Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Bill

Debate between Lord Lansley and Lord Tyrie

Committee stage
Wednesday 24th January 2024 Grand Committee

[Lord Tyrie (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I do not know whether I am the sole dissenting voice—I do not think I am—but I want to make one preliminary point. I never thought I would make a point in defence of lawyers, but not all legal challenge or scrutiny will necessarily be wrong as this Bill proceeds or as the CMA takes its decisions. It is extremely important that we bear in mind, as we will come on to later on in the Bill, that we need to have a sense of balance about all this, so that we do not allow quite reasonable discontent with some of the shocking practices we have seen from platforms to lead us to a place that we might subsequently regret and which could lead to injustices or damage to British interests through loss of innovation or inward investment.

I listened very carefully to what the noble Lord, Lord Faulks, said. It seemed to boil down to very few things. Are convention rights engaged? They probably are, or if they are not then they will be. Even if they are not, the courts will find a way of getting them in eventually. If they are, what have the Government added? That is why I think I might be with the amenders here. I think very little, if anything at all, has been added. Was this a piece of window dressing, supplied by the Government to satisfy the intense lobbying that has taken place, particularly of No. 10? It had a whiff of that about it for me when I first saw it—I see one or two nods of assent. If it is, I am particularly wary of this change, which is what leads me to think that the amenders might be right. If it is more than this—if something very substantive has been added—then I think we would all like to hear from the Minister what exactly it is that, as a result of the adding of “proportionality”, will be considered for legal scrutiny when this Bill is on the statute book.

[Lord Lansley (Con)]

My Lords, I will briefly intervene. I have not signed the amendments but I am rather supportive of what the noble Lord, Lord Faulks, said in support of his amendment.

In thinking about this, among other thing I had the benefit of seeing a letter that the Parliamentary Under-Secretary at the department sent to my friends in another place, Robert Buckland and Damian Collins, after Report in the Commons; other noble Lords may have seen it. In that letter, he set out why he was building proportionality into Clause 19. He said:

“Our intention for this amendment is to allow a firm to appeal a decision by arguing that the DMU made public law errors in its consideration of proportionality under normal JR principles—without establishing that their rights under the European Convention on Human Rights are engaged”,


for example, the right to peaceful enjoyment of possessions. So that would not bring convention rights on board. The letter continues: “For example”— it is always helpful to have an example—

“the firm could argue that the DMU failed to take a relevant consideration into account, made a material error of fact or otherwise acted unreasonably”—

so JR principles—

“when deciding against an intervention that would have been less burdensome on the firm while still achieving the same outcome”.

So the outcome has to be achieved, but is it proportionate to impose this particular conduct requirement or pro-competitive intervention?

Business of the House

Debate between Lord Lansley and Lord Tyrie

Thursday 27th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lansley]

The right hon. Gentleman will understand that, without prior notice of his question, I have been unable to ask my colleagues about the issue that he has raised, and I do not know the answer to his question about whether such a report exists. However, he will have heard my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary speaking at the Dispatch Box recently, setting out measures to promote the integrity of the police. I will ask her to respond to the right hon. Gentleman, but I think he should take considerable reassurance from the wide range of measures that she announced and that are being taken forward. They involve not only inquiries but proposals relating to the College of Policing and the Independent Police Complaints Commission.

[Mr Andrew Tyrie (Chichester) (Con)]

May I reinforce the request from the Opposition Front Bench for two days on Report for the Financial Services (Banking Reform) Bill? I take it that the Leader of the House rejected that request; at least, that is what I think I heard. Some months ago, the Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards, which I chaired, recommended that the Report stage be taken in September, but that was rejected too. We have now produced a further report with more than 100 recommendations. Colleagues from all over the House have told me that they would like an opportunity to consider those recommendations and express their views on them before the Bill goes to the other place. Frankly, I simply cannot understand why the Government are dragging their feet on this, bearing in mind that they were the prime movers in the creation of the commission. Nor can I understand their decision, in view of the fact that the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill, the Justice and Security Bill and the Crime and Courts Bill all had two days on Report.

[Mr Lansley]

The Government, and the House, are grateful to my hon. Friend and his colleagues on the Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards for the work that they have done and the excellent report that they have produced. That entirely justifies the decision that the Chancellor and the Prime Minister made to proceed by way of a parliamentary commission rather than a public inquiry. That is what has enabled us to reach this point at this time. I will not repeat all that I said to the shadow Leader of the House, but we should not regard two days on Report as anything other than the exception. We have allowed it more often than our predecessors did, but it must be—[Interruption.] It is not a matter of priority. It is a matter of judging the necessity for debating time on Report in the light of the amendments that have been tabled at that stage. I have announced the provisional business for the week after next. We are making rapid progress with the Bill and it is important that we continue to do so, but I will of course always listen carefully to what my hon. Friend the Member for Chichester (Mr Tyrie) has to say.