Startup Coalition

Congratulations to Alan Mak MP on his appointment as Shadow Secretary of State for the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology! It was great to have him in the Startup Coalition office this morning to sit down with founders and investors to discuss how startups and scale ups can continue to drive the ecosystem forward. We are so pleased to have him continue to champion the UK tech sector.

Our Budget TL;DR ⬇

Startup Coalition sat down with POLITICO and a group of Founders ahead of the budget to talk about how they are feeling… Three policy decisions were top of mind: 🔴Capital Gains Tax (CGT) 🔴Cutting Entrepreneurs Relief 🔴National Insurance Contributions Here is what they had to say…

The Data Bill has landed (again), paving the way for Smart Data across the economy. This will be a great thing for UK startups. My thoughts 👇 📜 The Bill is a biggie. It's a near copy and paste job for Smart Data and Digital Verification Services (a regulated status for digital ID) but with some Labour-style changes to the data privacy section, and new headline-grabbing changes to biometrics to help the police, new requirements for NHS IT providers to unlock streamlined access to patient records, and new rules around communication service providers on top of Smart Meters. 📈 Smart Data is framed as a growth opportunity but, as we always knew, this Bill achieves nothing on its own. Instead, it gives policymakers the ability to create Open Banking-style schemes across the economy if they want to. We were buzzed to see DSIT use our figures on the Open Banking sector raising £2bn in the press release for the Bill. ✅ In contrast to the old DPDI Bill (which fell pre-election), this Bill explicitly states that all Smart Data scheme statutory instruments will require affirmative approval from both houses. As predicted but now made clear: Smart Data is political and requires a politician to drive it. 🏦 There's also a new clause ensuring that the FCA co-ordinates with other regulators as part of any future open finance schemes (and hopefully beyond). This is good - anything that joins up the work, learns from mistakes and leverages expertise should be encouraged, this is how we achieve interoperability. 📱 For Digital Verification, it's much as it was before, with a new regulated status for providers of "digital verification services", including a trust mark and a register of providers. 🚑 The NHS and biometric sections are interesting and led the press release by DSIT as this fits Labour's public service missions. Crucially, we'll be interested in the degree to which this enables startups to support the modernisation of the health service, which is TBC. ⚡ The Smart Meter section requires further detail to understand how it will work in practice, and interact with any future Open Energy scheme. If this accelerates the use of Smart Meter data for household empowerment, smart tariffs and decarbonisation, all powered by tech, then good. 💻 Finally, there's also a chunk of this Bill that focuses on Online Harms, including new rights for bereaved parents and powers to support research and analysis. As a member of the Smart Data Council, it's welcome to see the new Bill land, but there's a strong sense of déjà vu - we've quite literally had (a version of) this Bill before. We've been banging on about how Smart Data will power a new frontier of competition for years but due to a lack of political will it's taken far too long to date. We've got a second chance to drive Smart Data through, let's crack on with it.

BNPL regulation - our take 👇