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Labour has “no plan” if foreign technology companies or governments cut Britain off from systems underpinning critical services, the Liberal Democrats have warned, after ministers acknowledged the risks posed by the UK’s reliance on overseas tech.
Victoria Collins, the Lib Dems’ tech spokesperson, accused the government of handing “contract after contract to foreign tech oligarchs” while failing to build sufficient British alternatives.
Her warning follows the government’s response to a Science and Technology Committee report on UK tech sovereignty, which warned Britain could not assume allies would always provide access to critical technologies such as AI.
Ministers acknowledged that highly concentrated technology markets pose risks and said Britain needed to reduce “over-dependence”, including exposure to narrow supply chains and “single points of failure”
The government said its approach would be based on diversifying suppliers, building more domestic capability and working with trusted allies rather than trying to make Britain technologically self-sufficient.
But Collins said ministers had failed to answer the more immediate question of what Britain would do if access to foreign technology was suddenly restricted.
“Labour has no plan for what happens if foreign states or companies simply pull the plug on technology that our public services have come to rely on,” she told City AM.
“The government admits that single points of failure and concentrated tech markets are a risk, yet ministers continue to hand contract after contract to foreign tech oligarchs rather than properly backing British technology”.
Palantir scrutiny puts sovereignty on spotlight
Among the biggest beneficiaries has been US data analytics firm Palantir, which holds major contracts across the NHS and Ministry of Defence.
Its NHS Federated Data Platform contract is worth up to £330m over seven years and is designed to bring together information already held by NHS organisations to help staff manage areas including waiting lists, hospital capacity, medicines and the discharge of patients.
NHS England has argued the platform can give staff a clearer view of resources across different parts of the health service and reduce time spent manually combining information from separate systems.
The data remains under the control of NHS organisations rather than Palantir, according to NHS England. Palantir also holds a £240m Ministry of Defence contract and generated £427m of UK revenue last year.
London is its largest hub outside the US, accounting for more than one in six of its employees.
However, the company has faced criticism from campaigners and politicians over the extent of its role in public services and its work for the US government and military clients.
The US data analytics group has pushed back against suggestions that its technology gives it control over government data and says its software allows customers to determine who can access information and how it is used.
The scrutiny comes as former Labour deputy leader Tom Watson joins the company as a senior vice president.
Watson said on Friday that some criticism of Palantir was “propaganda” while acknowledging that other concerns raised “legitimate questions about large technology companies and sovereign control”.
The government’s recent response to a group of MPs acknowledged the broader problem of dependence while drawing a distinction between relying on overseas tech and relying too heavily on any single provider.
It said technology sovereignty should be based on “diversification, trusted interdependence and capability-building with like-minded partners” rather than attempting to develop every critical technology domestically.
Ministers pointed to the £500m Sovereign AI Fund and £1.1bn AI Hardware Plan as measures designed to strengthen British capabilities, alongside £2bn of investment in quantumm.
Collins said Britain should go further in building domestic technology companies to reduce its exposure to decisions made overseas.
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