On Track: Fulfilling the Promises of the Digital Markets Framework

Good afternoon. I would like to extend my gratitude to the Financial Times, the News Media Association, and Reset for organising this event, as well as to Roa for the insightful report, alongside my colleagues at The Institute For Public Policy Research.

To begin, I would like to highlight a remarkable British achievement on the global stage in 2026. Not the CMA’s publisher conduct requirement, which was introduced in early June—though I know that may be what first comes to mind—but rather the extraordinary feat of British middle-distance runner Josh Kerr. In July, Kerr shattered the world record for the mile, a record that had remained untouched since the dawn of the millennium, finishing with an astonishing time of 3 minutes and 42 seconds.

Setting Ambitious Goals

You may wonder what relevance this has. It is not solely about the speed he ran—although, as a runner myself, I find it nearly superhuman! The real significance lies in his proactive approach: months before his attempt, he publicly declared his goal, specifying which record he aimed to break, on what date, and at which event. He then maintained a singular focus on this objective, ultimately delivering under the pressure he had created through his early announcement.

The role of the CMA is not to generate the sort of hype that professional athletes require. However, as I will elaborate, there are parallels in our implementation of the digital markets competition regime and the broader work of the CMA. We have previously outlined our intentions in various public statements, and we are now following through with those commitments.

While we may not operate at superhuman speeds, we have exerted every effort to achieve impactful outcomes as swiftly as possible.

Insights from IPPR’s ‘Bottleneck Britain’

Let us delve into the IPPR’s report titled ‘Bottleneck Britain’. Taking a step back, one area where we can all agree is the importance of competition. It often receives less attention, and regrettably, less nuanced consideration, than it merits—particularly when one reflects on the scale of the detrimental effects stemming from ineffective competition, as well as the potential advantages of markets that genuinely serve the interests of the UK populace.

Frequently, discussions surrounding competition are reduced to simplistic narratives such as ‘Company X and Company Y wish to merge, while Authority Z seeks to obstruct them’, or ‘Company A is suing Company B’. This reductionist approach is perhaps to be expected; a dramatic dispute or legal tussle is far more straightforward to report on than a complex examination of the costs associated with market concentration, or a thoughtfully designed, forward-looking intervention aimed at maintaining a contestable market.

In this context, reports like ‘Bottleneck Britain’ are invaluable. To say the least, there is a great deal happening within the tech sector, the UK economy, and the daily lives of individuals. A study that utilises a variety of sources, including original polling data, and seeks to illuminate both the issues arising from unchecked market power in digital markets and the benefits of shaping those markets for improved outcomes is a refreshingly sophisticated approach to these matters.

Market Power Concerns

One polling aspect that particularly stood out to me was the finding that, despite the well-documented challenges related to access to finance and talent, concerns regarding the market power of large digital platforms overshadowed both issues. This has increasingly been recognised not merely as an economic concern, but also as one of sovereignty.

While I appreciate the intent behind the report and much of its analysis, it may not come as a surprise that I do not agree with all its conclusions. Rather than dissecting each point, I will outline the approach we have undertaken, what we have accomplished thus far, and how, akin to Josh Kerr, we have remained committed to the plan we established from the outset.

Commitment to Our Strategic Objectives

Let us begin with the government’s strategic guidance to the CMA. We have been unequivocal about the significance of this guidance in our most recent CMA strategy. The government is tasked with shaping the overarching economic policy context in which the CMA operates. It is the government’s responsibility to articulate the broader policy objectives for the CMA to consider, all while ensuring our operational independence is not compromised.

It is worthwhile to carefully examine the guidance, particularly the sections that advocate for us to be ‘swift, predictable, independent, and proportionate’ in our operations, as well as those that suggest we should utilise the digital regime ‘independently, flexibly, proportionately, and collaboratively’. I believe it is difficult to argue that one would wish for a competition authority to operate in any other manner. Moreover, I suspect few in this room would oppose the notion of ‘unlocking opportunities for growth across the UK digital economy and the wider economy’, again quoting the guidance.

The IPPR report advocates for a new strategic steer. That is a matter for the government, and you may have seen the Secretary of State’s remarks in the Times last week regarding this. However, the government’s broader response to the report indicated that it ‘continues to back the CMA to use all its tools as robustly as it considers necessary to improve competition and benefit consumers, businesses, and the UK economy’. We welcome this support.

Our Focus on Impact

So, how have we approached the regime? What did we promise to do, and have we delivered? Most importantly, our focus has consistently been on impact.

Yet, we have made it clear that this impact should translate into genuine positive outcomes for individuals across the UK. When we refer to ‘people’, we encompass every man, woman, and child in the nation.

This includes individuals as employees of the hundreds of thousands of UK companies that rely on major tech firms in various capacities—content providers, whether news or otherwise, app and web developers, cloud customers, software clients, advertisers, and partners.

We also consider individuals as shareholders of these companies, whether directly or through pension funds, as well as consumers, because ultimately, it is consumers—all of us—who bear the costs associated with every digital product or service in some form.

Consumers fund digital advertising, often without realising it when conducting an online search. They also contribute to app store commissions, enterprise software, and cloud services, even if these costs are several steps removed from the products they purchase in shops or online.

This focus on the impact for individuals is central to all the work we are currently undertaking.

Ensuring Fair Negotiations for Publishers

In enforcing the publisher conduct requirement, our aim is to ensure that publishers—a term that encompasses a broad spectrum of businesses, not just those present here—engage in fair negotiations with Google. This, in turn, supports ongoing investment in high-quality content, providing individuals who encounter this content via Google search with greater clarity on what they are viewing and how to discover more.

Within the mobile context, relevant companies range from developers advocating for equitable app distribution to fintech firms wishing to provide innovative services using tap-to-pay technology via the Near Field Communication (NFC) chip. We recognise that, in the mobile arena, ‘people’ includes anyone with a smartphone, as well as those seeking the best array of innovative services from a variety of providers—that is, the vast majority of adults in the country.

Our investigation into Microsoft’s business software ecosystem is at a different stage, but again, the interests of numerous UK companies and public sector organisations are at stake, as are the UK taxpayers who ultimately fund all the digital services procured by the government.

Navigating the Cloud Landscape

As business software increasingly incorporates AI, we are committed to ensuring that competition functions effectively, enabling customers to access the best tools available in the market and mix and match AI services from a wide array of competing suppliers. This will allow us all to benefit from the rapid innovation introduced by challengers in this sector.

The cloud, a critical service underpinning the products and digital tools that individuals utilise daily—streaming, online shopping, public services, banking, and payments—also warrants attention. While issues such as multi-cloud strategies or egress fees may appear technical or obscure, they significantly impact billions of pounds of expenditure by both private and public sector organisations in the UK, making them highly relevant.

As crucial services and infrastructure, the cloud—and increasingly, AI-enabled business software—serves as an example of how competition and sovereignty intersect. High concentration and lock-in in these areas create strategic dependencies and economic repercussions for businesses and the public sector alike.

Effective competition can assist the UK in managing these dependencies by broadening customer choice, sustaining a diverse supplier base, and applying pressure on prices. This, in turn, strengthens resilience and mitigates the risks associated with excessive reliance on a limited number of providers.

This is an area where we have been advising the government as part of a broader initiative concerning public procurement—more updates on this will be available in Parliament tomorrow.

The Importance of Flexibility in Our Approach

Shifting focus from impact, we have consistently emphasised the advantages of flexibility in pursuit of effective outcomes.

Even with the measures we have implemented thus far, a variety of approaches are evident, leveraging the flexibility embedded within the UK framework. Formal strategic market status (SMS) findings, conduct requirements, commitments