Digital Competition

Baroness Neville-Rolfe Excerpts

Tuesday 5th November 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist]

I cannot answer on the results of our discussion at this stage because they are ongoing. There are a number of options for how the digital markets unit could be taken forward, including whether it should be in an existing institution, such as Ofcom or the CMA, or located separately. We believe, however, that form and location should follow function. The follow-up work by Professor Furman, the noble Lord, Lord Tyrie, and the Government will address these issues.

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

My Lords, my main concern is that, rather than being given new powers without the proper scrutiny that we all like to see, the competition authorities should exercise the powers that they already have to stop takeovers by the digital giants of plucky and talented digital innovators, working across borders where necessary—for example, in the case of the recent Fitbit move. When I was at Tesco—I declare an interest—we could barely buy a single supermarket without an investigation. Does my noble friend agree that we should now use competition law to encourage scale-up, not the takeover of our vital digital businesses?

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist]

I understand my noble friend’s concern. We should indeed be encouraging our emerging digital businesses to grow independently. But as the noble Lord, Lord Tyrie, observed in his report, the CMA has an analogue system of competition and consumer law in a digital age. The digital panel recognised that its powers needed to be adapted to cope with the complex mergers in this sector, and we welcome the CMA’s review of its merger assessment guidelines for these digital markets.