Question to the Department for Business and Trade:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, what assessment he has made of the potential impact of Microsoft's bundling of Copilot into software licensing contracts on (a) competition in the software market and (b) costs for small and medium-sized enterprises.

The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) is currently conducting a Strategic Market Status investigation into Microsoft’s business software ecosystem. As part of this investigation, the CMA is considering a range of issues, including software bundling practices, interoperability, licensing arrangements, and their potential impacts on competition, including for small and medium-sized enterprises.

The Government has not made a separate assessment of these impacts. It is for the CMA, as the UK’s independent competition authority, to assess the evidence and determine whether any interventions are necessary.