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

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what steps he is taking to grow the UK tech sector.

The digital sector contributed £149bn to the UK economy in 2018, accounting for 7.7% of UK GVA, and supports 1.2 million jobs. Last year venture capital investment in the UK tech sector leapt by 44%, with record growth in many key sub-sectors including fintech and AI.

My Department is striving to support this growth. This year we introduced the UK Gigabit and Shared Rural Network programmes to develop the UK’s digital infrastructure; published the National Data Strategy to drive confidence in data; committed to establishing a Digital Markets Unit within the CMA to support fair and competitive digital markets; and supported programmes to showcase the unique strengths of the UK tech sector - major events across the UK include London Tech Week, Founders Forum, and Leeds Digital Festival. We also support the sector through our partnership with Tech Nation, delivering a wide range of initiatives to support and grow UK tech start-ups and scale-ups. This reiterates Government’s commitment to the sector, and our ambition to ensure the UK remains Europe's No1 tech nation, and the best place to start, grow or invest in a digital business.

To help SMEs access liquidity needed to get through the COVID crisis, my Department worked closely with BEIS and the British Business Bank to introduce the Future Fund, expanded grants and loans for R&D-intensive SMEs, and the Bounce Back Loan Scheme.

My Department is committed to driving growth across the digital sector and wider economy, maximising the benefits of a digital-led economic recovery. The forthcoming Digital Strategy supports these objectives, in the context of Covid-19 and into the future.