MPs tell Brit government: Sort out your tech sovereignty or get left out in the cold

MPs are warning the UK has no "coherent strategy" for creating sovereign capabilities across a range of technologies, including AI, space, and quantum computing. A report published Tuesday by the Science, Innovation and Technology Committee says the UK is in a global race for sovereign tech capabilities, with AI emerging as a " …

[IanRS]

Government policy

This government's policy for any area seems to be "Tax it!!!". This apparently encourage growth, a bit like pruning.

[elsergiovolador]

Re: Government policy

The tax in this case acts like an instrument for redistribution of money from productive side of society to big corporations servicing government contracts at inflated rates and no requirements for delivery.

It can look like growth (the rich get richer).

Just a whacky iteration of broken window theory.

[Pirate Peter]

countries at the mercy of rogue US presidents

as we have seen by trump and his tariffs and now limiting access to AI models the US can no longer be seen as a dependable partner

at trumps whim he tries stop access or taxes / tariffs countries into submission (worked well with Canada and Mexico (NOT) )

we have had to many years of status quo which has lead to reliance on big tech based in the US and we are now reaping the benefits of not developing home grown talent and systems by being blackmailed by trump

time to stand up to the bully and tell him to do one

[Andy 73]

Hold on...

Hold on, wait... the government has a strategy? For anything?

I thought we just waited to be told what to do by the shiny American suits? That's why we let Plantir run the NHS, Comcast run two national broadcasters, Oracle, Google and Amazon run most of our public IT infrastructure and Musk run our military communications network?

[Like a badger]

Re: Hold on...

No, that's the point, there is no digital sovereignty strategy. To an extent that's usually a good thing because most government strategies are shit and produce perverse outcomes. I daresay some half baked rush job on digital sovereignty is in the works over at DSIT, but it'll be full of waffle and they can't publish it now until the Parliamentary Labour Party have finished fawning over Burnham, anointed him PM, and he's appointed a cabinet. The new minister will likely be another know-nothing without any grasp of anything technical, and it'll take them many months to get even the vaguest understanding of their remit. Factor in the long, lush summer holidays that MP's take, and there's months and months of delay. And two weeks after the idle fuckers come back after the long summer holidays, they take another month off at your expense for "conference recess".

Fast forward to when it gets published, what can this strategy say? The British government have a software dependency of near 100% on big US firms, have stayed away from FOSS, and only have minimal European software adoption (somebody somewhere using SAP). Trump could turn off the British government's entire IT estate tomorrow if he wanted, can and probably does have access to all government systems and data, perhaps excepting the seriously encrypted stuff. There's no fall back plan, no corner of government that's seriously developed a FOSS or non-US stack, no government department running Open Office and other FOSS office collab tools etc.

And to fix this vulnerability, how long? Governments of many decades have intentionally ensured the Civil Service cannot pay for in-house digital skills, politicians and policy officials have asked the wrong questions or not asked the right ones. Anything they can outsource they do, without a thought. Government are also up to their eyeballs in shitty restrictive, long term exploitative IT contracts with the usual big outfits. The principles of digital sovereignty are not difficult and about half the people who read this forum could put in place a credible action plan for government digital sovereignty, although even using fist-on-table authority it'd take years to transition all UK government data onto new systems not at the beck and call of a foreign power.

Whilst I'm not sure there's a US angle, Crapita's incompetence in the civil service pension scheme is a prime example of how government manages to be shafted by its own suppliers. For amusement, read this, which at least shows harsh words being deployed, along with threats to hold the company to account:

https://hansard.parliament.uk/commons/2026-07-06/debates/EC515563-D629-487F-A273-95E10BB646C6/CivilServicePensions

[Andy 73]

Re: Hold on...

It's nice to see a fellow cynic with a firm grasp on the reality of the situation.

For those of us in the trenches (as you say, about half the people who read this forum) it's become increasingly clear that the idea of democracy, or even meritocracy in these technical issues is somewhat disproven by a few decades of watching smart people discuss the issues whilst our beloved leaders studiously ignore them and continue to repeat the same mistakes time and time again.

[theOtherJT]

In the immortal words of Eddie Izzard...

"Look you're British, rein your expectations in a bit."

Maybe once we've gotten the hang of regular IT projects like running a post office without sending innocent people to prison, or a council SAP system that doesn't bankrupt a city of over a million people we can start thinking about the big things.

[amanfromMars 1]

Hi Lindsay Clark, that sub-heading should more accurately start and truthfully lead and read ......

...... and it is worth boldly highlighting ..... The UK are warning MPs they have no "coherent strategy" for creating sovereign capabilities across a range of technologies, including AI, space, and quantum computing.

And whenever further truths be told, the chances ever of them formulating and activating one are more than just likely ZERO.

And that’s a right pickle for sure, and a blame and a shame that they cannot in all honesty denyand escape, even as they may try to ignore and/or deflect attention away from what are certainly their national defence failings.

Why do you think that is?

[IGotOut]

Here we go...

Quantum, Quantum fucking Quantum.

The tech bros realising the Meta verse, sorry Blockchain, I mean NFTs, dammit, AR vision, god dammit I meant to say AI, is just hype. Let's try the next bullshit money machine... Quantum.

[amanfromMars 1]

Re: Here we go... round and round the mulberry bush, again and again for profitable gains.

Don’t you yet get it, IGotOut, that’s how the Qu00key crumbles.

Or nowadays, with all of these extremely strange times and quantum engtangling spaces . more than just very likely how it used to crumble.

[amanfromMars 1]

Re: Here we go... round and round the mulberry bush, again and again for profitable gains.

And anyone ready, willing and able to read between those precious few lines will glean, and surely be heartened and encouraged to know, or at least dare to hope and suspect, that nowadays is the future planning of the presents taking and making over from the past and its corrupt and crumbling administrations/exclusive elitist executive office services, not going to be more of the same again and again this time, nor ever again in these unusually novel and thoroughly different times with spooky action at a distance* spaces providing remote virtual facilities and overwhelming otherworldly abilities to all that is suitably almightily enabled ..... and worthy.

* Where and when a this is also a that, and whenever combined together delivering of something else completely different and totally unexpected and disruptive .... and able to be either creative or destructive ..... with that choice being Designedly IntelAIgent and way beyond any means and memes of traditional and/or conventional Earthly command and control?