Commenting on a white paper released today by the Government into foreign takeovers, Liberal Democrat Leader and former Business Secretary Vince Cable said:

“The Government is rightly concerned about the security impact of overseas takeovers. But they should be focusing on the damaging takeovers made by big US data companies that harm Britain’s long-term capabilities in AI and related fields.

“The European Commission is demonstrating serious awareness of this problem and is taking action. It is not at all clear how the Conservatives would deal with these big tech companies in the event of their chaotic plans for Brexit going through.

“We believe that the Competition & Markets Authority must be much less supine when it comes to takeovers. It is currently stuck with an old model that only seems to judge competition through rising prices rather than market dominance.”