Chi Onwurah
Main Page: Chi Onwurah (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne Central and West)(13 years, 10 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport (Mr Edward Vaizey)
It is a delight to serve under your chairmanship again, Mrs Main. I congratulate the hon. Member for Hyndburn (Graham Jones) on securing this debate. Initially, we were scratching our heads when the title was first put in front of us. In a sense, though, the debate is very much about Google and its dominant position in search.
Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Hyndburn (Graham Jones) on securing this important debate. Although I recognise his concerns, he has opened up a wider issue, which involves competition, innovation and the internet. I hope that the Minister will address the issue of his Department’s responsibilities for securing competition on the internet to ensure that the UK can play a leading part in the innovation and economic benefits that will follow.
Mr Vaizey
I will certainly try to do that. If I do not, I hope that the hon. Lady will intervene again to get me back on the straight and narrow. Essentially, the hon. Gentleman was talking about his concerns, and those of some of his constituents, who appear to be running very interesting, go-ahead, high-tech companies—exactly the kind of companies that we want to encourage in this country. There are concerns that the growth and potential of such companies are being stifled by the alleged dominance of Google. Let me give an illustration of how pervasive Google is—“dominance” is a word that is pregnant with other meanings, so I will use “pervasive”. The hon. Gentleman has cited the Boston Consulting Group report, which pointed out the value of the e-commerce market in the UK. My understanding is that that report was commissioned by Google, which just goes to show that almost everywhere we turn, there is a debate about Google.
This is the second time in this Chamber that we have had a debate in which the focus has been on Google. The previous debate was about the breach of privacy that was carried out by street cars that Google put on the road to create Google Street View. Many hon. Members raised concerns about not only that specific breach but privacy on the internet. It is my responsibility, within Government, to try to shape internet policy, so I will try to address some of the issues that the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne Central (Chi Onwurah) raised.