The UK government has laid out the groundwork for how it plans to force technology giants to pay news publishers for their content.

The requirement is part of a new wide-ranging British crackdown on Silicon Valley that threatens tech firms with multi-billion-pound fines.

Boris Johnson’s government could become the third jurisdiction to force Google and Meta to pay publishers for news after Australia – which introduced its News Media Bargaining Code last year – and Canada, which published the details of its upcoming Online News Act last month.