Chi Onwurah, chair of the House of Commons Science, Innovation and Technology committee, has released correspondence with the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) about UK technology sovereignty policy that raises fundamental questions.
On 10 March 2026, Onwurah, the MP for Newcastle upon Tyne Central and West, opened a Technology Sovereignty Debate in the House of Commons, putting into question the independence of the UK’s technology strategy and approach.
During the debate, she spoke about the NHS’s involvement with US data management supplier Palantir, stating that its chairman and founder, Peter Thiel, holds “a political worldview which is at odds with British values”.
Following the debate, Onwurah sent a letter to Kanishka Narayan, minister for Science, Innovation and Technology, seeking clarification about technology sovereignty. In it, she asked about the government’s plans for technological self-reliance and data governance.
Her questions included: “Can you confirm that the UK does not seek to treat the Big Tech companies as sovereign states?” and “have ministers or officials in the department [for Science, Innovation and Technology] discussed the impact of the US Cloud Act, the Patriot Act, and entity list tools, with Microsoft, AWS [Amazon Web Services], and Palantir in regard to UK data sovereignty?”
In a response letter, dated 15 April, Narayan said: “Although some global technology companies operate at significant scale and across multiple jurisdictions, which may require a strategic and coordinated approach, they remain private sector actors and do not possess sovereign authority. Companies operating in the UK are subject to UK laws and regulatory frameworks, which are set by Parliament and enforced by independent regulators.”
He highlighted DSIT’s ongoing and upcoming investments and investigations, such as the Competition and Markets Authority’s (CMA’s) designation of Google and Apple with Strategic Market Status in mobile ecosystems, which led the tech titans to commit to fairer app store practices.
Narayan wrote about economic strategies to expand Britain’s place in international tech. On 16 April, DSIT launched the Sovereign Al Fund to invest in early-stage Al companies, in the hope that it would attract startups to the UK.
Highlighting “foundational relationships” with the US, European Union, Japan, India, China and others, he insisted on the importance of international collaborations towards AI. However, Narayan did not answer whether the government intends to monitor how much public service infrastructure depends on “foreign-based cloud technology”, and made no specific reference to Palantir.
During the parliamentary debate, Onwurah mentioned Elon Musk’s decision to turn off Ukraine’s Starlink capacities during a crucial attack against Russia as an example of the risks of cloud dependance.
Currently, AWS and Microsoft dominate British cloud use, making up almost 80% of the market, with Google coming in third.
An investigation into AWS and Microsoft by the CMA led UK cloud providers to demand stronger regulation. In July 2026, the Government Digital Service (GDS) will publish a National Cloud Strategy.
Onwurah said that Narayan’s letter fails to set out a “coherent strategy for achieving technology sovereignty”. Instead, she said the UK must identify how it can become self-reliant, and what risks are linked to situations where “interdependence is unavoidable”.
“It is impossible to judge whether the £22bn spent annually on public sector research and development is serving the UK’s long‑term interests if we do not know how it is contributing to our technology sovereignty,” said Onwurah.
