isolated. In 2021, the Government said they were going to talk to these websites about voluntary principles to counter exploitation. What have you now seen as to that relationship with those platforms? What is coming to the surface?

Liz Kendall: Ofcom issued new voluntary guidance recently on violence against women and girls. Following that, I called all the platforms in and said I expected them to fulfil those voluntary codes, and if they did not I would be prepared to go further. I shall be monitoring that closely.

Q58            Tom Collins: Excellent. From your point of view, it is evidentially clear from the news right now that we are not where we need to be, but is it also your view that they are currently not fulfilling that code?

Liz Kendall: Yes, clearly not. With all the problems we have discussed—violence, violence against women and girls, and misinformation—this is society. This is what is going on in our world. Now there is a parallel world online in which Ofcom has to enforce the law, and it has turbocharged what is happening to women and girls.

Tom Collins: Yes, I agree.

Liz Kendall: Shabana and her team are doing as much as they can in the real world. We are like an open door with it flooding in. My job, through Ofcom, is to look at the legislation. Is it tough enough? Is it being enforced? We have to get policing the online world and the offline world right.

Q59            Tom Collins: You talked about perhaps going a bit further. Could you briefly comment on the urgency with which you intend to act on this matter?

Liz Kendall: I already have. I have already called them in and said, “If you don’t fulfil your existing commitments under the law and these new codes of practice, which are voluntary—and I will be monitoring that closely—I am always prepared to go further.”

Q60            Samantha Niblett: It is great to hear you talking about going further, and it is good to hear that you talk about voluntary VAWG stuff within Ofcom. We had Sir Ian Cheshire in front of us, and off the back of that we did a pre-appointment report that said that he should be prioritising his knowledge of the UK’s online safety framework. You mentioned that you met him yesterday.

Liz Kendall: I asked him specifically about this question, and he said that is what he has been immersing himself in during the first few weeks in post.

Q61            Samantha Niblett: Okay, that is really good to hear. There was a general feeling when we interviewed him as a witness that Ofcom historically feels like it is there to protect big tech and the big companies rather than the consumers that they protect.

Liz Kendall: He definitely does not think that.

Q62            Samantha Niblett: Excellent. That is really good to hear. Talking about online commercial sexual content, I was at the BBFC annual report last week. Baroness Gabby Bertin spoke about her report on regulating online pornography. It is great to hear that the Government want to make sure there is parity between offline and online. The BBFC, just to reiterate, is standing ready to be a significant part of that, and I welcome that wholeheartedly.

I want to talk about women. Thank you for alluding to the fact that many women in Parliament have contributed to some of your great work on women in tech. It is worth mentioning that I am the founder of Labour: Women in Tech and I am the chair of the diversity and inclusion in STEM APPG. As a Labour Member of Parliament, one of the biggest blocks of Labour voters that we are losing is women who are anxious about technology. It is great that you are encouraging women to be involved in the creation of technology. I welcome it so much. But when we talk about technology, women are hugely put off by tech bros. They are put off by language that has been used around growth, adoption and winning the race. The stuff that they worry about most, more than men, are the things that you are doing incredible work on. The social media ban and the ban on deepfakes speak directly to what women are worried about.

The language that the Government are using and the way we talk about technology is pushing women away—and that is off the back of polling done by an organisation called Diffusion that I hosted for a report launch in Parliament recently, and I will happily share the report with you. I know that as a female Secretary of State who has championed women in tech you will care about this as much as I do. Is there any one thing that you would want a woman who is anxious about AI to hear from you today—not the growth story—that would make it feel like tech is for her? While I am the founder of Labour: Women in Tech, I am rather more interested in tech that works for women.

Liz Kendall: This is such an interesting issue. In fact, we had a meeting of the Women in Tech Taskforce yesterday looking at how we get women to stay in tech, and then lead in tech. We had a whole debate about whether, if you say it is really terrible because there are not enough women, which is why it needs to change, you are going to put women off from going into tech. My argument has always been that, because I believe there are such incredible opportunities for women’s jobs, careers and better health and education services, we have to deal with the challenges and risks of tech. I do not want to put women in a box and say, “Women only care about health or education.” That is why I want to show that women are interested in developing their careers, in using tech and AI, setting up their own businesses as well as all the innovations that come out of it. We know it is delivering better, faster healthcare, and better education for kids through AI tutors. We have to tell the full story of it.

As a progressive politician, I believe that to seize the opportunities of the future, you have to deal with the real risks and challenges that tech and AI bring, otherwise what are you left with? You are left with, “There are some problems, so we don’t want it.” No, I believe in power and agency, and I believe that we can shape this technology to work for all. We will never show that tech and AI are going to work for everybody in this country if we do not show how it works for women, whether it is better jobs, better incomes, better public services—all the things that we care about.

Q63            Samantha Niblett: I completely agree with you. I just think there is an opportunity to talk to women about how technology can be used to help protect them without scaring them about technology. It is so nuanced, and we live and breathe this every day.

Liz Kendall: I have talked to the Prime Minister about this. How do you say there is fantastic potential while also dealing with the challenges and risks? That is our job.

Q64            Samantha Niblett: Possibly holding the tech bros to account, which you did brilliantly with Elon Musk over the Grok issue, I have to say. I would love to see way more of that.

Emran Mian: It does make a big difference who is leading the conversation and that women see that the people leading the conversation, and also the people advising Ministers, are representative of our society. It has made a big difference in our Department to have a female Secretary of State who is leading on this agenda. It makes a big difference that my senior leadership team has a majority of women. We insist on gender-diverse panels for anything that we are doing as a Department, because that is part of showing that everyone in society is being represented as part of our decisions and advice on this.

Q65            Maya Ellis: Following on from the conversation about how we ensure that women are welcome in the workplace, and some of the conversation we have had so far has been about how tech companies and the tech industry do that, in the case of the Information Commissioner’s resignation, that is directly within your responsibility to manage. We have recently seen the letter that came to you last June from the PCS union about widespread concerns that it was not limited to the behaviour of John Edwards, and that it was in the wider management team throughout the organisation. In the interests of time, what reassurance can you give to all the staff members in the organisation that you are going to tackle this and make sure it does not happen in future?

Liz Kendall: I would say a couple of really important things on this. I have been absolutely appalled at what the independent investigator found—sexual harassment and bullying.

We will be launching the recruitment for the new chair next week. We are also going to announce shortly the appointment of a new board of non-exec directors, the majority of whom will be women. I am also going to be launching an independent review of the culture, accountability and governance of the ICO, because I take very seriously what has happened there, and I will do everything I can to try to put this right. The women who spoke up have been incredibly brave. It has come to my attention that the former Information Commissioner is preparing to serve legal papers on one of the women at the ICO who raised concerns about his behaviour earlier this year. I do not know who this woman is. By reporting her concerns, she supported the independent investigation that upheld multiple allegations made against him. I have reached out as best I can to her and said that she needs to know that she will always be listened to without being put at personal risk, and quite frankly I am appalled by that behaviour. Working with the Information Commissioner’s Office and with the Department, we are putting in a new board, we are recruiting a new chair, and we will do a review of its culture.

Maya Ellis: I will not push it any further, in the interests of time, but we will be watching that closely.

Liz Kendall: Absolutely. I will be more than willing to write, and that will happen very swiftly.

Chair: I appreciate that, Maya. We will expect a written update on this very disturbing incident.

Q66            Kit Malthouse: If I may, Secretary of State, I want to ask you about some of the detail of the US-UK pharma deal. Obviously, protecting £21 billion-worth of exports for three years on a tariff-free basis is no small thing, but I guess our questions today are about who is paying for it. As we read it, the NHS is paying about 25% more for the drugs that it purchases. The NICE threshold has risen as well. What is the Department’s estimate of the cost to the Exchequer—in other words, to the NHS?

Liz Kendall: I will come back, but I will let Emran kick off on this point. There are lots of things to say about this.

Q67            Kit Malthouse: Is there an impact assessment?

Emran Mian: Starting with the cost, we have put an estimate of the cost in the public domain. We think it costs about £1 billion over the spending review period. That cost comes down to two things.

Q68            Kit Malthouse: That £1 billion is very different from some of the costs, for example, in studies by the BMJ and other organisations, which put it at more like £8 billion or £9 billion.

Emran Mian: The Chair will probably stop me if I go into a long discourse on why we think the methodology of the BMJ study is deeply flawed. We do not accept the findings of the BMJ study.

Kit Malthouse: It would be great if you could provide us with that in short time. That would be excellent.

Emran Mian: We think the cost is driven by a couple of things. It is driven by an increase to the NICE threshold, which means that more novel medicines will be able to meet the threshold. It is also driven by a change in how NICE values the impact of medicines on the quality of life, what is called the QALY threshold. In practice, where does this additional money go? It goes to supporting new medicines coming into the NHS to deliver benefits for patients. Already in the time that NICE has laid out these new rules, we have seen new medicines come in that are going to deliver great benefits to patients, such as a new drug that can delay the onset of type 1 diabetes in children.

Q69            Kit Malthouse: The question is more about the money. You say £1 billion. The BMJ says £8.8 billion. That is coming out of the NHS budget, essentially.

Emran Mian: DHSC has said that the cost of any additional medicines approved under the new threshold will be met from within existing health budgets in the spending review period. Of course, it is a rising health budget. The arrangements for the future will depend on future spending reviews.

Q70            Kit Malthouse: The VPAG is changing, too, which means that the NHS will be collecting less money from that rebate. Is that included in the £1 billion?

Emran Mian: Yes, my understanding is that it is.

Q71            Kit Malthouse: And the £1 billion is what you think the net cost is?

Emran Mian: It is the total cost.

Q72            Kit Malthouse: If you are able to send us the maths and the assumptions behind that figure, that would be really helpful so that we can have a look. Alarmingly, the other thing that the BMJ report said is that it thought the deal would result in excess deaths of about 229,000 by 2036. Is that part of your impact assessment?

Liz Kendall: To avoid the risk of irritating the Chair with too long answers, I am more than happy to put this in writing. As Emran said, we fundamentally disagree with the methodology of that article.

Q73            Kit Malthouse: Have you modelled that displacement effect?

Liz Kendall: It is assuming that there will be £45 billion of cuts to NHS frontline services, when in fact we are increasing the budget. It assumes the drug budget will be flat over the next 12 years, when it has never been flat in one year. It assumes that more money will be paid for drugs we would have had anyway, when in fact we know new drugs are coming on board. It assumes there is no extra health benefit from those drugs. We know two drugs that have already been announced as a result of this, one that delays the onset of childhood diabetes and another one that delays the worsening of brain cancer, I think it is, both of which deliver health improvements. I am more than happy to write—

Q74            Kit Malthouse: Both of which would not have happened without the deal you maintained?

Liz Kendall: Without this deal. That is why patient groups like Diabetes UK have really welcomed that.

Q75            Kit Malthouse: We understand. We would like some detail on your modelling of the cost and your modelling of that displacement cost. These numbers are out there in authoritative journals issued by organisations that broadly know what they are talking about. If you had a rebuttal document for us, that would be really helpful.

My third question is about the three-year window. This creates a cliff edge from an investment point of view. I wonder whether you have been in discussion with the industry. Given that its investment horizon is often longer than three years, is that three-year cliff edge creating unhelpful uncertainty for it?

Emran Mian: The cliff edge was now, if we had not succeeded in getting a deal with the US. Our assessment is that the industry is seeing the three years of the deal as a really good basis on which to make investments in the UK. Already, since the deal was announced, AstraZeneca has confirmed a £300 million investment in the UK.

Q76            Kit Malthouse: It was going to do that anyway.

Emran Mian: It said it was at risk if we did not have a deal. The cliff edge was now. The cliff edge was putting investment at risk, and it was putting benefits for UK patients at risk. We now have a deal in place that lasts for three years. It is already proving to unlock investment.

Q77            Kit Malthouse: Is it investment that would not have happened otherwise?

Emran Mian: AstraZeneca had said this investment was not going to happen.

Q78            Kit Malthouse: It was sort of on the cards already. It had not quite said it was going to cancel. Can you give us another one?

Liz Kendall: I think it said it was directly as a result of this.

Kit Malthouse: Is there another one, other than AZ?

Emran Mian: We are having lots of discussions with life sciences companies at the moment about investments that are coming. As you know, the pharma deal—

Q79            Kit Malthouse: No one has actually committed yet?

Liz Kendall: Yes, AstraZeneca, £300 million.

Q80            Kit Malthouse: No, I said beyond AstraZeneca. Is there anybody else?

Liz Kendall: I think £300 million from AstraZeneca is pretty good. You will also know that, over the course of the last year, £500 million—

Q81            Kit Malthouse: I guess the answer is no, Secretary of State. There isn’t another one. If you have a list, by all means send it to the Committee.

Liz Kendall: I am more than happy to send it.

Emran Mian: We will very shortly.

Liz Kendall: Let me say one thing to you as well, Mr Malthouse. The Committee and the public are rightly interested in what this deal is going to deliver for us, what it is going to deliver for patients, and what it is going to deliver for this incredible world-leading sector in terms of investment, jobs and growth.

Q82            Kit Malthouse: We are also interested in what it is going to cost us.

Liz Kendall: Obviously, the cost is also about if you are prevented from getting diabetes for several years or a brain cancer that gets worse. There is a whole bunch of factors. In our—

Q83            Kit Malthouse: No, I understand. I am sorry to interrupt but we are hard up against time. I understand that, and I am asking for you to provide us the detailed evidence that points to that assessment—

Liz Kendall: If I can just finish on that point—

Kit Malthouse: The alternative voices are saying that the cost is very high and is a straight transfer of UK taxpayers’ money to the United States, which is what Donald Trump effectively wanted.

Liz Kendall: I do not agree with their analysis. I will say this more quickly. Tomorrow is the anniversary—or we are using it as the anniversary—of our life sciences sector plan being published. We have a report being published on what we have achieved over a year. In future years, we will make sure that the outcomes and achievements of this deal for taxpayers, patients and the industry are included in our life sciences sector plan annual report.

Q84            Kit Malthouse: We will have a look at that, and we will come back if we need more detail. I have one final subject, just to pivot away. Last time you were here, we raised with you the issue of mobile phone theft and the easy tech fix on mobile phones. Since that last appearance, have you done anything to advance that solution?

Liz Kendall: Yes, we are working closely with the Home Office on this question.

Q85            Kit Malthouse: What do you mean by “working closely”? What does that mean?

Liz Kendall: The Home Office is responsible for that on the legal side. We are in discussions with the tech companies about what more they can do. I believe that some of the companies have already made some changes, but we are continuing discussions with them because it is easier—

Q86            Kit Malthouse: In previous answers, you very commendably said that this was it—they either do it or there will be trouble. Why is there not the same approach on this?

Liz Kendall: Did I say those words and do a big clap?

Kit Malthouse: Yes, you said they either do it or you would go further.

Liz Kendall: Let me say that progress is being made. I am sure there is more to do, but we are in discussion with the tech companies and working closely with the Home Office.

Q87            Kit Malthouse: What progress is being made?

Liz Kendall: My understanding is that some of the companies have already begun to make sure that their default is “not available” if those phones are stolen, but there is more that we can do.

Chair: Some companies have done so voluntarily, but others have not, and the Met police is very clear that more needs to be done.

Kit Malthouse: I do not think the big ones have.

Q88            Martin Wrigley: It is very clear from the press release that, in June this year, the Met police got an agreement with Apple to do this handset blacklisting, which is what we asked it to do. That is what we put to Apple and Google last year after talking to the Met police, and that is showing results. It has caused a 45% reduction in handset theft in Westminster, but that is just the Met police. This needs to be national. This requires direction from your Department or the Home Office, I don’t care which, to force all these companies to engage with the handset blacklisting. It said in this report it would do it. The Met police has followed the advice that we put in this room, and it has shown results. Why will you not step down on them as you are threatening to do? This is again an example of US big tech exploiting us for profit.

Liz Kendall: We are in discussions with those companies, as we are with the Home Office, to make progress on this as quickly as possible.

Q89            Martin Wrigley: The Met police has already put something in place. It can move faster. Why can you not follow what it has done?

Liz Kendall: We are moving fast. We are moving fast on a whole range of issues. We are moving fast on saying that, if they do not make changes within three months, we are going to legislate to stop them allowing kids to take, share or receive nude pictures of themselves. I do not think the idea that we are moving slowly is correct. There are many fronts that we need to act on, and we are. We are having those discussions. Some of those companies are already changing what they are doing. More need to do so. We continue to work with colleagues in the Home Office to get the best possible results.

Chair: The Committee’s frustration is that there does not seem to have been progress by the Department within the last year. Perhaps you could write to us with a target date for when we could see progress in this area. I am pressing on because I know your time and the Committee’s time is very precious. I know Freddie has a quick question on the pharma deal.

Q90            Freddie van Mierlo: Yes, apologies for jumping around. I want to return to the US-UK pharmaceutical deal. We have been told that one of the really important benefits of this is driving investment in UK innovation and medicines. Can you explain how SMEs in particular—British SMEs or SMEs investing in the UK—will be included in those benefits?

Emran Mian: In some ways, the benefits will be most relevant to SMEs. If you are a big pharmaceutical company and the US had succeeded in putting tariffs on the UK, you would probably have looked at your global operations and found ways to deal with that.

Q91            Freddie van Mierlo: Do you know who the members are of the joint taskforce to drive innovation in the UK in commercial medicines? I know them.

Emran Mian: No, I’m sorry. I do not.

Q92            Freddie van Mierlo: I can read them out to you, and I can tell you there is no SME. There are not many: AbbVie, AstraZeneca, BMS, GlaxoSmithKline, Eli Lilly, Pfizer, Roche, Sanofi and UCB Pharma. There are no SMEs involved.

George Freeman: Is the BIA on there?

Freddie van Mierlo: The ABPI is, yes.

George Freeman: The BIA?

Freddie van Mierlo: No.

George Freeman: The BIA speaks for the little companies.

Freddie van Mierlo: They are not involved.

Liz Kendall: On the issue of capital investment by small companies and what as a result happens here, that is another one of the things we are looking at as part of the update.

Q93            Freddie van Mierlo: Do you think it is indicative of the lack of attention on SMEs that they are not involved in the joint taskforce?

Liz Kendall: I am more than happy to take that away and look at it.

Chair: Thank you very much. We are coming to the end of the numerous issues that we need to raise with you. I appreciate your patience.

Q94            Martin Wrigley: Coming back to phones, digital inclusion and the imminent switch-off of the second generation signals, last time we asked for your assessment of how many people would be cut off by that. We never saw a number. I am also concerned by the current measures of coverage. In Devon, Ofcom’s coverage suggests that you can get excellent coverage but only if you have four phones and you are standing outside. This is not realistic. We have a decreasing level of coverage as the modern-generation phone networks are loaded. Their coverage shrinks. It is no longer possible to maintain a voice call driving along a road where it used to be possible.

Chair: That is very true.

Martin Wrigley: This is not good enough. Ofcom and the big networks are hiding behind these coverage figures. What can you do to get more realistic coverage from Ofcom so that we can properly see the impacts of switching off things like 2G?

Liz Kendall: I know that our telecoms Minister would be more than happy to meet to discuss your area in particular. I have always said this to all Members for whom this is such a big issue—what BDUK is doing and how we are trying to improve this. I am more than happy to meet to discuss particularly what is happening in your area, because we need to get this right.

You asked how many people will be cut off. We are trying to prevent that. The reason we are not going to give you a number is that we want to make sure nobody is. I know how important it is, particularly for vulnerable people who have telecare. We have a tough plan in place, but we need to scrutinise it regularly to make sure precisely nobody is cut off. That is why we would not have given you a number. I know we are all determined to make sure that does not happen. Emran, do you want to say anything about that?

Emran Mian: We will get you a number. The first 2G network switch-off is going to—

Q95            Martin Wrigley: You just said you would not give us a number because it is going to be zero. Now you are saying you will give us a number.

Emran Mian: Let me finish my answer. The first 2G network switch-off will happen in 2029. We have three years to work with industry to ensure that nobody is cut off, as the Secretary of State said. As part of that, we have agreed a charter with each of the companies that operate a 2G network at the moment, both the mobile network operators and the mobile virtual network operators that live off the 2G network. We will have quarterly monitoring as part of that. We expect the companies to identify people who are using 2G devices and for them to have a plan in place to get people off 2G devices and on to devices that are compatible with new networks. As we do the quarterly updates with the companies, we will know what the size of the problem is and how much progress the companies are making on it. The fact that this does not happen until 2029 gives us the opportunity to build a really proper programme.

Martin Wrigley: Until the programme—

Emran Mian: The 3G network switch-off has gone well and the companies have learned a lot from that. We will be absolutely insisting that this works for 2G as well.

Q96            Martin Wrigley: The other thing is smart meters. Most of the communications in smart meters is done by one company. I have whole industrial estates that cannot use smart meters and cannot have heat improvements because they cannot get coverage from that one network. That must be included as well, please.

Emran Mian: Yes. There are a number of devices like this that are reliant on 2G networks. There are other smart devices as well, including some that are used in critical national infrastructure sectors. Tackling this issue is really important. That is why we have started early. We started three years in advance of the first switch-off happening, because there is a lot of work to do to make sure it happens well.

Martin Wrigley: Thank you.

Q97            Chair: I am going to come in on this because, as you may be aware, telecoms is my specialist subject. Can I first clarify that you are going to give us the number of people at highest risk of being left behind in the 2G switch-off?

Liz Kendall: We will try to provide information on devices, not people, and on the groups that we think that covers. We can also write about the specifics on the charter, what it covers and who has signed up. We still need to get more of the smaller mobile virtual ones.

Q98            Chair: Emran, you compared this with the 3G switch-off, but you know very well that this is very different because so many life-critical devices are on 2G. This is not to be compared with 3G. I would compare it with the PSTN switch-off, which also had life-critical devices. We know that as a consequence of leaving it to the market and not being clear about who was vulnerable, vulnerable people died as a consequence of that switch-off. It is in a coroner’s report. Please tell me how this is going to be different.

Emran Mian: We did not get ahead of the PSTN switch-off in the same way. We did not have a charter in place with the companies three years in advance of the switch-off happening. We are trying to learn the lessons both of 3G and of PSTN to get ahead of this with the companies. You are absolutely right to say that the analogy might be better with PSTN.

Q99            Chair: You did not have a charter in place, but there were voluntary discussions and voluntary agreements in place three years beforehand.

Emran Mian: Yes, but we realised that it was not crunchy enough. It did not have the kind of detail that we needed to ensure that the companies were taking all the right steps. That is why we have learned from that and sought to put a charter in place really early on this.

Q100       Chair: That charter will involve the Government knowing who the vulnerable people are?

Emran Mian: As the Secretary of State said, it will be led by the devices because that is what we will have information about. Often, the device will reveal that it is a vulnerable person—for example, if it is a telecare device. Many of the devices are not held by individuals; they are held by organisations because they sit on bits of infrastructure. So our approach to this is devices rather than users.

Q101       Chair: It is users who are vulnerable. I am sorry, Secretary of State, but I am going to move on. This is an issue that is life-critical, and I am really concerned that we are seeing the same mistakes being made again, and people will pay for that.

Let us move on to our final key issue. I appreciate that we are running over. It is increasingly a political issue in the US and an investment, economic and environmental issue in the UK, and that is data centres. I will quickly ask one question about national planning policy for data centres because that is what will be coming before Parliament. Can you confirm that the Committee charged with scrutinising the national policy statement on data centres will be given the time to conduct that scrutiny, including access to the results of the public consultation?

Liz Kendall: Yes.

Chair: Fantastic. That is such a concise answer. Thank you very much.

Liz Kendall: Finally learned after one hour and 55 minutes, sorry.

Q102       Chair: Given the relatively limited number of permanent jobs directly created by data centres, can you be specific as to how you are ensuring that their economic benefits are local as well as national, so that local people have an incentive to support the location of data centres in their community?

Liz Kendall: This question is precisely why we have our AI growth zone strategy. Left to the market alone, they will all be in London and the south-east. Data is now as much a part of driving our economy as steel and coal have been in years gone by. Our AI growth zones are not only data centres but the support around it: support for small businesses to adopt tech and AI, to upskill the local workforce through apprenticeships and to have strong links with universities. Spin-out tech and AI companies can then scale up, grow and create more jobs. These AI growth zones are being built on former industrial sites, parts of the country that were the beating heart of our manufacturing industry in Lanarkshire, north Wales, south Wales, and the north-east. That is why the AI growth zone strategy is not just about data centres and is not just about London and the south-east. If we do not show that tech and AI can work for all, it won’t work for Britain.

Q103       Chair: I very much agree. The data centre in the north-east of England, near Blyth, is built on a pre-existing industrial site. Other data centres, though, have not seen the investment that has been promised and have had challenges with connecting to the grid. Are you confident that we will see the investment that has been promised as part of recent announcements and as part of the AI growth zones policy?

Liz Kendall: Yes, I am. I am also confident of the Government’s commitment for each of the AI growth zones to have £5 million to upskill the local workforce. We have taskforces in those areas that bring in the small companies. We have talked about SMEs. We absolutely want that in there. It has local colleges, local universities and local public services because we want to see that adoption. This is not just about building a black box with some construction and engineering jobs, very welcome though those will be. It is about saying that areas that led our industrial revolution can now lead our technological revolution.

Q104       Chair: A major increasing concern is AI sovereignty. I am sure you will be aware of our science diplomacy report published yesterday. Data centres are an essential building block of AI and, as you have so eloquently said, of our future economic prosperity. Are you concerned about the lack of UK-based investment in data centres? How do you address the effective monopoly position of US companies when it comes to the cloud services that sit on the data centres?

Liz Kendall: In the last six months, we have made a decisive shift towards backing more British AI companies through our £500 million sovereign AI fund and through our over £1 billion AI hardware plan, which is to back the chip companies of the future. We are also—and Emran may wish to say something about this—looking again at Government procurement of cloud services to see how we can get that to shift towards backing more British companies. Within our data centres, we want to look at what more we can do to secure British chips, the chip champions of the future, to be part of those data centres.

The bottom line is this. I do not need to tell you that the whole AI value chain, from the metals to the chips to the data centres to the models, is huge. No one country can control it all. We do not have enough sovereign control and leverage at present, but we have set out a strategy for how we wish to get there, how we get more leverage, not by attempting to go it alone, and at each stage where our strengths are. I believe that our strengths are in backing the new foundational models of the future, which is what sovereign AI is doing, and backing British chip champions of the future. We have to get enough compute in this country and enough of those data centres, because without it we will be in hock to the US, which is why we have to make this work.

Chair: I am very pleased to hear you say that future foundational models, chipsets and British data centres are the key points in the AI stack that you think Britain can have sovereignty in. I am going to come quickly to a specific question from Maya, and then we can let you go.

Q105       Maya Ellis: In Lancashire, we have Silicon Sands, which is a low-carbon data centre. One of the conversations that I have had on many data centre roundtables that I have been on to champion that project is around the fact that either we can leave it to the US or we can build data centres here. There is a real ambition in this country to make sure that data centres are low-carbon and have less environmental impact. What reassurance can you give of our ambition as a UK data centre leader to be better on the environmental front?

Liz Kendall: You are totally right. If we do not build the data centres, we are totally reliant on others. I realise that comes with challenges, including on energy. If you look at what we are trying to do in Lanarkshire in the AI growth zone, our aim is to get the vast majority of it powered by clean Scottish renewable energy. In north Wales, the AI growth zone and the data centres will be next door to three small modular nuclear reactors. I am not denying that this is a challenge, but it is absolutely within our framework here that we are trying to put the two together. If people think the choice is between the planet or AI, that is not going to work, is it? We have to try to make the two work together.

Chair: Thank you very much, Maya, and thank you very much, Secretary of State. We have kept you longer than was planned, but that is a reflection of the importance and the broadness of your brief, and the engagement of the Committee with the various aspects of science, innovation and technology that are so important to our constituents and to our place on the global stage. I am really glad to have received specific reassurances in a number of areas. We will be writing to you for clarification in other areas, and you will be writing to us as well. I want to finish by thanking you for spending your time with us this morning. We look forward to working together for science, innovation and technology in the future. Thank you very much, Secretary of State.