Join us at the FT to discuss a new IPPR report focused on how the CMA's digital competition regime can boost growth across the UK.

Time to Reset: Unlocking Growth & Sovereignty Through Digital Competition

A handful of firms now control the digital infrastructure the whole UK economy runs on - from search and cloud to the app stores and advertising markets that British businesses depend on to reach their customers. The UK has the world's most effective yet proportionate tool for tackling this: the CMA's Digital Markets Competition Regime, created by the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act. The problem is not the law. It's the political will to use it.

Following the publication a forthcoming report from IPPR - Bottleneck Britain: How digital competition could power UK growth and sovereignty - this event will bring together leading voices from politics, regulation, industry and academia to ask how the CMA's digital competition regime can be used more boldly and effectively to unlock growth across every part of the UK and strengthen our tech sovereignty.

Across the afternoon, our speakers will explore how an updated Strategic Steer could refocus enforcement on the remedies that genuinely open markets and grow the economy, and discuss how the CMA can manage the trade-offs around inward investment and geopolitics without outsourcing that judgement to the firms it regulates. A full speaker line-up will be confirmed in the coming weeks.

The formal programme will be followed by a drinks reception, offering guests the chance to continue the conversation with speakers and fellow attendees.

Please see the agenda below:

1:30pm – Doors Open

2:00pm – Welcome

2:10pm – Keynote from Will Hayter, Executive Director, Digital Markets, CMA.

2:30pm – PANEL 1: The costs of concentrated markets in the AI age – lost growth and technology sovereignty. The panellists are:

Suzi Ring, Legal Correspondent, Financial Times

Matt Davies, Economic and Social Policy Lead, Ada Lovelace Institute

Dylan Sparks, UK Director, Reset

Stephen McDonald, Head of Economics at Which?, the UK Consumers’ Association

3:20pm – Coffee and networking break

3:40pm — Keynote from Neil Lawrence, DeepMind Professor of Machine Learning, University of Cambridge

4:00pm — PANEL 2: A roadmap for more effective digital competition enforcement

Tom Smith, London Managing Partner, Geradin Partners

Rosamund Powell, Senior Research Fellow, IPPR

Max Von Thun, Director, Open Markets Institute Europe

Alex Rennie, Senior Public Affairs Manager, Skyscanner

Chi Onwurah MP, Chair of the House of Commons Science, Innovation and Technology Select Committee

4:50pm — Keynote from Philip Marsden, former member of HMG's Digital Competition Expert Panel and Deputy Chair of the Bank of England's Enforcement Decision Committee

5:10pm — Close of formal programme

5:15pm — Drinks and networking (until 7pm)

Our speakers:

Will Hayter - Will Hayter is Executive Director for Digital Markets at the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA). Prior to the CMA, Hayter worked as Director at Transition Hub (Cabinet Office / 10 Downing Street), and in other roles at the CMA and Ofcom.

Suzi Ring - Suzi Ring is the Financial Times' legal correspondent in London, covering white collar crime, antitrust and the business of law. Prior to joining the FT, Suzi spent ten years at Bloomberg News where she covered a variety of beats including legal, Brexit and healthcare.

Matt Davies - Matt Davies is Economic and Social Policy Lead at the Ada Lovelace Institute, where they lead a new programme of work on power, political economy, and industrial strategy. Their previous published research includes reports on global approaches to public compute and on lessons for AI regulation from other high-tech sectors. Their writing has been featured in The Guardian, Renewal Journal, and IPPR’s Progressive Review, and in the AI Now Institute’s edited volume AI Nationalism(s). They sit on advisory committees for Global Fund for a New Economy and the Centre for European Policy Studies.

Prior to joining Ada, Matt held various roles in the Labour Party, including as a political advisor to members of the Shadow Cabinet, and as a researcher for Chi Onwurah MP. They hold degrees from Oxford University and the London School of Economics, where they are currently studying towards a PhD in the political philosophy of AI.

Dylan Sparks - Dylan Sparks is the UK Director at Reset Tech, where he leads on policy work at the intersection of tech and democracy. He focuses on online safety, healthier information ecosystems, digital competition and public service broadcasting in the digital age. His career has focused on digital threats to public welfare and he has previously held roles at Luminate and Omidyar Network. Reset Tech is a public policy organisation advocating for technology that protects children, consumers, and public safety.

Stephen McDonald - Stephen McDonald is Head of Economics at Which?, the UK's Consumers' Association.

Description supplied by the event organiser.