Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what steps the new Digital Markets Unit will take to ensure a level playing field for small retailers and large corporations with respect to access to data.

On 27th November, the Government announced it is establishing a new, pro-competition regime for digital markets. A new Digital Markets Unit (DMU), housed in the Competition and Markets Authority, will be set up to begin to operationalise the regime.

At the heart of the new regime will be a mandatory code of conduct to govern the relationships between dominant firms and different groups of users which rely on their services, to promote fair trading, open choices and trust and transparency. We have also agreed in principle to give the DMU powers to introduce pro-competition interventions, which may include remedies to widen access to data, and are considering the advice of the Digital Markets Taskforce.

We will consult on proposals for the new regime in early 2021 and will legislate as soon as parliamentary time allows