Role of Big Tech in Society

Debate between Jeremy Wright and Helen Maguire

Tuesday 23rd June 2026 Westminster Hall

[Helen Maguire (Epsom and Ewell) (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 this important debate and for raising the very real issues of the impact of big tech on democracy.

Big tech has in many cases become synonymous with US tech, but that is not something that we should accept. The UK’s technology ecosystem is worth nearly £1 trillion. It is the third most valuable tech ecosystem in the world and the most valuable in Europe. The UK has a long history of technological innovation, from the industrial revolution to the creation of the world wide web. That legacy is still very much alive today, but we must continue to foster it.

The shortage of STEM—science, technology, engineering and maths—skills in the UK has been a concern for the past two decades, along with scale-up funding. Start-ups in the UK repeatedly say that their main challenge is finding funding to scale up, and that that is hindering the UK’s chance of having a thriving technological ecosystem with as large an impact as that of America. If we look at our pensions, for example, foreign pension funds invest 16 times more into UK start-ups than our own pension funds do. Overseas funds recognise the talent that we create, so why don’t we? Why are we allowing our brilliant British start-ups to be sold abroad?

Backing British technology has never been so important, as we have heard in the debate, because big technology exists in every corner of our society. Even the Government run their computer systems on overseas cloud providers. As alluded to, the NHS data system is run by Palantir. The online systems used every day by workers across the UK’s economy are run by big tech companies, neither owned nor run from the UK. That is a question of not only economic security but, increasingly, national security.

We cannot ignore the risks posed by overreliance on foreign technologies. That became apparent when the US Government switched off, across the globe, access to Anthropic’s Fable 5 and Mythos 5. While Fable 5 may only have been a feature for a day, a worrying precedent has been set for the US’s role in turning off international access to its big tech. What if that tech had been powering public services, such as our NHS records, when it was suddenly cut off? This must be a wake-up call.

Our reliance on the technology that fuels our economy and underpins our services shows how desperately we need a digital sovereignty strategy to support British tech. The Liberal Democrats are not willing to take the risk, which is why we tabled and voted in favour of a digital sovereignty strategy during proceedings on the Cyber Security and Resilience (Network and Information Systems) Bill. We would have required the Government to establish a digital sovereignty strategy that placed British tech procurement at its centre. In an increasingly unstable world, the case for British digital resilience, technology and sovereign capability has never been stronger, but the Labour Government voted the proposed strategy down. I ask the Minister to explain what his alternative strategy is.

Unfortunately, we cannot talk about big tech’s role in society without also thinking about the online harms. The world is increasingly moving towards the regulation of social media, and the Liberal Democrats welcome the action that the Government finally took on that issue, but the fine print really matters. The burden of safety must be on big tech, not on parents. The Liberal Democrats are clear that we must implement film-style age ratings based on harm, addictiveness and mental health impact. That is supported by the NSPCC, the Molly Rose Foundation and over 40 charities.

Social media companies must also play a stronger role in tackling misinformation. The UK Government must introduce stricter regulations for social media companies to ensure that they challenge harmful misinformation and reduce its spread across their platforms. Social media companies must issue fact-checked corrections to scientifically inaccurate posts and ensure that those are seen by everyone who shared or saw the original inaccurate posts. They must also change their algorithms to de-promote misinformation and fake news.

I recently witnessed the devastating and real-life impact of unregulated dis and misinformation in Epsom and Ewell when riots took place there in April. In analysing the social media around those riots, the Council for Countering Online Disinformation found that 62 right wing UK accounts produced 70% of the misinformation. It also found that 42 video posts containing misinformation reached 4.2 million views, accounting for nearly 25% of misinformation views, despite accounting for less than 1% of all Epsom misinformation posts. That false information reached at least 21.8 million views between 11 April and 23 April. It was also promoted by X’s algorithm and, alarmingly, it continued to sit in X’s trending tab for at least two consecutive days after it had been clarified by the police that the events in question never took place.

Social media is not the only cause of online harms. Despite their transformative potential, evidence shows that AI and bots are also a cause of harm online. NBC News reported that 57.4% of search requests online are now initiated by bots, compared with 42.6% coming from humans—a terrifying reality where bots are outpacing and outnumbering humans online. At the same time, 70% of people are unable to correctly identify real and fake AI-generated content online. Those online harms have been driven by big tech, and current legislation does not actively prevent them.

That is why the Liberal Democrats are calling for the Government to create a new online crime agency to effectively tackle illegal content online. We would also introduce a digital Bill of Rights to protect everyone’s rights online, including the right to privacy, free expression and participation. The Liberal Democrats believe that the UK must lead the world in building a future where AI is developed and deployed ethically. That is why we would establish a cross-sector AI regulator that combines flexible, ethical oversight and technical expertise to ensure that the UK keeps pace with the rapid advances in technology.

The AI legislation promised in Labour’s manifesto and the 2024 King’s Speech has not yet materialised. Internal conflicts and leadership challenges cannot be allowed—

[Sir Jeremy Wright (in the Chair)]

Order. I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Lady, but she has five minutes to sum up the debate, and she is on six and a bit. Can she swiftly get to her last sentence?

[Helen Maguire]

Absolutely. Internal conflicts and leadership challenges cannot be allowed to cost Britain its technological future or the safety of our children. The Liberal Democrats will continue to push the Government on the positive role that British big tech can have, while holding the Government to account. Getting that right is not politics; it is essential for Britain’s future.