Financial Assistance to Industry
Peter Fortune Excerpts(2 days, 8 hours ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology (Kanishka Narayan)
I beg to move,
That the Committee has considered the motion, That this House authorises the Secretary of State to make payments, by way of financial assistance under section 8 of the Industrial Development Act 1982, in excess of £30 million to any successful applicant to the Life Sciences Large Investment Portfolio, launched on 15 November 2025, up to a cumulative total of £570 million.
It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Sir Alec. The life sciences sector is a jewel in the crown of our economy, a national asset that plays a unique role in the health and wealth of the United Kingdom. The sector consistently drives skilled employment, attracts cutting-edge research and stimulates inward investment in communities across every nation and region of our United Kingdom. From pioneering new medical technologies to developing life-saving therapeutics, life sciences generate immense economic value and vital public health benefit.
The Government’s life sciences sector plan sets out a comprehensive, long-term strategy to ensure sustainable growth across all parts of the sector. It outlines our ambition for the UK to secure more life sciences foreign direct investment than any other European economy by 2030, and to position ourselves as the third largest global destination for such investment by 2035, behind only the United States and China. Meeting that ambition requires an internationally leading support package and a clear signal to global investors that Britain is open, competitive and committed to scientific excellence.
Peter Fortune (Bromley and Biggin Hill) (Con)
Given that the individual grants can exceed £30 million and are monitored for only 10 years, if a company, say, relocates to another country or fails to deliver over that period, is there any mechanism for the Government to claw back some of that money?
Kanishka Narayan
I would not make claims about any individual-level investments we have made through the fund at the moment, but I am happy to write to the hon. Gentleman about the provisions in the fund as a whole.
Central to our ambition is boosting manufacturing through the delivery of up to £520 million to the life sciences innovative manufacturing fund, one of six headline commitments in the sector plan. The covid pandemic demonstrated beyond doubt that we cannot take our critical supply chains for granted. The disruption of that period showed the risks of relying too heavily on overseas production for medicines, vaccines and essential medical supplies. Supporting the onshoring and expansion of life sciences manufacturing through the life sciences innovative manufacturing fund is therefore a vital part of strengthening our national resilience, improving preparedness for future health emergencies and ensuring that UK patients benefit quickly from innovation.
In the past six months alone, that Government support through the life sciences innovative manufacturing fund has unlocked more than £600 million in investment in our life sciences sector, which will create and safeguard more than 600 jobs. That includes a £500 million investment by global pharmaceutical company UCB in Surrey, alongside a £23 million investment to expand production of essential medicines at Norgine’s facility in Hengoed, Wales.
Those investments position the UK as a world leader in health and manufacturing innovation and boost regional economic growth. More than that, they restore a proud culture and heritage of innovation in so many of these places. Hengoed, for example, was the place that powered this country’s industrial development across the 20th century with coal from the Penallta colliery. Now, that heritage of coal leads into the future of essential medicine production as well. The life sciences innovative manufacturing fund is unlocking expanded warehouse capacity, expanding production capacity and creating 44 new local jobs. At the heart of it all, it restores that critical heritage of innovation in our communities.
Of course, if we are to maximise the full potential of UK life sciences, we must go further and faster in our support for the largest transformational projects. That is why the life sciences sector plan includes a commitment to develop a new, bespoke approach to supporting major life sciences investments of more than £250 million. Such large-scale and globally mobile investments are particularly critical to the ecosystem here in the UK. They attract further private capital, create clusters of expertise and bring significant economic and health resilience benefits to both the local areas that host them and the UK as a whole.
The life sciences large investment portfolio is designed to meet that need. It offers tailored Government support to attract the world’s largest and most strategically important life sciences investments to the UK. The scheme enables the Government to provide bespoke support for investment portfolios with investments in manufacturing and in research and development totalling at least £250 million over a three-year period. It will give confidence to companies and ensure that the UK remains an internationally competitive destination.
Crucially, the life sciences large investment portfolio brings together regional and devolved delivery partners with UK Government support, so that we can leverage the full UK offer for investors. That means aligning national incentives with place-based strengths in skills, infrastructure, clusters and planning, so that every part of the proposition works together, and the UK is as competitive as possible for the largest and most mobile life sciences investments.
The Government are clear that the life sciences large investment portfolio is a strategic investment in our future. It will strengthen our capabilities, support high-value jobs and reinforce the UK’s global reputation as a science superpower. Most importantly, it is a vital step in delivering the Government’s commitment to support the UK’s life sciences sector, and to ensuring that our country remains at the forefront of global innovation for decades to come.
UK-based Tech Companies
Peter Fortune Excerpts(2 weeks ago)
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Peter Fortune (Bromley and Biggin Hill) (Con)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered Government support for UK-based tech companies.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Betts. I am pleased to have secured this debate.
It is hard to measure the true economic value of the technology sector in the UK, but I think we can all agree on the sector’s huge importance for economic growth, productivity and society as a whole. That importance will only grow in the future, so nurturing and supporting our domestic technology sector is vital. To be clear, as a Conservative, I believe in the importance of competition as a driver for innovation and economic growth. To have true competition, we need to challenge monopolies. If our tech sector is to thrive in the future, competition is vital; otherwise, we will see innovative firms leave the UK.
Today I will focus particularly on our domestic app ecosystem. The UK’s mobile app ecosystem generates £28 billion annually in gross value added—equivalent to nearly 1% of GDP. It also supports around 400,000 jobs: the highest number in any country in Europe. However, despite that huge contribution to our economy, app developers face significant challenges.
Apple and Google control 95% of all mobile operating systems in the UK, and the Competition and Markets Authority formally designated them with strategic market status in October 2025. That does not mean that Apple and Google just run the app stores; they have control over far more than that. Those companies can control what developers can say within apps, block developer communications with consumers, hide customer details from developers and prevent them from telling users when something is new, better or cheaper—all the while taking up to 30% of every transaction. That not only stifles the sector domestically, but pushes up prices for ordinary consumers and drives British innovation overseas. We simply cannot afford to allow such a growing industry to be lost.
Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Slough) (Lab)
I congratulate the hon. Member on securing this important debate on Government support for UK-based tech companies. My Slough constituency is a huge tech and data hub; indeed, it has the second largest concentration of data centres anywhere in the world. Does he agree that it would be an act of folly for the Government not to designate Slough as an artificial intelligence growth zone, given that £1 spent there provides a much greater return for the UK economy? We as a nation would not want to lose that.
Peter Fortune
I have a list of Government follies here, if the hon. Member would like me to pass them on. In all seriousness, I completely agree with him on the importance of the industry and those jobs, and I am sure that the Minister will pick that up when he responds.
To give an example of the issues with these monopolies, Amazon was forced to remove the “Buy book” button from its Kindle app on iPhones because Apple demanded a 30% cut of every e-book sale. Authors simply cannot afford to forgo that 30%. Instead, readers had to—this is absurd—close the Kindle app, log on to the Amazon system separately, complete their purchase and then reopen the Kindle app. It was only thanks to a court case in the United States that forced Apple’s hand that the “Buy book” button returned.
Spotify cannot include a “Subscribe” button in its iOS app, nor can it tell users in the app what a subscription costs or that a cheaper option exists outside the app. UK Spotify Premium subscribers have faced three price rises in two years, partly because Apple’s 30% cut has to be absorbed somewhere. Every Spotify user in the UK is paying more, and Apple’s rules are a direct reason why.
There are many similar cases in which Apple and Google are inserting themselves directly into the relationship between developers and consumers by forcing developers to use their payment systems. That takes away a consumer’s ability to choose their preferred payment method, causes greater friction when there are issues such as refunds and cancellations, and prevents consumers from properly benefiting from lower prices or discounts.
The UK’s Competition Appeal Tribunal ruled in October 2025 that Apple’s payment restrictions were neither necessary nor proportionate for security or privacy purposes. They were designed to eliminate competition. It is as simple as that. It is estimated that removing the restrictions would release £1.75 billion a year that is currently taken from UK developers and consumers, rising to over £4 billion annually by 2029. That money could go back into British engineering, creative content and the next generation of app businesses built and scaled here. We could unleash the true potential of these industries.
The ability to remove the restrictions and hand UK app developers back their rights already exists in legislation. The Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 gave the CMA conduct-requirement powers—the ability not just to levy fines, but to mandate specific behaviours. The CMA can end Apple’s and Google’s control over in-app communication, ensuring that developers are free to know their own customers and tell their own customers what their own product costs and where to buy it at the best price. Could the Minister outline the Government’s view on pressing the CMA to issue conduct requirements that protect competition?
Another area that we must look at is cloud computing. The UK’s digital economy is underpinned by cloud computing, but cloud has been increasingly monopolised. The CMA’s cloud services market investigation estimated that Amazon Web Services and Microsoft control 70% to 90% of the UK’s cloud computing market. That concentration poses a number of dependency risks, including operational, financial and security vulnerabilities, and restricts market innovation and customer choice.
Just months after the Government published their “Chronic risks analysis”, there were three global cloud outages within a matter of weeks. In two of those, Amazon Web Services and Microsoft were directly impacted, highlighting the risks of over-reliance on a limited number of cloud hosts. Governments, businesses, digital platforms, AI services and individuals were materially impacted by the outages, with US companies alone suffering losses of between $500 million and $650 million. Indeed, the recent CrowdStrike outage is estimated to have cost the UK economy between £1.7 billion and £2.3 billion.
Competition can be the key mitigation for the UK’s digital dependency and, again, it is the CMA that holds the levers to tackle anti-competitive conduct and address the risks of cloud concentration. I am not calling for more legislation or regulation. We do not need it. With the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act, brought in by the last Conservative Government, we have already legislated for stronger digital competition, but slow implementation and weak early enforcement risk squandering a rare pro-growth and pro-SME opportunity.
Only a small number of designations have been made so far. For Google’s and Apple’s mobile ecosystems, the CMA has relied on non-binding “commitments” rather than imposing binding conduct requirements. These non-binding commitments have no clear statutory basis under the 2024 Act, carry no legal consequences if breached and are not contemplated anywhere in the CMA’s published guidance. Their use risks weakening the regime and forcing the CMA to restart enforcement if firms fail to comply, which is precisely the outcome that the last Government sought to avoid. It is also concerning that a requirement for Google to negotiate fair terms with news publishers has been pushed back by at least 12 months, despite the CMA having previously committed to use that power in the first half of this year.
The Government must reaffirm that robust digital competition enforcement is pro-growth and central to the UK’s industrial strategy. Moreover, the CMA must ensure that there is robust competition enforcement. The levers to achieve that were put there by the last Government; it just requires some political will. Fundamentally, the UK cannot build globally competitive tech firms while a handful of dominant platforms control the routes to market, search, app stores, mobile ecosystems, cloud and key AI infrastructure.
The potential for huge economic growth from our tech sector is there, but competition is key. If competition flourishes, we will see more innovation, improved services and lower costs for consumers.
Several hon. Members rose—
Peter Fortune
I thank everybody for their contributions. Let me start with the party spokesmen. I pay tribute to the shadow Secretary of State, my hon. Friend the Member for Hornchurch and Upminster (Julia Lopez), for her wisdom and her towering intellect in recognising the self-evident glamour that is dripping from me even as I stand here—it takes one to know one. As ever, she made informed points—and of course I agree with them, because she is my boss.
I thank the Minister for his response. There were many points in it that I agree with and some that I would like to have further conversation on—particularly the points about procurement. That is really important and will become an increasing challenge as we move forward.
The Liberal Democrat spokesperson, the hon. Member for Harpenden and Berkhamsted (Victoria Collins), set out a five-point plan that I would struggle to disagree with. In particular, outcomes-focused regulations would ensure that we have proper competition. It was encouraging that all three party spokespeople spoke from an informed and passionate place. That bodes well for the future.
I turn to the Back-Bench contributions. The hon. Member for Caerphilly (Chris Evans) talked about what a targeted group of engineers can do when they are given the space to flourish. He made some important points about UKRI and how it needs to be reorganised. We recently met the new chief executive, and there is a lot of work to do there, so perhaps the Minister would like to focus on that and push the way that UKRI distributes those funds.
I turn to the hon. and gallant Member for Tunbridge Wells (Mike Martin). I had a quick look on Wikipedia and found out that we were in the same regiment; I did not know that before. I think he was a young second lieutenant when I was a mere legend of history. We will meet afterwards and swap some stories. He highlighted the absurdity of losing potential unicorns—companies that start and can grow here—which are not able to get to the place they need to because there is no incubator for growth. That point was very well made.
The hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire North (Alison Taylor) talked about how important access to finance is for the great companies that she highlighted, not just in her constituency but right across Scotland. If there were an injection of capital, we could see some glowing achievements.
The hon. Member for West Dorset (Edward Morello) talked about how technology can be used, and he especially focused on climate. We will face problems over the next 10 or 20 years, and we will need to develop that technology, some of which will have to be sovereign technology so that we can face those challenges.
Last but never, ever least, the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) rose to his feet to say that he has many great things to say about Northern Ireland; we all know that Northern Ireland has many great things to say about him. I was amused when the hon. Member for Weston-super-Mare (Dan Aldridge) asked whether he had spoken to a company in Northern Ireland. He has spoken to everybody in Northern Ireland—twice. He made an important point about how the cyber-security industry has grown in the past 20 to 30 years, and I want to push the Minister gently on that. Something that was highlighted to us at Space-Comm last week was the need to develop the defence investment plan and get it out as quickly as possible. I will not put the boot in, because the debate has been good natured, but a lot of people in industry are really looking for that to be brought forward.
I am encouraged by this debate, which has been good natured and well informed. We all agree that if we get this right, with the right focus, we can be a world leader in this industry. We will punch not just above our weight but as technological champions. We have the opportunity to take the UK economy into the second half of the 21st century and beyond. I thank hon. Members for their contributions.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered Government support for UK-based tech companies.
Rural Mobile Connectivity
Peter Fortune Excerpts(1 month, 1 week ago)
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Peter Fortune (Bromley and Biggin Hill) (Con)
I congratulate the hon. Member for North Shropshire (Helen Morgan) on securing this debate and thank the Backbench Business Committee for granting it. I also thank all hon. Members for their valuable contributions.
The previous Conservative Government understood the importance of UK-wide mobile and broadband coverage to the public and to our economy. That is why they put in place ambitious plans to ensure that people across the United Kingdom have access to this essential infrastructure, regardless of their location. The shared rural network, announced in 2020, secured significant investment of around £500 million from the largest mobile network operators. Under the SRN, private investment is complemented by Government funding for the construction of masts in the most underserved locations, with additional coverage provided by the emergency services network programme.
For 4G, the Conservative Government set a target of 95% geographic coverage from at least one mobile network operator by the end of 2025. By January 2025, 30 Government-funded mast upgrades went live, enhancing local connectivity without erecting new masts. According to Ofcom, as of July 2025, 96% of the UK landmass had 4G coverage from at least one operator, exceeding the previous Government’s target. I am proud of the Conservative Government’s record of delivery under the SRN and I welcome the fact that this Government maintain the coverage commitments made under the scheme.
Despite the progress made up to this point, there are still some acute challenges, as we have heard from Members today. My hon. Friend the Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk (John Lamont) talked about the reality of living in rural areas with poor coverage, which was echoed by the hon. Member for Stafford (Leigh Ingham), and the impact it has, especially on farmers. He also made an important point about the switch from 2G and 3G to 4G and not rushing that process.
The hon. Member for Ely and East Cambridgeshire (Charlotte Cane) must let us know if Ofcom takes up her generous offer to come and visit. Knowing how beautiful Ely is, it would be mad not to do so.
I was very sad to hear that my hon. Friend the Member for East Grinstead and Uckfield (Mims Davies) had split up with Vodafone.
Peter Fortune
It is sad, but with Valentine’s day just around the corner, perhaps there is the opportunity to reconnect. [Interruption.] It is my first time as a Front Bencher! It was good to hear from the hon. Member for Caerfyrddin (Ann Davies), who is having similar issues with Vodafone. Can I suggest that she takes a leaf out of my hon. Friend’s book and kidnaps one of its Government relations people? Maybe she will get her way that way.
My hon. Friend the Member for Chester South and Eddisbury (Aphra Brandreth), as ever, was on the front foot serving her constituents with her mobile survey, highlighting the issue of digital isolation and the impact it can have on mental health. My hon. Friend the Member for Bromsgrove (Bradley Thomas) talked about the impact on online banking and how, with the closure of front counters, we need that connectivity to keep these services alive. That was echoed by the hon. Member for Lewes (James MacCleary), who talked about the impact on real people. I was sad to hear that for my hon. Friend the Member for Bromsgrove to take a text message, he has to run upstairs and hang out of a window to get reception. Now that I know that—
Bradley Thomas
For the avoidance of doubt, I do not have to do that, but I know many people who do.
Peter Fortune
I thank my hon. Friend for that clarification; it will save me some time, as I was going to spend all weekend texting him.
We have heard about the real issues to do with mobile phone connectivity and how it is impacting people. Based on commercial mapping of 113 local council areas across the UK, EE offers acceptable coverage in only 69% of the UK. For Vodafone the figure is 61%, for O2 it is 50% and for Three it is 38%. The Minister who previously had responsibility for this area engaged with Ofcom on improving data collection standards to get a more accurate picture of 4G coverage. That resulted in Ofcom launching its online coverage checker in June 2025, incorporating some improvements.
The need to ensure that everyone has reliable mobile phone coverage is becoming ever more pressing, as public services are increasingly digitised. The last Government recognised the need to tackle non-commercial barriers to the roll-out of digital infrastructure by amending planning legislation. However, as planning is a devolved matter, standards are not consistent across the four nations, so what discussions has the Minister had with his counterparts in the devolved Administrations on this matter?
On 5G roll-out, the Conservative Government set a target of nationwide coverage of stand-alone 5G for all populated areas of the UK by 2030. The development of this infrastructure has been market-led, and commercial investment has achieved 5G coverage from at least one operator over approximately 65% of the UK landmass.
In December, the Government launched their call for evidence on reforming planning rules to accelerate the deployment of digital infrastructure. The call for evidence is due to end on 26 February. Given the urgency of this matter, when does the Minister expect to be able to update the House on the outcome of the call for evidence and the Government’s proposals for planning reform?
Touching briefly on broadband, I welcome the publication of the draft statement of strategic priorities yesterday, and I know that businesses will appreciate the clarity that it has provided.
The continuation of the Conservatives’ commitment to competition is welcome, and it is important, as the telecoms market consolidates and the Competition and Markets Authority watches over the process, that competition is actively upheld to reduce consumer costs and continue improving services. There is clearly cross-party agreement that we need to do more to ensure that rural areas have improved connectivity, and I hope that the Minister will engage constructively with all Members who have contributed to the debate in order to achieve this.
Draft Online Safety Act 2023 (Priority Offences) (Amendment) Regulations 2025
Peter Fortune Excerpts(4 months, 1 week ago)
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Dr Ben Spencer (Runnymede and Weybridge) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Vickers.
This statutory instrument represents an important development in the obligations on platforms regulated under the Online Safety Act to protect people from encountering illegal content online. The OSA was enacted by the last Government with the primary aim of safeguarding children and removing serious illegal material from the internet. Tackling the most harmful content, such as that which is the subject of today’s discussion, goes to the heart of the Online Safety Act’s aims. His Majesty’s Opposition therefore welcome and support the draft regulations.
The experiences and opportunities offered by the online world change rapidly. It is right that legislators are responsive when new risks emerge or when certain types of unlawful content proliferate on the internet. Under the last Government, the OSA amended the Sexual Offences Act 2003 to criminalise several forms of sexual misconduct and abusive behaviour online. The new offences included cyber-flashing and the sharing of or threatening to share intimate images without consent. The amendments were made to keep pace with novel threats and forms of abuse, the victims of which are too often women and girls.
Baroness Bertin’s independent review of pornography, which was published in February this year, highlighted the damaging impact on victims of intimate image abuse, ranging from physical illness to mental health effects such as anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder and suicidal thoughts. The effects of cyber-flashing and intimate image abuse on victims is severe. It is therefore right that this statutory instrument brings cyber-flashing within the scope of the priority offences in schedule 7 to the Online Safety Act, while retaining as a priority offence the sharing of or threatening to share intimate images.
We also strongly support the addition as a priority offence of encouraging or assisting serious self-harm, which is the other important component of this statutory instrument. Desperate people who contemplate self-harm need early intervention and support, not encouragement to self-harm. Under this SI, regulated services will be obliged to proactively remove the material when they become aware of it on their platforms and take measures to prevent it from appearing in the first place. One can only wonder why it has taken so long to get to this position. I am sure we will have a unanimous view not only in the House but in society of the importance of removing such material.
The regulations will work only if they are adopted by the industry and subject to rigorous oversight, coupled with enforcement when platforms fail in their obligations. That is a necessity, and why we had to introduce the Online Safety Act in the first place. It is right that Government regulators should look to identify obstacles to the implementation of the OSA and take action where necessary. Since the introduction of Ofcom’s protection of children codes in the summer, important questions have arisen around the use of virtual private networks to circumvent age verification, as well as data security and privacy in the age-verification process.
Peter Fortune (Bromley and Biggin Hill) (Con)
On that point, does my hon. Friend the shadow Minister agree that we need to give some thought to the rise of chatbots and their nefarious activity, especially where they encourage self-harm or encourage children to do worse?
Dr Spencer
I thank my hon. Friend for his question on a very important point, which was raised just last week in Department for Science, Innovation and Technology questions by my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) and others. The Lib Dem spokesperson, the hon. Member for Harpenden and Berkhamsted, also raised questions about the importance of the scope of regulations for chatbots.
The Government seem all over the place as to whether the large language models, as we understand them, regulate the content that comes into scope. Given the response we received last week, it would be helpful to have some clarity from the Minister. Does he believe that LLMs are covered by the OSA when it comes to encouraging self-harm material? If there is a gap, what is he going to do about it? I recognise that he is commissioning Ofcom to look at the issue, but in his view, right now, is there a gap that will need someone to fix it? What are his reflections on that? This is increasingly becoming a priority area that we need to resolve. If there is a gap in legislation, we need to get on and sort it.
Hospitality Sector
Peter Fortune Excerpts(6 months, 3 weeks ago)
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Peter Fortune (Bromley and Biggin Hill) (Con)
The hospitality sector is a major employer in my constituency. In Bromley town centre, in Hayes—which has the excellent New Inn—and in Biggin Hill, Coney Hall, Bickley and Keston, we are lucky to have many fantastic small and independent pubs, cafés and restaurants. However, they are struggling to afford Labour’s tax hikes.
The Government’s decision to increase employer’s national insurance contributions is a jobs tax. Businesses have to pay an average of £900 for every job they support, and the situation is made worse by the decision to slash business rates relief for retail, hospitality and leisure businesses. For an independent pub in my constituency with a rateable value of £98,000, the changes in relief and the increase in the standard multiplier have added £20,000 to its tax bill. All this is happening as energy bills and inflation rise again under Labour, increasing businesses’ costs and squeezing consumer spending. It is no wonder that few hospitality businesses can withstand Labour’s tax raid.
We have already heard about the 84,000 hospitality jobs that have been lost over the past 12 months, but I do not think the Government appreciate the damage that they are inflicting on communities. Much-loved businesses are closing their doors and local job opportunities are shrinking, and it is particularly affecting young people and older workers seeking part-time employment. This threatens to gut high streets, knocking local pride and leaving places poorer, and to add insult to injury, Labour has changed inheritance rules to tax any family business that survives its anti-business policies when the next generation picks up the baton.
It has been said many times that these decisions expose the lack of business experience in the Cabinet. Worryingly, the Government are looking to double down on this “tax everything” approach. They need to change course before we become a nation of shuttered shops and broken dreams.