Pressure is mounting on the UK Government to address growing concerns over national control of core technologies, with MPs warning of the threat posed by service providers under the thumb of foreign governments.

In a letter addressed to the chair of the National Security Strategy, Matt Western, and the Technology Committee, Chi Onwurah, MPs from Labour, the Greens, Lib Dems and Plaid Cymru called for changes to the National Risk Register to reflect the country’s “lack of digital sovereignty”.

Maintained by the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, to whom the letter was also addressed, the NRR sets out the most serious risks facing the UK and the government’s assessment of the impact they could have on the country and its interests.

While the NRR outlines scenarios in which foreign powers launch cyber‑attacks or other malicious activity targeting Critical National Infrastructure, the current edition makes no mention of digital disruption resulting from overseas governments exercising legal powers over service providers and manufacturers.

MPs said that such scenarios are “demonstrably plausible” and are already recognised as a cause of concern, pointing to the previous government’s actions to limit UK dependence on Huawei and Lenovo for national digital infrastructure.   

But rather than spelling out the risks tied to the UK’s deepening reliance on a shrinking pool of major tech firms such as Microsoft and Google for critical digital infrastructure, the NRR instead classifies these issues as ‘chronic’ risks. 

These are treated as long‑term concerns that do not require emergency contingency planning, with their analysis confined to a confidential document.

“The potential for state interference or threats being made is not in itself a ‘chronic’ risk, this is a specific and acute risk that could be made real in a range of circumstances that have been made very apparent in recent months,” wrote MPs.

“The UK public debate on digital sovereignty is significantly hampered by the secrecy surrounding the mitigation strategies for the ‘chronic’ risks mentioned in the National Risk Register.”

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In a separate letter to Dame Onwurah concerning the UK’s digital sovereignty, minister for AI Kanishka Narayan said that the government continually reviews dependencies in its critical technology supply chains, writing that procurement decisions affecting critical infrastructure are “informed by evidence relating to security, reliability and long-term resilience.”

The debate over the UK’s tech sovereignty has reached a tipping point following public backlash against government contracts with Palantir. Ministers are now reportedly considering axing the £330 million NHS deal with the US data analytics firm after almost 230,000 people signed petitions urging the UK to cut ties with the company.