Asked by: Baroness Walmsley (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask Her Majesty's Government, further to the UK's departure from the EU, what system has been put in place to scrutinise illegal state aid complaints in the UK.
Answered by Lord Callanan - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
EU State aid rules no longer apply to subsidies granted from 1 January 2021 in the UK, except for aid within scope of the Withdrawal Agreement, including aid under Article 10 of the Northern Ireland Protocol. However, public authorities must comply with our international commitments on subsidies in the UK-EU Trade and Co-operation agreement (TCA), and other trade agreements, as well as the World Trade Organisation rules on subsidies.
Since the 1 January 2020, subject to any applicable exemptions, a subsidy in scope of the TCA must follow and apply the principles and prohibitions in the agreement before it can be awarded. The TCA also requires certain information about the subsidy award to be made publicly available. The Department has developed a new publicly accessible transparency database for public authorities to record subsidies, which will be launched shortly. An interested Party can take steps for the award of the subsidy to be Judicially Reviewed if they consider that the public authority has not complied with its duties under the TCA or acted in a way that is inconsistent with general public law principles (for example, if the public authority acted unlawfully, irrationally, or with procedural unfairness).
On 3 February, the Government published a consultation on the design of the future UK subsidy regime. This consultation invites views from stakeholders on a number of areas, including oversight and enforcement in the subsidy control regime. Subject to the outcome of the consultation, the Government will bring forward legislation in due course and before the end of the year.
Asked by: Baroness Walmsley (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to ensure that UK complaints to the European Commission under the Competition Directive made prior to the UK's departure from the EU are scrutinised by the EU in a timely fashion.
Answered by Lord Callanan - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
Until the end of the Transition Period, the European Commission could investigate the effect on UK markets of a breach of EU competition law. To avoid a delay to enforcement, the Withdrawal Agreement gave the European Commission jurisdiction to complete its investigations that relate to UK markets if they began before the end of the Transition Period. The Competition and Markets Authority can work with the European Commission on these cases in the way it could before the end of the Transition Period.