The chair of an influential Parliamentary Select Committee has said today her constituents feel that Big Tech controls their lives and that neither government nor the competition authority are big enough to deal with the problem.
At the ‘Time to Reset: Unlocking Growth & Sovereignty Through Digital Competition’ event, leading tech policy figures called on Ministers to give the Competition and Markets Authority the political backing it needs to go further and faster in its work to tackle the entrenched dominance of Big Tech.
Speaking in a panel, Chi Onwurah MP, chair of the House of Commons Science, Innovation and Technology Select Committee said: “While the regulators are independent, political will and political leadership matter. I feel strongly that the CMA could do more. There is significant market power which is being exploited to the benefit of entrenched firms and to the disbenefit of my constituents.
“That’s wrong on many levels but particularly because my constituents feel that Big Tech is controlling their lives and that neither the government nor the competition authority are big enough to address that and to deal with that.
“That’s why I’m really pleased we’ve got an AI Minister in the Cabinet now, Kanishka Narayan. We have an opportunity now and a much stronger narrative about the importance of competition.”
“Technology will evolve and we need to ensure that we have competition – competition in cloud, competition in the digital markets – in order to drive that innovation for the benefit of my constituents; economic growth is for their benefit.”
Delivering one of the afternoon’s keynote speeches, Will Hayter, executive director, digital markets, CMA, stressed the importance of healthy competition. He added: “I have often thought that it gets less attention, and frankly less thoughtful attention, than it deserves – particularly when you consider the scale and breadth of the negative impact of ineffective competition. Or the potential benefits from markets that really serve the people of the UK.”
Speakign at the event, former member of the government’s digital competition expert panel, which first proposed the new digital competition regime, Professor Philip Marsden said: “We depend on these platforms, and some come with some serious problems.
“We depend on the CMA and Will’s Digital Markets Unit. It’s got great power. It’s got great responsibility. It’s got a duty to act; it’s got a duty to act much more proactively.”
Supported by the News Media Association, the event at the Financial Times was attended by more than 100 delegates. It follows last month’s publication of an IPPR report which warns that the market power of a handful of global technology companies is holding back British businesses.
IPPR found that tech-intensive UK firms rank Big Tech’s market power above access to finance or talent as a constraint on growth. More than a third have shelved a product in the past two years because an incumbent already held the space.
One of the thinktank’s headline recommendations is for the UK government to publish an updated strategic steer for the CMA that requests strong action to open up digital markets, references digital sovereignty, and commits explicitly to preserving the CMA’s independence.
This would give the CMA the political backing to reduce barriers to entry for UK challenger companies rather than weakening enforcement to attract a short-term sugar rush of investment from Big Tech firms that extract massive value from the UK.
Notes:
A full running order for the event follows:
Welcome from Matt Rogerson, Financial Times director of global public policy.
Keynote from Will Hayter, executive director, digital markets, CMA. The full speech can be seen on the CMA website here.
Panel 1: The costs of concentrated markets in the AI age – lost growth and technology sovereignty.
- Chair: Suzi Ring, legal correspondent, Financial Times;
- Matt Davies, economic and social policy lead, Ada Lovelace Institute;
- Dylan Sparks, UK director, Reset Tech;
- Stephen McDonald, head of economics, Which?
Keynote from Neil Lawrence, DeepMind professor of machine learning, University of Cambridge.
Panel 2: A roadmap for more effective digital competition enforcement.
- Chair: Tom Smith, London managing partner, Geradin Partners;
- Rosamund Powell, senior research fellow, IPPR;
- Max Von Thun, director, Open Markets Institute Europe;
- Alex Rennie, senior public affairs manager, Skyscanner;
- Chi Onwurah MP, chair of the House of Commons Science, Innovation and Technology Select Committee.
Keynote from Philip Marsden, former member of the government’s digital competition expert panel and deputy chair of the Bank of England’s enforcement decision committee.
Summary and thanks from NMA chief executive Theo Bamber.
(Image: Mark Staniland/FT)