Role of Big Tech in Society

Debate between Mark Pritchard and Bobby Dean

Tuesday 23rd June 2026 Westminster Hall

[Bobby Dean (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Jeremy. I thank the right hon. Member for The Wrekin (Mark Pritchard) for securing the debate and for his thoughtful contribution. He not only highlighted the dangers of content and addiction but made a power analysis when he talked about the threat to democracy of big tech companies. They have a supranational status now, and states are struggling to tax or regulate them—or to enforce the regulations that they have against them. That is a real challenge to democracy that we need to face up to across the House.

At the heart of this is the fact that tech companies have simply been allowed to get too big. We have had a laissez-faire attitude towards their growth over the years, which is based on confused economic principles. Yes, we want frictionless free trade, but is a market really free if it has been captured by a handful of firms? I thought that traditional economic theory already warned us about that, but we seem to have become more naive about it in the last decade or so. Looking at the power analysis in the global market, this is really about the hegemonic role of the US. If we look at pension funds, for example, more of UK pension savings now go into Apple than into all UK firms combined. We can see how the problem accelerates over time. We wonder why our brilliant tech start-ups are not able to grow; it is because when they reach the point when they need more capital, all the capital is in the US. We get Google buying out DeepMind and the cycle continues. They get bigger and bigger, and we get weaker and weaker. For far too long, we have had an economic strategy that is naive about what happens in a free market if there is a hegemonic power in it. That power has to be challenged.

Members have touched on this today, but the answer lies in a greater focus on tech sovereignty. It is not about gaining tech independence; we are not suddenly going to invent our own Facebook, ChatGPT or Amazon tomorrow—it would be naive of us to try—but about establishing our own niches within the global markets so that we claw some of that power back. It is about pooling our sovereignty and working with like-minded states, perhaps those in the EU, and collectively using our power to enforce tax, regulations and other legal limits on the activities of tech companies.

[Mark Pritchard]

I did not have time to raise this issue in my speech. The National Security and Investment Act 2021 established the National Security Investment Unit, which was the right move. If a particularly sensitive company with strategic assets or a technology that affects UK interests is to be sold or receive outward investment, it has to be cleared by the Government. That is a welcome change, but it is rather perverse or even ironic that, when the situation is reversed, there is very little scrutiny.

[Bobby Dean]

The right hon. Gentleman makes an excellent point. That is another item on the list of things that we have ignored for far too long. Ultimately, we need to shift the balance of power. As he said in his speech, the power has been shifted too far in favour of a handful of tech giants. This is not just about economic power; it is about our national security, the delivery of public services and, ultimately, our independence in the world and our ability to shape our destiny. I thank him for raising this important issue, and I hope we can have more discussions about power, as well as the impact of that power.