Through the Lancashire Devolution Deal, the Government is providing up to £20 million in capital funding during the current Spending Review period to support innovation-led growth across Lancashire, including assets to maximise the benefits of the National Cyber Force Headquarters at Samlesbury, which lies within Ribble Valley constituency.

UKRI funding for Lancashire increased from £97 million in 2022–23 to £107 million in 2023–24, demonstrating continued investment in the region's research and innovation strengths.

The Department for Science, Innovation and Technology is currently undertaking a refresh of its Areas of Research Interest (ARIs). The work is being led by the Department’s Chief Scientific Adviser’s Office, and the updated ARIs are expected to be published on GOV.UK by autumn 2026.

The UK contributes around £2 billion per year to Horizon Europe, providing UK businesses and researchers with access to curiosity driven research funding, world-class collaborations, and opportunities to grow and scale up their innovations. The UK's association agreement includes a mechanism under which the UK would be compensated if UK researchers and innovators receive significantly less funding from the programme than the UK contributes.

The UK's current annual contribution to participate in Copernicus is approximately £130 million per annum, which is tied to annual Gross Domestic Product metrics. This contribution provides UK users with access to Copernicus Earth observation data and services, and enables UK organisations to compete for industrial contracts to develop and operate the system and create value-added products and services.

To improve the recruitment and retention of cyber security professionals across Government, DSIT launched the Government Cyber Profession in February 2026. The profession will introduce a competitive total employee offer, establish a dedicated Cyber Recruitment Hub to streamline recruitment, and create a clear career framework aligned with UK Cyber Security Council professional standards. This will directly address our cyber skills gaps, increase access to and help retain talent, establish cross-government standards, and provide learning and development programmes.

At the national level, the £200 million TechFirst programme is building the UK's domestic cyber talent pipeline, complemented by the UK Cyber Security Council's professional standards which support recruitment and retention across industry.

AI will transform workplaces, demanding new skills and augmenting existing roles. To prepare for this the AI and the Future of Work Unit was set up, as a cross‑government function designed to help ensure AI delivers positive outcomes for the economy, jobs, and workers.

The unit published an initial assessment of AI impacts on the labour markets in January 2026. DSIT also published a snapshot of entry-level hiring in the UK last month partnering with LinkedIn. This found that whilst entry level hiring is weak it is broadly in line with the wider labour market. There are certain roles where AI tools have become more capable in recent years, and where entry level hiring is weakening. While this data is consistent with AI having an impact on entry-level hiring, this should not be considered causal evidence.

To further increase government’s capability to assess these impacts and inform relevant policy, we are establishing a new AI Economics Institute incorporating the functions of the Future of Work Unit. We have also launched the Early Careers Job Alliance to map how entry-level work is changing, producing practical help for businesses on how to redesign roles while maintaining entry-level pathways, and identifying early examples of good practice.

The State of Digital Government Review, published in January 2025, highlighted that concentrating workloads on a limited number of suppliers creates systemic concentration risks. The National Risk Register 2026, published on 14 July, further identifies disruption to third-party suppliers and digital infrastructure as a significant resilience risk.

Existing Government cyber policy and technology frameworks already support a range of resilience measures to tackle this, by requiring departments to assess security, resilience and business continuity risks when procuring and operating cloud.

The Government's Cloud First policy encourages organisations to consider all suitable suppliers and supports competition in cloud procurement, while the Multi‑Region Cloud Policy promotes deployment across multiple regions to improve resilience. Public procurement seeks to maintain a diverse supplier base, while the Competition and Markets Authority is independently examining competition in the UK cloud market.

Alongside this, Government is tackling these risks through the implementation of the Government Cyber Action Plan, which sets out our approach to enhancing cyber security and resilience across the public sector, including through enhanced cyber assurance and oversight.

Section 100 of the Crime and Policing Act 2026, which introduces a new requirement relating to the removal of reported non-consensual intimate images, commenced on 29 June 2026. The Online Safety Act 2023 provides for Ofcom to prepare and issue codes of practice setting out recommended measures for compliance with relevant duties.

The duty will apply to platforms once the relevant codes have completed the statutory process and come into force. The Government is clear this should happen as soon as possible and is working closely with Ofcom on implementation.

On 2 March, the government published the ‘Growing up in the Online World’ consultation, accompanied by a National Conversation. The consultation received over 116,000 responses, including 14,000 from children. As part of the National Conversation, Ministers and officials also met children and young people, as well as organisations which represent children, to make sure children and young people’s voices were heard.

On 15 June, the government announced a package of measures to support young people to connect and thrive offline. The government is continuing to strengthen wider support for children, including access to youth services and enrichment activities in schools and beyond the classroom, backed by funding through the national youth strategy. Our approach will reduce serious harms while preserving safe, positive online spaces to help address social isolation and improve access to learning resources.

The Government recognises that AI is transforming workplaces, demanding new skills and augmenting existing roles. We have launched the AI and the Future of Work Unit - a cross-government function dedicated to ensuring AI delivers positive outcomes for the economy, jobs, and workers.

The Unit published an initial assessment of AI impacts on the labour markets in January 2026. This highlighted IMF estimates that around 70% of UK workers are in occupations containing tasks that AI could potentially perform or enhance – a higher share than the US and other advanced economies (around 60%), reflecting the UK's service-sector-intensive economy. Around half of these exposed workers are in 'high complementarity' roles, where AI may be more likely to boost efficiency and productivity, while the other half are in 'low complementarity' roles where AI may be more likely to perform tasks currently delivered by human labour.

To date, however, there is little conclusive evidence demonstrating a causal link between AI impacts and a reduction in employment levels. Several analyses find that job postings have declined more sharply in occupations with higher AI exposure, but establishing whether AI is causing these patterns remains challenging.

To further increase government's capability to assess these impacts and inform relevant policy, we are establishing a new AI Economics Institute, incorporating the Future of Work Unit, but with a broader focus on the economics of AI. A key consideration will be whether AI gains are broadly shared across regions, income groups, sectors and generations and that the opportunities are accessible, regardless of background, gender or geography.

The UK Government takes an actor-agnostic approach to supply chain resilience, focusing on the characteristics and behaviours of technologies and suppliers rather than their country of origin. This ensures that our regulatory frameworks remain objective, proportionate, and resilient to evolving threats.

Ministers receive technical advice from National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) on a wide range of cyber threats, including on IoT products. Their assessment is that a compromised cellular internet of things module would not, by itself, enable an end-to-end attack. From a cyber security perspective, risk is managed through the broader set of controls supporting monitoring, resilience and recovery across the system. Advice on managing the security of cellular internet of things modules technology is provided to industry and government by the NCSC.

This Government is committed to delivering the infrastructure needed to support AI-driven growth across the UK. AI Growth Zones, designed to deliver large amounts of AI data centre capacity by 2030, are central to this effort.

We have moved the programme from concept to delivery, with five AI Growth Zones now announced across England, Wales, and Scotland. We are delivering sites capable of supporting the next generation of AI infrastructure in the UK and the programme is set to deliver over 15,000 jobs and £28.2 billion in investment.

Site developers are responsible for delivering the built infrastructure and government is delivering the policy reforms needed to unblock and accelerate delivery. This includes action on power, planning, grid access, and local benefits, with up to £5 million available to support skills and AI adoption in each AI Growth Zone.

Ofcom is reviewing the Code of Practice on Services, Public Functions and Associations guidance in detail following the commencement order which was made in parliament on 14 July 2025, in order to make the right decisions for Ofcom and its employees. Ofcom continues to take expert external legal advice on this.

The AI and cyber-security sectors make up core parts of the UK’s growing technology sector as set out in the Modern Industrial Strategy digital and technologies sector plan. The UK AI sector alone contributed £11.8 billion in Gross Value Added to the UK economy in 2024, supporting more than 86,000 jobs. We have seen large recent investments in the UK from leading firms, including AMD's £2 billion commitment. In total, over £90 billion of capital investment has been pledged to be spent in the UK's AI sector since this Government came to power.

The Government’s Cyber Security Sectoral Analysis 2026 shows the UK cyber security sector is worth £14.7 billion and contributed £9.1 billion in GVA to the UK economy in 2025. The analysis found that UK dedicated cyber security firms raised £184 million of investment across 47 deals in 2025. Notable fundraisings in 2025 include Inforcer, which raised £26 million; Maze with £18.4 million and Optalysys with £23 million.

The increase in horse procedures between 2015 and 2025 should be viewed in context: while procedures rose by 45%, the number of horses used for the first time fell from 581 to 100. In 2025, around 69% of horse procedures were routine blood sampling for regulatory purposes and were assessed as mild severity. The Government is supporting the development, validation and regulatory uptake of alternative methods, including human-specific technologies, through the Replacing Animals in Science strategy, and requires animals to be used only where no validated alternative exists.

The government takes the threats of cyber-attacks and data breaches very seriously, which is why the ICO has the power to investigate any concerns raised about the misuse or mishandling of data. It can issue enforcement notices and substantial fines where organisations are found to be in breach of their obligations.

Organisations are required under UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act to keep personal data secure and process it fairly, lawfully, and transparently. Whilst the law does not set specific time limits on how long personal data can be held, it stipulates that it cannot be kept for longer than needed.

The government takes the threats of cyber-attacks and data breaches very seriously, which is why the ICO has the power to investigate any concerns raised about the misuse or mishandling of data. It can issue enforcement notices and substantial fines where organisations are found to be in breach of their obligations.

Organisations are required under UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act to keep personal data secure and process it fairly, lawfully, and transparently. Whilst the law does not set specific time limits on how long personal data can be held, it stipulates that it cannot be kept for longer than needed.

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 Government recognises concerns about online content and trends that encourage or promote acts of animal cruelty.

The Government and Ofcom have identified animal cruelty as one of the priority kinds of illegal harm under the Online Safety Act regulatory regime. Ofcom’s risk profiles and Register of Risks address how such content and trends can spread on regulated services, including through coordinated challenges or user-generated material.

Regulated platforms are required to carry out suitable and sufficient illegal content risk assessments that cover animal cruelty, and to put in place mitigations to reduce the risk of users encountering or being encouraged to commit such offences. Ofcom is actively monitoring compliance in this area.

The UK’s starting point is relying on existing rules and regulations and empowering our regulators to consider how best to manage the opportunities and risks of AI. We continue to refine our approach to regulating AI and ensuring our law enforcement authorities have the powers they need to keep people safe. DSIT closely monitors international AI legislation from across the US, EU and elsewhere to ensure the UK’s regulatory approach remains suitable.

The Government recognises concerns about online content and trends that encourage or promote acts of animal cruelty.

The Government and Ofcom have identified animal cruelty as one of the priority kinds of illegal harm under the Online Safety Act regulatory regime. Ofcom’s risk profiles and Register of Risks address how such content and trends can spread on regulated services, including through coordinated challenges or user-generated material.

Regulated platforms are required to carry out suitable and sufficient illegal content risk assessments that cover animal cruelty, and to put in place mitigations to reduce the risk of users encountering or being encouraged to commit such offences. Ofcom is actively monitoring compliance in this area.