Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:

To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, whether she has had recent discussions with the Competition and Markets Authority on the timetable for decisions regarding Strategic Market Status investigations into cloud infrastructure providers; and what assessment she has made of the potential impact of the time taken for those decisions on competition in the UK cloud services market.

In July last year, the Competition and Markets Authority’s (CMA) cloud market investigation identified a number of potential competition concerns. The CMA recommended that its Board consider prioritising a future Strategic Market Status (SMS) investigation into cloud services under its new digital markets powers.

The Government is committed to promoting a competitive and innovative digital economy and therefore prioritised the commencement of these powers last year, alongside a clear expectation that they be used to support competition and innovation in digital markets. Neither the Secretary of State nor Ministers have discussed future SMS prioritisation decisions with the CMA. The CMA is independent of Government, and decisions on which markets to investigate are a matter for its Board alone.