Andy Carter MP has welcomed a new piece legislation designed to fix the imbalance of UK news publishers being unfairly compensated for the value their content brings to large tech platforms. The Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers (DMCC) Bill was introduced by the Government with the aim of improving competition in digital markets by creating a flexible, principles-based and pro-innovation regulatory regime.
The legislation would empower the Digital Markets Unit to tackle the excessive dominance that a small number of tech companies (such as Google and Meta) have held over consumers and businesses in the UK. The current market power of these companies means UK news publishers are currently unable to negotiate fair and reasonable compensation, with UK publishers receiving less than £100million from the estimated £1billion annual value of their trusted news content to Google and Meta’s Facebook.
The Warrington South MP was one of the Members of Parliament who sat on the Bill Committee scrutinising the DMCC Bill after it passed its second reading in the House of Commons. Over the past five weeks, the Committee heard evidence from numerous bodies and experts from across the UK’s national, regional and local media industry on the need for new regulation to ensure large tech companies trade on fair and reasonable terms with publishers.
Andy Carter MP commented: “I’ve spoken to many people from across the news media industry and what is absolutely clear is they feel the current UK competition and consumer laws aren’t keeping pace with the rapid pace of market developments. They’re currently left in the situation where they simply aren’t being fairly compensated for the value of their content. Reliable, accurate journalism isn’t free and tech firms shouldn’t be able to simply use content without paying.
“The DMCC Bill we’ve introduced is designed to fix this by ensuring big tech companies come to the table to negotiate fair terms with those media publishers who bring them so much revenue. That doesn’t just mean supporting national news outlets, it’s also about supporting local journalism in places like Warrington.
“It’s not a silver bullet piece of legislation, but it is a key step to securing publishers’ sustainability in a modern digital age, and boosting competition will help give start-ups and smaller firms proper access to markets and consumers.”
The DMCC Bill follows a global trend of similar laws which have come into force in other countries like Canada and Australia. The Bill has enjoyed cross-party support in the UK and is expected to return to the House of Commons to progress later this year.
