Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab):...Following the
Committee stage of the Bill, the Competition and Markets Authority
has chosen to investigate that takeover. That is, shall we say,
interesting to put it mildly. Photonics-Huawei, DeepMine-Google,
Arm-Nvidia, the failed Pfizer-AstraZeneca attempt, Cobham, GKN
Huawei-5G—failure after failure after failure, despite reminder
after reminder. Twelve national security screens in 18 years and
not one instance of the Government acting...Request free trial
(Newcastle
upon Tyne Central) (Lab):...Following the Committee stage of
the Bill, the Competition and Markets Authority has chosen to
investigate that takeover. That is, shall we say, interesting to
put it mildly. Photonics-Huawei, DeepMine-Google, Arm-Nvidia, the
failed Pfizer-AstraZeneca attempt, Cobham, GKN Huawei-5G—failure after failure
after failure, despite reminder after reminder. Twelve national
security screens in 18 years and not one instance of the Government
acting decisively to block a takeover and guard our national
security...
(Warwick and Leamington) (Lab) [V]:...I am
afraid that the past 10 years show that consecutive Conservative
and coalition Governments have been persistently slow and muted in
intervening to protect national security in a series of cases:
Huawei and 5G has been cited frequently this afternoon: Pfizer and
AstraZeneca—the proposal of course failed, but we can only imagine
what would have happened to the cost of vaccines had those two
companies merged and had we been reliant on one major player;
Google and DeepMind; and now Nvidia and Arm technologies. Among a
great many others, we have also had the takeover of GKN by Melrose and the
acquisition of Cobham aviation. They are now owned by businesses
based in a friendly state, which is okay and acceptable, but it is
questionable how we are prepared to let some of these important
businesses—important leaders in technologies—be disposed of, with
the assets, the research and the intellectual properties of those
businesses moved offshore, to elsewhere...
...Recent history is littered with examples of great nascent
businesses being lost to voracious venture capitalists, whether
they are from benign nations or, more concerningly, are a front for
the investment arm of a state, especially those states that we
regard as less than friendly. A small business example is Stonewood
Electronics, a global leader and innovator in data security. It was
a supplier to the UK Government, intelligence services and
military—a home-grown business based in the UK. It was a brilliant,
advanced technology company, but is now just a shell based in
Farnborough, with all the value transferred to the US. It is not
just companies such as GKN and Cobham aviation or the
Centre for Integrated Photonics; so many businesses across the UK
are seen as very attractive targets to friendly, benign nations, as
well as to those who have more concerning interests in taking over
some of our technologies...
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