Hunt pushes to make UK ‘the world’s next Silicon Valley’
The Chancellor has vowed to turn Britain into “the world’s next Silicon Valley,” stating that the key to global success was “not tax subsidies but competition”.
In his Autumn statement, Jeremy Hunt restated the government’s commitment to pushing through legislation that would activate the Digital Markets Unit (DMU).
Under the current draft Digital Markets Bill, the Competition and Markets Authority’s (CMA) DMU Markets Unit will be enshrined into law and provide the unit with a greater ability to intervene on more micro details of Silicon Valley strategy.
This new unit will “challenge monopolies and increase the competitive pressure to innovate”, allowing regulators to take a more proactive approach to curbing big tech dominance.
The government said the specific goals for the DMU would include making changes to the competition framework that will include streamlined decision making and updating merger and fine thresholds, protecting consumers in fast-moving markets by tackling ‘subscription traps’ and fake reviews online.
This would add to the CMA’s already extensive powers to investigate — seen most recently with its decision to block Meta’s acquisition of Giphy.
The News Media Association has praised the move, stating that the law will help “level the playing field” between publishers and tech giants.
However, TMT analyst at Assembly Research James Robinson told City PM that whilst the UK have harboured world-leading ambitions for regulating Big Tech, this is yet to materialise.
“With the DMU so far only operating in shadow form, we are playing catch up to the EU, which has seen the DMA and DSA both enter into force,” he said.
Executive director at the Tony Blair Institute Sam Sharps that the DMU was “highly unlikely to turn the UK into Silicon Valley” in complete isolation, suggesting that more was needed to be done.