Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what assessment his Department has made of the potential effect of the what3words geocoding addressing system for improving productivity in the UK.

The Department is aware of a number of new addressing systems (such as what3words) and the huge economic opportunities offered by geospatial data in general. The Industrial Strategy sets out the Government’s commitment to putting the UK at the forefront of the data revolution. In support of this the Government announced in the Autumn Budget that it will establish a Geospatial Commission whose focus will be to unlock the economic opportunities of geospatial data to support the growth of the UK Digital Economy.