The Department has not financially supported the development of any technical solutions to protect the creative industries from unauthorised AI scraping. The Government published a report on AI and copyright on 18 March outlining steps on the use of copyright works in AI training. This includes publishing a review of the mechanisms available for creators to control their works online.

Additionally, UK Research and Innovation funds various investments across Responsible AI development and adoption, including DECaDE: Centre for Decentralised Digital Economy. DECaDE undertook research across technologies to develop robust content fingerprinting, distributed provenance registries, and Trustmark, an open-source watermarking technology.

The Creative Content Exchange (CCE) is funded by UKRI through its Missions Accelerator Programme. My Department has not directly contributed funding to the programme. An early version is already live online with a range of already digitised content.

Early adopters including partnering DCMS ALBs had the opportunity to apply for UKRI grant funding of up to £125,000 to support legal and technical aspects of making already digitised material available.

The Creative Content Exchange is in a pilot phase. The purpose of the pilot is to build an online solution and test the market for both content supply and demand from customers. The outcome of the pilot will determine how the Exchange is taken forward.

The Creative Content Exchange (CCE) is funded by UKRI through its Missions Accelerator Programme. My Department has not directly contributed funding to the programme. An early version is already live online with a range of already digitised content.

Early adopters including partnering DCMS ALBs had the opportunity to apply for UKRI grant funding of up to £125,000 to support legal and technical aspects of making already digitised material available.

The Creative Content Exchange is in a pilot phase. The purpose of the pilot is to build an online solution and test the market for both content supply and demand from customers. The outcome of the pilot will determine how the Exchange is taken forward.

The provision of dementia health care services is the responsibility of local integrated care boards (ICBs) and may include creative therapies. We expect ICBs to commission services based on local population needs, taking account of National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) guidelines.

NICE guidance recommends that people living with dementia are offered a range of activities to promote wellbeing that are tailored to their needs and preferences. This guidance is available at the following link:

https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/ng97/chapter/Recommendations#interventions-to-promote-cognition-independence-and-wellbeing

Unleashing the potential of our regions is a core objective of the Creative Industries Sector Plan. The Plan commits £25 million to the North East Combined Authority (NECA) as a high-potential Mayoral Strategic Authority, via our new Creative Places Growth Fund (CPGF). The CPGF will drive growth, innovation, and support greater access to growth capital for regional creative-industry organisations. Local Mayors can use it to drive the growth of their creative sectors, including those in the publishing sector. Additionally, the Sector Plan includes a universal offer to drive UK-wide growth with cross-cutting measures like IP protection and export support that will benefit regional writing and publishing bodies.

The Government provides a range of available funding programmes to support inclusive founding teams across high-growth sectors. For example, Innovate UK provides specialised funding through initiatives such as its £101 million Clean Growth Fund, and other sector-specific grant giving competitions for technology, and creative innovation.

Other programmes include the British Business Bank’s Future Fund for investment in Life Science and Deep Tech, and its Start Up Loans programme which has supported a high proportion of inclusive founding teams (with around 40% of its beneficiaries being women, and around 20% from ethnic minority backgrounds).

All organisations in the UK that process personal data, including biometric data, have to comply with the requirements of the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR) and the Data Protection Act 2018 (DPA).

The UK GDPR defines biometric data as ‘personal data resulting from specific technical processing relating to the physical, physiological or behavioural characteristics of a natural person, which allow or confirm the unique identification of that natural person, such as facial images or dactyloscopic data’. This includes voice recognition, alongside other techniques.

All biometric data is personal data, as it relates to an identified or identifiable individual. Biometric data is also special category data whenever you process it “for the purpose of uniquely identifying a natural person”. This means that biometric data will be Special Category Data in many cases.

If an organisation considers that it is processing biometric data, but not for the purposes of uniquely identifying a natural living person, then they should clearly document their rationale alongside a risk based analysis of the use. In any event, the data should be handled in line with the data protection principles.

The ICO has published guidance for organisations on the processing of special category and biometric data, which can be found here.

UK Government recognises the importance of the EU-UK data flows to cooperation and economic activity across a broad range of sectors, including the creative industries.

The UK Government published an assessment of the impact of changes to our adequacy status with the EU as part of the Data: a new direction consultation. This assessment estimates that the total direct, financial impact on UK businesses economy-wide would be approximately £1.4 billion over five years. The assumptions underlying this estimate are currently being updated by the department and a statistical model that will estimate the sectoral impact will follow.

We value excellent provision in all subjects, including the arts. We recently rationalised the strategic priorities grant to better meet the funding needs of high-cost, strategically important subjects, including in science, technology, engineering and maths.

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for mentioning my engineering background. As part of the same reform programme, we have asked the Office for Students to invest an additional £10 million in our world-leading specialist providers, many of which specialise in arts provision. On providers losing funding in the reallocation as we send a clear message on STEM, I remind her that that income loss amounts to about 0.05% of those providers’ estimated total income.

The changes will provide expedited access to those individuals recognised as being at the pinnacle of their field and demonstrate the UK’s commitment to attract world leading talent to the UK. We believe no one who would qualify under the proposed provisions for globally prestigious prize winners would be refused under the current requirements.

Like other planned changes to visa rules, they will not be applied retrospectively to applications decided under previous rules.

Whilst no such assessment has been made, we note Bauer Media’s existing presence in the North East, through its ownership of Metro Radio and TFM, which were acquired by Bauer in 2008.

The government places a very high value on local commercial radio stations retaining their local character, and Ofcom retains its regulatory powers to secure that these stations continue to provide an appropriate amount of locally made programmes and programmes including local material. Ofcom's localness guidelines can be found here: https://www.ofcom.org.uk/tv-radio-and-on-demand/information-for-industry/radio-broadcasters/localness.

The government announced almost £400 million of funding in 2016-20 for a diverse portfolio of music and arts education programmes that are designed to improve access for all children. This includes £300 million for music education hubs, £58 million in 2016-18 for the Music and Dance Scheme, which allows exceptionally talented children to attend specialist music and dance institutions. £27 million has been provided for Dance and Drama Awards which supports students aged 16-23 to access specialist dance and drama provision at 18 institutions. And £8 million has been offered in 2016-18 for cultural education programmes including Saturday Art and Design Clubs, the National Youth Dance Company and the BFI’s Film Academy programme.

Level 2 and 3 creative skill qualifications are currently provided by a range of 16 to 19-year-old providers and can be included in study programmes. As long as these programmes comply with the guidelines they will attract funding under 16 to 19-year-old funding rules. The government has maintained funding for the Adult Education Budget (AEB), which is supporting adult skills participation with £1.5 billion this year. The principal purpose of the AEB is to engage adults and provide the skills and learning they need to equip them for work, an apprenticeship or further learning. It will enable more tailored programmes of learning to be made available which do not need to include a qualification.

As recommended by the Independent Panel on Technical Education, we have created a framework of 15 occupational routes that encompass all employment-based and college-based training. Amongst these routes will include the new T-level qualifications. The implementation of these routes will be phased and the Creative and Design route will be rolled out in September 2022. Once these routes are fully rolled out there will be over £500 million additional funding for the delivery of all T-levels to 16 to 19-year olds per year.

Employers can now develop new apprenticeships across a range of sectors to meet their skills needs, and can submit proposals for new apprenticeships directly to the Institute for Apprenticeships. There are already a range of apprenticeships available in the Creative sector including live event rigger, live event technician, assistant technical director for visual effects and outside broadcasting engineer. Many more are in development including journalist, ceramicist and puppet maker.

As set out in DFID’s Economic Development Strategy, which I launched earlier this year, we are helping African countries to improve their investment climates so that new industries can flourish. This includes tackling constraints on start-ups, job creation and investment which will help the creative industries along with other emerging businesses in Africa to succeed.

Research commissioned by DCMS has found positive associations between participation in arts and health, including mental health. The research can be found here: (https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/416279/A_review_of_the_Social_Impacts_of_Culture_and_Sport.pdf

Arts Council England funds a number of organisations on behalf of the Government that support people with mental health issues.

I would certainly agree with the hon. Lady on that. Our forthcoming White Paper will announce new measures to increase access to the arts, but we have already supported, for example, music education hubs, extended the In Harmony scheme and introduced new schemes for the arts in schools. So I take great issue with her implicit criticism that we are not doing anything to increase access to the arts.

TheSpending Review settlement puts national arts and culture organisations on a strong footing. It will ensure continued free access to national museums and galleries and allow them to pursue an ambitious agenda across this Parliament. As the Chancellor said in his Spending Review speech, "one of the best investments we can make as a nation is in our extraordinary arts, museums, heritage, media and sport".

Forecast increases to other sources of income (including business rates and council tax) mean that local government spending is forecast to be higher in cash terms in 2019/20 than in 2015/16 . Local authorities understand the importance of investing in cultural activities in their areas, and are best placed to decide how to prioritise their spending.

The latest round of Arts Council funding has pushed more money out to the regions, and I am particularly pleased about the new £15 million fund it has set up specifically to support talent outside London, and to keep people outside London working in our regional theatres and doing innovative work.