Written question asked by Lord Clement-Jones (Liberal Democrat) on Thursday, 27 November 2025, in the House of Lords. It was due for an answer on Thursday, 11 December 2025. It was answered by Baroness Lloyd of Effra (Labour) on Thursday, 11 December 2025 on behalf of the Department for Business and Trade.

Amazon Web Services and Microsoft

Question: To ask His Majesty's Government, with regard to the recommendations of the cloud services market investigation, published on 5 October 2023, what steps they are taking to ensure the initiation of strategic market status investigations for Amazon Web Services and Microsoft.

Answer: In July 2025, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) published its final report on the UK cloud market. The key recommendation was for the CMA Board to prioritise commencing investigations under the digital markets regime and to consider designating the two largest providers —Microsoft and AWS — with strategic market status in relation to cloud services. The CMA is independent of Government and any decisions on initiating strategic market status investigations are for the CMA Board.

Secondary information