Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Bill (First sitting)
Kevin Hollinrake ExcerptsTuesday 13th June 2023
(1 year ago)
Public Bill CommitteesRead Full debate Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 View all Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Public Bill Committee Amendments as at 13 June 2023 - (13 Jun 2023)
Alex Davies-Jones (Pontypridd) (Lab)
Q
Sarah Cardell: I will give a high-level response, and Will might come in on some of the specific priorities for the DMU. It is really important to highlight the difference between accountability and independence. The CMA is independent when we take our individual decisions, but, as you say, it is absolutely accountable for those decisions, both to Parliament and to the courts. That is accountability for the choices that we make about where we set our priorities, accountability for the decisions that we take when we are exercising our functions, and accountability for the way that we go about doing that work. I think it is important to have accountability across all three areas.
On the strategic priorities, since I came into the role as chief executive and our new chair, Marcus Bokkerink, came into post, we have put a lot of focus on really setting out very clearly what our strategic priorities are, looking at impact and beneficial outcomes for people, businesses and the economy as a whole. We see those as a trio of objectives that are fundamentally reinforcing, rather than in tension with one another.
We also take account of the Government’s strategic steer. That is in draft at the moment. You can see that there is a lot of commonality between our own strategic priorities that we set out in our annual plan and in the Government’s strategic steer. That sets a very clear framework for our prioritisation.
Will might want to come in on how we will set the priorities for the DMU.
Will Hayter: We are obviously thinking very carefully about where to prioritise action under the strategic market status regime. We cannot jump too far ahead with that, because Parliament is going through this process now and we have to see where the Bill comes out, but, as Sarah says, we will be targeting our effort very firmly at those areas where the biggest problems and the biggest current harmful impacts on people, businesses and the economy are likely to be.
You can get a bit of a sense of what those areas might be from the areas we have looked at already, particularly the digital advertising market, search, social media, interactions between the platforms and news publishers, and also mobile ecosystems. We did a big study there, where we see a range of problems stemming from the market power of the two big operating systems.
We will continue to update our thinking as we go through the next year-plus, building on our horizon-scanning work and understanding of how developments in the markets are shaping up and what that might mean for where the problems are.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business and Trade (Kevin Hollinrake)
Q
My question is about innovation. If you speak to some of those who are likely to be designated SMS—strategic market status—businesses, many of them might say, “Well, this will inhibit innovation from our businesses.” I think part of that is about the power to look ahead at where this may take us. What do you say to that? If one of those platforms was opening a new type of supermarket, for example, it might be claimed that this would limit innovation. How would you respond to that?
Sarah Cardell: I have a couple of points, and Will might come in. The general point is that this regime is very much pro-competition and pro-innovation, both from the major platforms, which are likely to be designated in relation to some of their activities, and across the economy. It is important that we encourage innovation that supports competing businesses, large and small. You can have innovation that supports an incumbent by allowing that incumbent to offer additional services, but sometimes at the cost of entrenching their market position. We want to ensure that we have an environment that enables those major players to continue to innovate, sparked and incentivised by the competitive pressure that they are facing, but equally allows smaller competitors to thrive and innovate too. That is the broad point.
As we have said, it is a very targeted and bespoke regime. We will be focusing only on areas where there is substantial and entrenched market power already. Therefore, the principal point is that businesses, large and small, will continue to be free to innovate and to develop their products and services. Of course we want to ensure that that happens in a way that does not reinforce positions of market power. Will, you might want to come in on that.
Will Hayter: As Sarah says, this is all about creating a fertile environment for innovation, and you can think about that at at least three levels. First, it might be that those companies are innovating on top of the platforms that we are talking about here—in mobile ecosystems, through app stores, mobile browsers, and so on. Secondly, there are companies that are seeking to compete directly against some of the big platforms, and we want to ensure that there is a possibility that the current incumbents will be knocked off their perch by tomorrow’s innovators. Finally, increasing competition should increase the pressure on the incumbents—the most powerful firms—to innovate further themselves, in a way that delivers the greatest benefits for people, businesses and the economy.
Kevin Hollinrake
Q
Sarah Cardell: I do not think that there is anything in the Bill that prohibits innovation. The fundamental design, and certainly the way that we would intend to operate it, is entirely pro-innovation. We want to ensure that, as the designated companies continue to seek to develop and grow their businesses—of course they will want to, and that brings many benefits—that happens in a way that does not entrench their position, which is disadvantageous either to consumers or to competing businesses. That does not inhibit innovation, but it puts some guardrails around that innovation to ensure that the impact of that is beneficial and positive.
The Chair
We now come to a quick-fire round. We have six minutes left and four Members seeking to ask questions, so we want quick questions and quick answers.
Seema Malhotra
Q
Matthew Upton: We have been asking for action on subscription traps for a long time. Any action is positive, but we are seeing this in the context of a cost of living crisis, where anything that takes cash out of people’s pockets stops them getting by from day to day. To be honest, we think that the intent is right, but this is potentially a huge missed opportunity for action on subscription traps. We have to understand how high the incentive is for firms to trap people in subscriptions. There is a huge amount of money to be made, to the extent that it changes the whole incentive structure so that for many firms, rather than thinking about how to provide a quality subscription, the rational thing to do is think about how to design the worst possible customer journey and to trap someone, whether through an online process that makes it difficult to cancel something—you will all have experience of this—or, to give a slightly facetious example, a process whereby you can cancel only when you ring between 2 and 2.30 on a Tuesday and you have wait for 45 minutes in the queue.
Obviously, we want to change that incentive structure so that we have a flourishing subscription economy, which should be encouraged, where consumers want to stay in subscriptions and firms focus on providing quality subscriptions. We do not think that the Bill as it stands will do that. For example, it says that exit has to be timely and straightforward. We do not think that that will work. We have been here before, if we think back to utility bills four or five years ago, when there was a big push to stop people rolling on to expensive contracts and to get them to switch. Regulators were focused on trying to dictate what went into letters to consumers about their renewals. Firms could make so much money by obeying the letter but not the spirit of the regulation that they would find ways round it, and switching rates did not go up. We think that the same will happen here.
The specific change that would make a huge difference and is legislatively straightforward is to provide that, at the end of an annual trial subscription, the default is that the consumer opts out. That is not about things like car insurance, where there is a detriment to people opting out, but for basic subscriptions, opt-out should be the default. That would allow firms to use all their ingenuity, power and influence to persuade consumers to stay in. They could go for it—send as many reminders as they wanted; that is absolutely fine. If the subscription is good, a consumer will stay in. That change will make the difference. We have done some polling on this and about 80% of people agree that that should happen. We think that it will put millions of pounds back in people’s pockets, that it is proportionate and that it will encourage a flourishing subscription economy.
Kevin Hollinrake
Q
Rocio Concha: A provision on fake reviews in the Bill should apply to both products and services. There is evidence to show that fake reviews also harm services. I do not think that there is a major risk. We and the CMA have produced a lot of evidence about how fake reviews are endemic on some sites. We have demonstrated the harm that they cause. It is clear what is needed. We know that we need to look at selling, buying and hosting. I do not see a risk to including such a provision on the face of the Bill. Then, in secondary legislation—
Kevin Hollinrake
Q
Rocio Concha: If there is something that needs to be improved, you can always do it with the Secretary of State’s power later. There is quite clear evidence to provide a clear steer on what is an unfair practice. Obviously, as with anything in schedule 18, you have that power to modify, to add to the practice as more evidence comes in. We will provide enough evidence to the Committee to show that it can be introduced on the face of the Bill.
Kevin Hollinrake
Q
Matthew Upton: I think it could, but we worry that it will not in reality. It is quite difficult to decide, for example, what constitutes easy and timely exit from a contract. You cannot necessarily measure it incredibly specifically, and I could imagine enforcement being really complicated. I could imagine firms dragging their feet, despite the way powers would speed up the ability of the CMA to act, as I say, because the incentive structure is so great.
One reason for the growth of the subscription economy is that it is a great way to provide services, but another is that it is such an easy way to make money by trapping people in. That is our firm belief and what our evidence shows. I just think a simple default would be much more effective than basically having the CMA chasing its tail and chasing firms. It would not be of any detriment to good firms who want to provide really solid subscriptions that people should want to stay in.
Richard Thomson (Gordon) (SNP)
Q
Rocio Concha: Our view is that it should be on the face of the Bill. We do not know why the right to redress has not been transposed into the Bill. From our perspective, we do not want to leave it for the Secretary of State to decide once we have an Act. It should be included.
The other thing is that the right of redress does not cover all the practice in schedule 18, only misleading practice and aggressive practice. It does not really cover all the list of unfair practice in schedule 18. I think that the right to redress should also cover that.
Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Bill (Second sitting)
Kevin Hollinrake ExcerptsTuesday 13th June 2023
(1 year ago)
Public Bill CommitteesRead Full debate Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 View all Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Public Bill Committee Amendments as at 13 June 2023 - (13 Jun 2023)
Alex Davies-Jones
Q
Professor Fletcher: I fully endorse that. When we did the review, we spoke to a lot of firms that were seeking to innovate in the digital space but were struggling. We heard that they really needed access to a whole number of things such as data. They needed access to customers and to be interoperable with systems out there. They needed access to finance. They found, essentially—some of them, at least—that the way in which the biggest platforms were working was making all that very difficult. They were concerned that although there had been a huge amount of innovation, at that point—and still, I think—firms’ ability to innovate was being gradually increasingly stymied by the conduct of the biggest tech platforms. We very much saw the Bill as a pro-innovation piece of regulation.
Professor Furman: This question is so fundamental. This legislation would have benefits for consumers in terms of price and choice, but far and away the most important benefit would be innovation. It was designed with that in mind; our recommendations, which the legislation took on, established firms with strategic market status. They would fall under these rules, which would give a lot of leeway to small and medium-sized UK businesses to really innovate and come up with their own models rather than being constrained. More competition would help innovation by the large platforms as well.
The other thing that is so important is that the speed in the digital sector is just so much faster than in other parts of the economy, so traditional anti-trust rules just take too long: by the time a case is settled or decided, everyone has moved on. Getting there at the front end and having something that is much more flexible and faster is critical in this sector.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business and Trade (Kevin Hollinrake)
Q
Professor Fletcher: Amazon would have to be more precise about what it thought in the Bill would stop that. I think the Bill has trod a very careful, innovation- focused line between stopping the biggest tech platforms from inhibiting innovation by third parties and facilitating them to innovate themselves. The Bill is designed to only address the very biggest platforms in the first place, but also only to address the elements of their business where they have very strong market positions and entrenched market power. I think that way is the right way. As far as I know, Amazon would not be inhibited by the Bill from setting up those stores.
Kevin Hollinrake
Q
Professor Fletcher: I think the concern is to ensure that it is entrenched market power that we are addressing. The CMA recognises, as do we, that these are intrusive measures and you do not want to do them unless you are trying to address entrenched market power.
Professor Marsden: Personally, I agree that there is an aspect where the five-year period, which I find a bit too long, can be gamed by some of the potentially SMS—strategic market status—firms, but I understand why it is in there. I probably would have been more comfortable with a two or three-year period, because that is traditional for competition authorities and as far as they can look ahead in terms of crystal ball gazing. But I understand why it is there.
Kevin Hollinrake
Q
Professor Marsden: They could game the system in the sense of one thing being done by just slowly walking backwards, for example—“We are introducing so many innovations and having so many thoughts and thanks from various small businesses.” They could drown the CMA with a range of evidence that actually does not go to the point, which is: who is being excluded, who is being locked out and what are we as consumers and citizens missing by relying only on three or four types of seed in the environment, as opposed to a whole globe of seeds? That is the metaphor I would like to use.
Professor Fletcher: It is worth highlighting that if you compare the UK regulation with the equivalent in the EU, the EU has taken a less bespoke, less evidence-based approach. It basically gets a quantitative presumption, and that presumption is going to be relatively hard to shake. What we have done is much more evidence-based, bespoke and proportionate. Whenever you do that, it makes it slightly less administrable and slightly harder to actually make stick.
Again, I think a very delicate balance has been trodden, and it is the right balance. I think all of us would agree on that, and on the fact that Brussels has made it easier for itself, but it is arguably then not proportionate nor sufficiently bespoke. It is a very delicate thing, but I think it is in the right place.
Kevin Hollinrake
Q
Professor Furman: Look at the tools that the Digital Markets Unit would have under these provisions; the conduct requirements, such as fair dealing and open choices, are not brand new inventions. They largely draw on existing roles under anti-trust measures. It is just that they would be more explicit and clearer up front, and enforced more quickly. To some degree, at least in terms of the conduct requirements, this is not about imposing some brand new set of rules; a lot of it is about taking existing things and ensuring that they can be enforced in a clear and transparent manner.
Seema Malhotra
Q
Tracey Reilly: Broadly speaking, we welcome the Bill. As your previous panellists said, it has lots of good stuff in it. It should provide the CMA with more flexible powers, which can be used in a more responsive and timely way to prevent detriment. On how the Bill will affect individual consumers, we hope that it will lead to consumers experiencing lower levels of detriment and being less subject to unfair, misleading or aggressive trade practices so that if and when such practices occur, they can be stamped out more quickly and easily, and it is easier for consumers to seek redress through ADR systems that are appropriately regulated and standardised.
In terms of how the Bill will affect Scottish interests, in many ways the level of detriment experienced by consumers across the UK is similar. The consumer protection survey is UK-wide and the patterns of detriment for Scottish consumers are generally not hugely different from those experienced in the rest of the UK. That said, there are obviously differences between the two nations in the regulatory enforcement and judicial landscapes, and it is important that we understand and pay attention to them. Equally, I understand that the Department has been engaging with Scottish stakeholders. We welcome that and would obviously like that to continue through the implementation process.
Some markets operate differently in Scotland, either because they are entirely devolved because there are fewer providers and therefore lower levels of competition, or because consumers access services differently, for example, due to geography. It is important that, within the overall UK framework, the system can respond to those regional differences or local issues. We hope that the additional levels of flexibility granted to the CMA under the Bill will allow for a more flexible and targeted response, particularly if any local practices cause detriment. We look forward to liaising with the CMA on that. Noyona may wish to make additional comments, given that she is in Northern Ireland.
Kevin Hollinrake
Q
Noyona Chundur: There is a heightened risk, Minister, if the new direct enforcement powers sit only with the CMA. Ultimately, the purpose of those powers is to be much more agile, flexible and responsive to consumer detriment in the market. Is there a heightened risk that enforcement will default to the CMA because perhaps it may deliver a solution that is much more agile and responsive and much more in keeping with the pace of detriment in the marketplace compared with a courts-based system? The sector regulators and trading standards could therefore have the same or similar powers. The question is about agility and responsiveness to detriment, which is exploding in the marketplace. We see it increasingly, particularly in digital markets, which evolve so quickly. That is our perspective.
Neil Coyle (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (Lab)
Q
Peter Eisenegger: The Bill has clauses that allow us to address that in terms of, “Has the information put before the consumer been complete and accurate?” If something does not comply with safety standards, that has been omitted. It is a question of interpretation that we would have to nail down and make clear.
Alex Davies-Jones
Q
Professor Myers: I do not think I have seen that full timeline to 2025, but I guess what I would say in that respect is that, yes, this legislation has taken a while to come to fruition. At one point the UK looked like it was going to legislate before the European Union, but the CMA has done a lot of preparatory work, and I am sure that it recognises that it needs to hit the ground running as soon as this legislation is passed. It is doing market studies and other work now. It is a well-resourced regulator in this area. The digital markets unit is up and running and doing active work, and obviously my digital expert role is trying to assist them in that work. There will undoubtedly be a time for implementation, but the CMA is well aware of the need to get on with it.
Kevin Hollinrake
Q
Professor Myers: I do not think it is that likely. It would be interesting to hear specific examples. As for the one that was commented on earlier, I did not quite see why this Bill would prevent that, as Professor Fletcher outlined. It may be that I have not heard the full set of reasons as to why it might prevent Amazon’s innovation in the very different area of retail outlets. The reason, which again goes back to the targeted and tailored approach in the UK, is that when the CMA designates specific digital activities where there is substantial entrenched market power and indeed a position of strategic significance, that is not going to include peripheral areas. It is going to be focused on what some people call the core areas of market power of the large tech companies, because that is where the market power concerns are largest. There is significant freedom outside that.
There are concerns about leveraging market power in the core markets into other markets, and it is appropriate for there to be an ability to address that through things like conduct requirements. However, you cannot introduce a new regulatory regime without some risk around how the incumbents—the regulated companies—are going to respond. Obviously you are looking for good responses, but it is almost impossible to avoid some undesirable effects. The way this Bill is set up, however, looks to minimise those adverse effects.
Kevin Hollinrake
Q
Professor Myers: Again, I think the Bill strikes quite a good balance with the judicial review approach. To bring in some practical experience from my days at Ofcom, I have had a role as an expert witness in quite a number of appeals of Ofcom decisions, in front of both the Competition Appeal Tribunal and the High Court. At the Competition Appeal Tribunal, those have been under different standards: there used to be a full-merits review, but recently that was changed to a judicial review.
I think what matters, as well as the legal standard of review as laid out in this legislation, is the nature of the appeal body. In this case, it is the Competition Appeal Tribunal. Compared with the High Court, these are specialists—both judges and lay members—with specialist knowledge and experience of dealing with both competition and regulatory cases. They have a greater appetite to get into the detail and merit issues, to the extent that that is compatible with the judicial review standard, than the High Court would. Having appeared in front of the Competition Appeal Tribunal under a judicial review standard, I can say, as I think Professor Fletcher did, that that is not a walk in the park for the regulator. You get a thorough testing, and what the Competition Appeal Tribunal is looking to identify is clear errors of either law or reasoning. I think that that is an appropriate way to strike a balance here.
Seema Malhotra
Q
Professor Myers: You heard some evidence earlier this afternoon about the relationship between jurisdictions in different countries. Clearly, the Digital Markets Act in the European Union is being implemented at the moment and the effects of that will come in. The longer the UK legislation takes, the more that will condition the context within which the CMA will have to operate in implementing this regime. That is probably the most likely thing. There are obviously some other countries that are looking into that, but that is probably the main issue I would point to.
Seema Malhotra
Q
Graham Wynn: I think it is important that they co-operate and that there is a clear line of responsibility for each and a clear demarcation. The real problem with trading standards is not so much their powers but their lack of resources. One business with over 2,000 stores —not a supermarket—said the other day that the number of inspections and the number of times they see a trading standards officer has come down dramatically in the last few years. It makes it very difficult for those who are responsible for compliance in the business to persuade those who are responsible for, say, marketing and promotions to keep in line. The lack of trading standards activity makes that more difficult and also leads to a playing field that is not totally level. The problem is resources.
Kevin Hollinrake
Q
Graham Wynn: The view is, as I said, that we do not want to see what I call knee-jerk reactions to Daily Mail items that are politically sensitive or are political problems. The obvious answer is to say, “Let’s add it to schedule 18 as a banned practice.” It really is important that the schedule and what is in it is clear, clearly understood and that we do not add or subtract from it just on the basis of needing to get over a political problem, for example.
You can make sure that you do proper consultation and all that sort of thing, but we can understand why the Government would want to be able to add to it more quickly—obviously, primary legislation takes a while. In Europe, we certainly argued against Governments or the Commission being able to add to it willy-nilly. We were keen to keep it as something that had to be put in the directive originally. On balance, we would rather it was debated fully and that it amended legislation. Alternatively, you could decide to make changes once a year, say, rather than as you go along. That might be an alternative answer to the danger of a knee-jerk reaction.
Neil Coyle
Q
Graham Wynn: I should say that Amazon is a member of the BRC, so I preface my comments with that. Amazon does tell me that it is using AI and other means of ensuring there are not fake reviews, and that it takes as much responsibility as it can for product safety on its sites and for illegal products. Clearly others have a different view and think that it would be possible to go further and Amazon should be legally obliged to take more responsibility.
Again, throughout the Bill, the issue will be resources for enforcement, as it is in general. Be it fake reviews, subscription traps or the responsibilities of marketplaces and platforms, unless there is real, effective enforcement, people get the impression that something has been done without really having the rights that the Government say they have—when I say people, I mean consumers.
Kevin Hollinrake
Q
Graham Wynn: Yes. I think it needs to be done, but without committing us, we would expect it to be done in the context of a product safety review and how you are going to deal with product safety issues in the future. It needs a thorough examination, including the role of marketplaces, their general obligations and what is practical and proportionate. I would not add that to this Bill now, because it requires more of an assessment and consideration than would be possible.
Seema Malhotra
Q
Graham Wynn: ADR is not something that our members are exercised about in the same way as some other people are. Those who are responsible for selling high-value items tend to be members of ADR schemes. Their criticism of the current arrangement has been that they are not convinced that there is a full assessment of the ADR providers, so everything that is necessary to give them the confidence to use the systems. They believe that that perhaps has held back ADR schemes from really taking off in some places.
Those who sell high-value items—kitchens, some white goods and furniture items—generally are members of ADR schemes. Those who sell groceries, as they are generally called these days, including food and non-food, tend to feel that it is not really appropriate for them because of the cost. When dealing with something worth only a few pounds, it is much cheaper and much more sensible to just deal with the consumer and, ideally, give them their money back if there is a problem, rather than take everyone through ADR. It is not necessarily the best approach. However, the accreditation system and making sure that companies abide by what they are supposed to do in ADR is vital to have confidence in general.
Andy Carter
Q
Max von Thun: Yes, to an extent. The merger requirements for SMS firms are really just about reporting. They require SMS firms to let the CMA know if they are acquiring companies that meet certain thresholds. That will allow the CMA to avoid things slipping under its radar. Another part of the Bill is about what is called an acquirer-focused threshold, which is basically designed to prevent what have often been called killer acquisitions from taking place. Those are acquisitions that do not meet the UK’s merger control thresholds when it comes to turnover or market share, because they are very small start-ups that do not generate much revenue but that often produce very innovative technology.
The tech giants buy them up either to prevent eventual rivals from emerging or to use that technology to extend their dominance into new markets. The Bill will prevent some of that. That means, to an extent, that in some cases involving very large platforms it will be harder to be bought up if you are a start-up. It is important to acknowledge that to an individual founder being bought up by a big tech firm can often be attractive. Big tech firms can pay a lot of money to acquire you. They can offer all sorts of technical and logistical expertise to help you to grow, but if we look at the wider ecosystem, those deals can be very harmful, essentially by eliminating competition.
Think of what Instagram might have become had it not been bought up by Facebook. Rather than just being part of Meta’s business model, it could be challenging Facebook. To take a more local example, DeepMind, a leading AI company, was bought by Google in 2014. Had it not been, it would be an independent AI company. That would have put the UK at the forefront of a lot of the development in general AI. Obviously, the UK is already doing well in AI, but now DeepMind is part of Google’s empire and subordinate to Google’s business objectives. Those are some of the reasons we should care about this.
Also, if you make it a little harder for these companies to buy up start-ups, the market will respond. The UK already has a lot of alternatives. It has a very healthy venture capital scene—I think the best in Europe. If it is harder for big tech purchases to take place, investors will partly fill that space. I am sure that there are things that the Government can do as well to incentivise private investment—maybe investing themselves in some cases, as they did with the Future Fund, and so on. There are a lot of other routes that, in the long run, are better for the tech sector than these types of deals.
Kevin Hollinrake
Q
Max von Thun: Honestly, not really. If I look at what is in the legislation, focusing on the conduct requirements and the PCIs that the large firms will have to comply with, what I see is something that says, “You’re allowed to operate in the UK. You’re allowed to grow in the UK. You’re allowed to invest. You just have to play by the rules. You can’t use your dominance to unfairly exploit small businesses or prevent rivals from emerging.” It does not stop them investing lots of money in R&D or hiring top talent. We are seeing all the innovation that they are doing now, and I do not see anything in the Bill that will stop that.
More broadly, there is quite a lot of evidence, not just in tech but in other sectors, that more competitive and less concentrated markets are better for innovation because challengers invest a lot of money in trying to take on the incumbents because they believe that they can replace them. The dominant firms have to defend themselves, and they invest more to protect themselves. The Bill will have that effect.
Lastly, particularly since the whole debate around Microsoft and Activision, we have seen to an extent an attempt to conflate the interests of a small subset of dominant firms with the wider tech sector. That is often a mistake. What is good for a large majority of tech start-ups may not necessarily be good for big tech firms. It may be, but it is important to separate out the two.
The Chair
Are there any further questions? In that case, on behalf of the Committee, thank you very much for coming to give evidence.
Examination of Witnesses
John Herriman and David MacKenzie gave evidence.
Seema Malhotra
Q
David MacKenzie: Absolutely. A lot of the stuff in the Bill that replaces the consumer protection regulations is really good, and we really welcome it. There is still some stuff around the definition of “trader” that we think is a little bit of a missed opportunity.
There are two angles. When does a consumer become a trader? How many things do you have to sell in an online marketplace before you become a trader? That is a difficult judgment for us to make and we feel that some work should be done on that. The point you have made is equally important: the status of the seller in an online marketplace. We think there should be a requirement for the online marketplace to declare whether the seller is a consumer or a business because that makes a massive difference to the consumer rights of the buyer and it also makes a difference to what we do.
If someone is a business seller, they have to comply with all consumer law; if they are a private seller, they do not really have to comply with anything, so this is for both consumers and for us. To be fair to other businesses that operate on the site, we think this is a necessary change that is not in the Bill.
Kevin Hollinrake
Q
John Herriman: That was another point that we wanted to make. This is not the only legislation that impacts on the landscape: the product safety review is fundamentally important in this space. The key point there is being clear on where those boundaries are.
We will be contributing to the product safety review. It is fundamentally important that it should come out quickly, so that we can address it and respond to the consultation. We can then look at that in the context of this Bill and others that it might impact on as well. We think that some things would be best placed in the product safety review—anything to do with legislation there—and would not appear here. But it is important that those provisions work hand in hand over a similar period, so that we can make sure that there are not any gaps. Consumers will then be better protected and businesses will have the clarity that they need, which is really important for them.
David MacKenzie: I agree with everything John said, but if we leave all these issues to the product safety review, presumably that would apply only to unsafe products. There is a wider range of situations for which we need these take-down powers when it comes to fair trading—scams and so on.
Kevin Hollinrake
Q
David MacKenzie: No.
The Chair
If there are no other brief questions, I bring this session to a close. I thank the panel on behalf of the Committee. This is perfectly timed as there will be votes shortly and we will be away for quite a long time. Thank you very much. We have spared you having to wait an hour or so.
Examination of Witnesses
Owen Meredith, Peter Wright and Dan Conway gave evidence.
Alex Davies-Jones
Q
Peter Wright: The crossover between the two Bills is not that great. The real risk regarding fake news is that the most expensive news to produce is the high-quality public interest journalism that I am sure everybody in this room wants to encourage. If you cannot fund it, and at the moment it is a great struggle to fund it, the space will be taken by people who are not proper journalists and are not working for responsible news organisations with complaints procedures and people you can sue if you get it wrong.
The really serious danger is that because the online platforms have over the last 20 years sucked billions of pounds out of the news production in this country, the internet will be filled with conspiracy theorists and people producing cheap, easy-to-manufacture news, largely copied from other outlets.
Kevin Hollinrake
Q
Owen Meredith: We broadly support the Government’s policy and intent as I understand it in terms of helping consumers to manage subscriptions, particularly subscriptions that they are not aware they are in or for services they are not using. My concern and our organisational concern is that currently it is set out in the Bill too prescriptively, and there is a real danger that you end up in a situation where consumers are being bombarded by subscription notices and they become blind to them.
I would put the analogy out there of the cookie banner, which I think they are hoping to get rid of through different legislation before the House at the moment. There is a danger that consumers are just blinded by the amount of information they are being presented with as stand-alone notices, with the frequency and nature in which they have been spelt out in legislation. While I do not fundamentally disagree with the Government’s policy intent, I do not think how it has been crafted in the Bill at the moment necessarily achieves that in the way we would need it to.
Kevin Hollinrake
Q
Owen Meredith: It would not make it more difficult for people to exit contracts; it would ensure that consumers still have access—
Kevin Hollinrake
The cooling off period was—
Owen Meredith: It would ensure that consumers still have access to the offers that would be available to them in the current system of processing. If you subscribe to a service that you are using and you wish to terminate it, there are multiple ways you can do that, either via online touchpoints for most of our subscribed services at the moment or via a call centre. If a call centre phoned you and said, “You’ve been using this service for 12 months. We can identify through data that you have been reading the content. Can we ask you what the reason for cancelling is and if we can retain you as a customer with the right promotion?”, I think that would be in the consumer’s interest.
Kevin Hollinrake
Q
Owen Meredith: The removal of the cooling off period for us is a concern around how that technically applies and whether consumers have had benefit that they are then seeking to be refunded for, despite having engaged with and received the benefit.
Dean Russell
Q
Peter Wright: They will benefit through the quality of the journalism they are offered. Every news organisation —we are no exception; we went through a period of redundancies earlier this year—is having to trim their editorial budgets, because you cannot make sufficient revenue in the present digital advertising market to support the scale of editorial resource that you would really like.
Commercial news publishers have seen revenues falling, despite inflation, over the last two decades. At some point, we need to have a mechanism that gives us—this particularly applies to smaller and regional publishers—a level playing field and levers we can pull to bargain with these vast companies. I have colleagues who work at not inconsiderable regional publishing companies, who do not even have a telephone number they can ring at Google, so they just have to accept whatever terms Google offers. We are slightly more fortunate in that we can ring Google, but we do not necessarily get an answer.
Small and Medium-sized Enterprises: Great Yarmouth
Kevin Hollinrake Excerpts(1 year ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business and Trade (Kevin Hollinrake)
I am sorry that I cannot emulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Great Yarmouth (Brandon Lewis) by speaking without notes, but I will do my best to ad lib a little. I thank him for securing this important debate. I love his words that SMEs drive the whole economy. It brought back the words of Winston Churchill about the private sector; he said that some people see private enterprise as a predatory tiger that needs to be shot. Some people see it as a cow that needs to be milked. Few people see it for what it really is: the strong horse that pulls the whole cart. That is exactly right. Everything we see in the public sector and in this House is paid for by the private sector, the taxes it raises and the jobs it creates.
I totally agree with my right hon. Friend on the title and the primary content of this debate—SMEs are the most important part of the sector. As he said, I started a very small business and grew it over time, but the pressure we were always under as our business grew was from smaller businesses starting up and putting pressure on our market share. I listened carefully to his points about his father’s business and the legacy effect it has had on Great Yarmouth. That is my experience. Many people go into business for the potential financial reward, but also for the legacy: the jobs they can create and the business that they leave behind. That has a long-lasting effect on towns such as Great Yarmouth.
The Department for Business and Trade is seeking to make the UK the best place to do business in the world. We want to make it easier to do business every single day. My ministerial colleagues and I, as well as many others including my right hon. Friend, the Chancellor and the Prime Minister, are for business because we are from business. We understand how this works.
My right hon. Friend made the point about smaller businesses that start up and grow to become larger businesses. That is the fundamental basis of our strategy to scale up Britain. We want the start-ups to become scale-ups. That is one of our areas for development. We are No. 1 in the OECD for start-ups per capita, but in a survey of 14 OECD nations, we were 13th for scale-ups—businesses that have 10 employees or more after three years. That is our focus, and there are three key focus areas underneath that: access to finance, support and advice, and removing barriers and red tape. Those are critical issues for the SMEs I speak to.
When we speak about business, it is important to speak about the entire world of businesses in all sectors. Hospitality is very important in Great Yarmouth, where 23% of all jobs are in the tourism industry. In his intervention, my hon. Friend the Member for Aberconwy (Robin Millar) rightly said that the hospitality business feels that cold wind first, but also sees the benefit of the improvement in the economy first, too. It is truly the canary in the coalmine, as he put it.
In Great Yarmouth there are some fantastic opportunities for the future, not least in green energy. My right hon. Friend pointed out the businesses that are benefiting from that. I am aware of ASCO, which employs more than 100 people, providing services to the North sea opportunity that is green energy—30 wind turbines on the Scroby sandbank. There are many more opportunities in that sector.
In the Lowestoft and Great Yarmouth enterprise zone in his constituency, South Denes energy park and Beacon Park are boosting innovation and growth in the region. More recently, investment through the Great Yarmouth town deal and the future high street funds, building on previous support from the local growth fund, is helping the local area by supporting jobs and growth in that region.
I will go into some specifics about the three areas of focus I referred to earlier. First, access to finance is one of the primary concerns for small businesses as they open their doors and grow. We work closely with the British Business Bank to improve access to finance. I am pleased that as of March 2022, the British Business Bank programme has supported over 96,000 small and medium-sized businesses nationally with over £12.2 billion of finance. The programme is designed to bring benefits to start-up businesses, businesses with high-growth potential looking to scale up and businesses looking to stay ahead in the market.
I know my right hon. Friend the Member for Great Yarmouth has supported many initiatives in his time in this place, such as the important start-up loan scheme, which has delivered around £1 billion of finance to 100,000 companies. Those unsecured loans are vital to many people who cannot access finance to start a business. In his constituency, 95 loans have been provided, to a value of almost £800,000.
Inclusion is a priority of this Government, so I am pleased that in terms of all the start-up loans issued up until April 2023, 40% went to women, 20% went to people from a black, Asian or minority background and 32% went to people who were previously unemployed. Those are all disproportionately high numbers, which we should welcome.
Within the space of access to finance, we are also undertaking the payment and cash flow review. We know that is an issue for SMEs and we want to make it easier for them to be paid, as that is another source of finance. We have improved our equity finance offering through schemes such as the regional angels programme, supported by the British Business Bank, and the enterprise investment scheme, the remit of which has been extended.
We are looking at potential new opportunities on the back of open banking. Open banking was a huge success in this country and has been emulated around the world. There are now 7 billion API calls every month for open banking, connecting one banking app with another, and there are other fintech solutions. Open finance provides the opportunity to completely liberate opportunities for SMEs to access finance. Rather than going to their own bank and asking for a loan, they can ask many different providers for that finance, which will increase choice and opportunity.
Robin Millar
The Minister is following the speech given by my right hon. Friend the Member for Great Yarmouth (Brandon Lewis) with another very interesting and helpful speech about what SMEs need. He is describing the Government’s role in creating an environment in which SMEs can flourish. Will he comment on the importance of the regulation to which he referred, not just to say that there should be as little of it as possible but to set out what regulation is effective? Will he comment on whether it is right for the Government to intervene when the market is failing?
Kevin Hollinrake
My hon. Friend raises an important point, which I will come to shortly. He is right to say that we should intervene only where there is an exceptional circumstance, such as covid or a cost of living crisis, or where there is market failure, which is where we want to focus. For example, with SMEs working in the hospitality and house building industries, which he and my right hon. Friend the Member for Great Yarmouth both referred to, we know there is market failure and a need for them to access finance. We need to focus on those areas and ensure those sectors are provided with finance, when they cannot get it elsewhere.
The Government provide extensive business support, which is another key focus area, including through the business support helpline, the Help To Grow management scheme and a network of 38 growth hubs across the UK. The Help To Grow management scheme was launched in June 2021, to help close the productivity gap and lay the foundations for growth by providing SMEs with key skills in financial management, marketing and innovation. Our evaluation showed that approximately 90% of SME leaders surveyed reported that the scheme helped and Help To Grow management contributed to improved leadership and management of their business. I encourage my right hon. Friend, and all Members of the House, to share information about the scheme with local SMEs that could benefit from the opportunities it offers.
We know that businesses have emerged from the covid-19 pandemic, only to be faced with rising costs and dampened demand. In the autumn statement, we announced £13.6 billion of support for businesses over the next five years, including through reducing the burden of business rates for SMEs by freezing the business rates multiplier for yet another year, to protect businesses from rising inflation.
Over the winter, the Government intervened in the energy crisis by providing unprecedented support, in the form of the energy bill relief scheme and, more recently, the energy ill discount scheme.
The Government are freezing fuel duty, maintaining the 5p cut for a further year, and reversing the national insurance rise, which will save small businesses an average of approximately £4,200. That is in addition to the support previously announced in the form of an increase in the employment allowance to £5,000, the introduction of a zero rate of VAT on energy-saving materials, and the exemption of small businesses and microbusinesses from regulations where possible. That was raised by my right hon. Friend in his speech. These interventions show that the Government are on the side of small businesses, and understand the unprecedented difficulties that many have faced.
The last key focus is on removing barriers and cutting red tape. We are doing that through many mechanisms, such as improving the processes for public procurement, trade deals with Australia and New Zealand, and the comprehensive and progressive agreement for trans-Pacific partnership. The working time directive recording requirements will potentially save businesses more than £1 billion a year. Landmark legislation in the form of the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Bill will make it easier for SMEs to access digital marketplaces.
The Government acknowledge that one of the significant barriers faced by SMEs across the country is late payments. We are determined to see those reduced to ensure that SMEs are given the best chance of succeeding and growing. That is why we are conducting a review of business-to-business payment policy, the prompt payment and cash flow review, which is scrutinising existing payment practices and measures. We need a stronger culture of responsibility in large businesses to support the smaller suppliers on which they rely. The Small Business Commissioner addresses small businesses’ complaints about payments and the payment practices reporting duty creates transparency by requiring large companies to report on their payment times, while the prompt payment code sets standards and best practice in payment culture.
We are making substantial investments in Great Yarmouth to help the area to thrive and succeed. The borough secured a £20.1 million towns deal in 2021 to help level up the town. One of the fantastic projects supported by this intervention is the operations and maintenance campus for the energy sector. The town has also secured £13.8 million of future high street funding to help revive the town centre as a vibrant economic, cultural and community hub. That will help the town centre to develop sustainably into the future, supporting footfall, further regeneration and investment.
Great Yarmouth bid successfully in the second round of the levelling-up fund, and the Great Yarmouth riverside gateway project received £20 million to regenerate the railway station and the North Quay area of the town. We recently agreed a landmark devolution deal with Norfolk County Council, which will bring a wide range of benefits to residents and businesses in Great Yarmouth. It includes a £600 million investment for a further 30 years, equating to £20 million per annum, and Norfolk County Council can borrow against that further funding. The Norfolk broadband programme was awarded £5 million through the local growth fund to extend superfast broadband in the county, and it is estimated that that will lead to a £2 billion growth in the local economy and the creation of 1,500 jobs within 15 years.
The Government recognise that this is a challenging time for all businesses and we have provided unprecedented levels of support to help businesses and workers through these difficult times. However, data for Great Yarmouth show a 4% positive difference between the birth and death rates of businesses in Great Yarmouth in 2021, an encouraging sign that businesses are flourishing in the local area and that the local Member of Parliament is being highly effective. Furthermore, 667 Great Yarmouth businesses have been supported by their local growth hub and other partners, and there are 3,585 SMEs in Great Yarmouth in total. Over the last six months, there has been a sharp rise in job postings—vacancies, in other words—in Great Yarmouth, from 1,004 job postings in November 2022 to 2,229 in May 2023. That is a 122% rise. These are the highest vacancy volumes since October 2012 and they illustrate the health of the Great Yarmouth economy and the excellent work and representation by its local Member of Parliament.
Question put and agreed to.
Business and Trade
Kevin Hollinrake Excerpts(1 year ago)
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Kevin Hollinrake
Between 2009 and 2019, GAFAM—Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon and Microsoft—made more than 400 acquisitions without any regulatory intervention or referral through the voluntary mechanisms.
[Official Report, 17 May 2023, Vol. 732, c. 880.]
Letter of correction from the Under-Secretary of State for Business and Trade, the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake):
An error has been identified in my opening speech in the Second Reading debate.
The correct information should have been:
Kevin Hollinrake
Between 2009 and 2019, GAFAM—Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon and Microsoft—made more than 400 acquisitions with minimal regulatory intervention or referral through the voluntary mechanisms.
Sub-postmasters and Sub-postmistresses: Remuneration
Kevin Hollinrake Excerpts(1 year, 1 month ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business and Trade (Kevin Hollinrake)
It is a pleasure to speak with you in the Chair, Mr Twigg.
I congratulate the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) on securing this very important debate. I agree with many of the sentiments that he expressed in his speech.
When I was growing up as a young boy in my local town of Easingwold, we had Mr Taylor, the bank manager —he managed the Barclays bank—and Mr Clark, the baker; Mr Thornton, our butcher; Mr Hollinrake, who was our milkman; and Mr Hodgson, our postmaster. The only equivalent personality who I would be able to identify now in our community of Easingwold would be Pritpal, who is our postmaster. Sadly, all those other pillars of the community have gone, so we absolutely know that our postmasters are the pillars and beating hearts of our communities. It is therefore paramount that we secure the right future for our post office network, which is one of the largest retail networks in the country, with 11,500 branches. We know from the recent report by London Economics that post offices bring a huge amount to our whole economy—£4.7 billion in 2021-22.
I spoke in glowing terms about the network being the pillars of our communities at the annual conference of the National Federation of SubPostmasters only last week. It is good to see Calum Greenhow, who represents that organisation, here in the Public Gallery today; indeed, he is on his annual holiday, but has still turned up to this debate. Quite simply, there is no Post Office without postmasters.
The subject of this debate is crucial, because if we are to run a sustainable network of post offices, we clearly need to ensure that those businesses are sustainable too. Post Office is a commercial business; it operates at arm’s length from the Government. Postmaster remuneration will ultimately be an operational matter for the Post Office, but I totally agree that we need to get the situation on a sustainable footing.
There were some improvements to remuneration in April, as I think has been acknowledged, including increasing payments for outreach services by 9.5% and payments for banking deposit transactions by 20%, although I know that their cash impact is very limited; that point was raised at the conference last week.
I understand the issue that the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland raised about deposits. The money is counted and, because of unknown deposit limits, that money sometimes has to be counted back, which is unfair. I am working closely with the Financial Conduct Authority and various banks on those deposit limits, which seem to be arbitrary and have damaging effects on the business community as a whole in our towns and villages, not just on the post offices themselves. I am determined to find a solution to that problem, alongside my colleague, the Economic Secretary to the Treasury.
The improvements made in April 2023 were made following previous improvements in August 2022, and postmasters benefiting from Royal Mail tariff increases was announced in March 2023. However, I appreciate that the measures have not gone as far as postmasters would have liked. We have the issue under review and we discuss it often at our meetings with the Post Office.
My hon. Friend the Member for North Norfolk (Duncan Baker) raised an important point about the amount of revenue that is passed on to sub-postmasters. Something that results from that, which I have discussed with the Post Office at our meetings, is the need to control and reduce central costs to ensure that there is more money to go around the network, rather than held in the centre. Postmasters are the most important part of the post office network, and I agree that they need to be able to make a decent living for that network to be sustainable for the future.
Clearly, we need the Post Office to look for opportunities to drive footfall into branches. A point was raised about the DVLA. I am aware of those negotiations. Again, those matters are between the Post Office and postmasters, but we are keen to see a resolution and we hope that one will be obtained. The hon. Member for Motherwell and Wishaw (Marion Fellows) does fine work as chair of the all-party parliamentary group on post offices. As she said, we see the Post Office very much as the front office of Government. Having said that, we cannot dictate to people how they decide to access services. We all benefit from access to the internet and the digital world, and applying for different things on our phones and computers.
Marion Fellows
Digital applications should not exclude cash for people who are digitally excluded, and there are many of those people in our communities. As the Minister said, post offices are at the heart of our communities. Everyone needs to be able to use them and access Government services.
Kevin Hollinrake
I agree. I hope the hon. Lady will forgive me if I gave her the wrong impression. I am not saying that it should be either/or, but we should leave it to customers to decide how they want to access services.
Mr Carmichael
The Minister is absolutely right. We cannot dictate to people how they do things. But surely with the example of the cash limits on bank deposits, that is exactly what we are doing. If we say, “You’ve had your limit; you can’t pay in any more money here,” then we have taken away the option for them to use the post office. Let us not forget that they are probably using that option as a sop to the Government here, because they were making all sorts of promises about it being the last bank in town.
Kevin Hollinrake
I understand that cash deposit limits are a crucial issue, and we are determined to find a resolution. It is not about something imposed by the Government or even the Post Office; it is about money laundering concerns. The FCA was concerned about the post network being used for money laundering purposes. The right hon. Gentleman and I have both spoken about the need to tackle economic crime, so that is the reason behind it. My concern is whether those measures are proportionate and appropriate. I think there should be ways round that. Some banks are interpreting the advice differently.
I will turn to some other issues that the post office network is facing. One is the disruption to business caused by the dispute between Royal Mail and the Communication Workers Union. Hopefully, that has nearly come to its end. Letter volumes are on a long-term decline, with a 50% reduction in the last 10 years. Foreign currency exchange is another important revenue stream, which was obviously challenged between 2020 and 2022. Again, that should be returning to normal.
There is no silver bullet to solve those problems, but, nevertheless, there are some opportunities for the future. We see that the Post Office needs to adapt to today’s economic environment. There are initiatives under way, such as post offices becoming parcel hubs—not only for Royal Mail; there are now new partnerships with Amazon, DPD UK, Evri and DHL, and that is a benefit to consumers and potentially postmasters.
Positive steps to diversify the business are critical. The right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland highlighted what a tremendous job his post office is doing in terms of fresh produce and fish. Diversification is very important for any business; when a part of a business is struggling to make ends meet, it should add further businesses to that outlet. There has been significant investment in the replacement for the Horizon system. The new system should make transactions easier and more efficient, which should help sub-postmasters with the amount of time it takes to do their work.
The Government have stepped in for the short term, with things such as business rates support worth £13.6 billion, and the £23 billion over an 18-month period to help with energy costs. We are keen to help all businesses through a difficult time, not least the post office network, which has received £2.5 billion of central Government funding over the last 10 years, and will receive £335 million over the next three, including the £50 million a year subsidy to safeguard services in uncommercial parts of the network.
I take the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland’s point on the Post Office’s senior management bonus situation—a matter that we took very seriously. The Post Office itself is doing its own inquiry into the circumstances around that and we have committed to undertaking an independent review of the issue. It is important that we wait for the outcome of the review before we make a judgment on that situation, but it is something that we are taking seriously.
I thank Members for their contributions to the debate. It is encouraging that we are all on the same page on this issue; we all want to ensure we have a sustainable network, and we need to have a grown-up conversation about how we do that.
Kevin Hollinrake
To conclude, we will continue to work with the Post Office to deal with the challenges that the network faces and lay the foundations for a sustainable network in the future.
Question put and agreed to.
Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Bill
Kevin Hollinrake ExcerptsMonday 22nd May 2023
(1 year, 1 month ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Act 2023 View all Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Act 2023 Debates Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Commons Consideration of Lords Amendments as at 22 May 2023 - (22 May 2023)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business and Trade (Kevin Hollinrake)
I beg to move, That this House disagrees with Lords amendment 1.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Lords amendment 2, and Government motion to disagree.
Lords amendment 4, and Government motion to disagree.
Lords amendment 5, and Government motion to disagree.
Lords amendment 6, and Government motion to disagree.
Lords amendment 7, and Government motion to disagree.
Lords amendment 3.
Kevin Hollinrake
This Bill was introduced with the intention of balancing the ability to strike with the rights and freedoms of the public, by applying minimum service levels on strike days to protect the lives and livelihoods of the public. We should not ignore the fact that the economic costs of these strikes have been estimated at around £3 billion, and much of that impact falls on business sectors that are already facing difficulties, such as the hospitality sector.
The Bill brings the UK into line with many other countries: Spain and France have statutory minimum service levels in ambulance services and they also, along with Belgium, have statutory minimum service levels in fire services. In some countries, such as the United States of America, Australia and Canada, some services are prohibited from taking any strike action altogether. However, the Government are not suggesting we go that far.
Alan Brown (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (SNP)
In the European countries the Minister mentioned where there is minimum service provision, is it not the case that that minimum service provision is agreed by negotiation, and that workers there do not get sacked for striking?
Kevin Hollinrake
All jurisdictions differ, and the way that minimum service levels are set differ. Some are set by the Government; we have done that, through consultation with stakeholders, and we will decide what the right level of minimum service will be. All jurisdictions differ somewhat, but the key point is that in many jurisdictions there are restrictions placed on the ability to strike.
David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP)
On the issue of stakeholders and jurisdictions, may I turn the Minister’s attention to the devolved Administrations? The SNP Scottish Government have been crystal clear in their opposition to this tawdry piece of legislation. In the interests of the UK Government’s respect agenda when it comes to the devolved jurisdictions, why are they ploughing ahead with this Bill that drives a coach and horses through the fundamental human right to withdraw one’s labour?
Kevin Hollinrake
I will deal with that question in a second; it is covered by one of the Lords amendments that I will speak to, so I will address it when I come to the element of my speech relating to the devolved Administrations.
The Bill returns to us with a number of amendments made in the other place. I would like to be clear that, with the exception of our own Lords amendment 3, the Government consider the majority of the changes to be designed to make the Bill either less effective or entirely ineffective in achieving its aims. The Government will therefore be disagreeing with those amendments.
I will speak first to Lords amendment 3, which was tabled by my colleague Lord Callanan in the other place and provides clarity in respect of the matters to which an employer must not have regard in respect of trade union membership and activities when deciding whether to identify a person in a work notice. The amendment addresses a point raised by the Joint Committee on Human Rights in its report on the Bill.
Joanna Cherry (Edinburgh South West) (SNP)
The Minister and I have had some correspondence about the Bill in my capacity as Chair of the Joint Committee on Human Rights, but can he not see that many of the concerns we expressed in our report on the Bill are echoed by the amendments that the Lords have brought, and also by organisations such as the TUC and the Equality and Human Rights Commission? Why is he not giving them more weight?
Kevin Hollinrake
At times in life we have to agree to disagree, do we not? The Government feel that the Bill strikes a balance, but the hon. and learned Lady does not, and I respect her opinion. I studied carefully the letter she sent me and I responded to it.
Joanna Cherry
I am not talking about the report of the Joint Committee on Human Rights alone; I am saying that many of our concerns are widely supported by other groups such as the EHRC, the TUC and, now, the majority of their lordships. Will the Minister not reconsider the response he gave to my Committee’s report?
Kevin Hollinrake
Of course we have considered those concerns, and we considered the amendments in the other place. We feel that what we are proposing with this legislation strikes the right balance. I fully accept that the hon. and learned Lady disagrees with that position.
Mike Amesbury (Weaver Vale) (Lab)
Is it not the case that the Government’s own, belated, impact assessment suggests that the Bill is ineffective? It is just unworkable. In fact, I think both the Secretary of State for Education and the Transport Secretary have said the same. The Bill will just make matters considerably worse in terms of industrial relations.
Kevin Hollinrake
That is not what has been said, and I disagree with that perspective. The fact that other jurisdictions and other nations use this approach to making sure there are minimum service levels to protect the public, their lives and their livelihoods is indicative that it is the right thing to do. Indeed, as the hon. Gentleman knows, derogations exist in parts of our public services that do exactly what we are requiring services to do with minimum service levels; it is just that they do not work effectively all the time.
Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)
The Minister finds himself in an isolated position. At the Health and Social Care Committee on 9 May, NHS Providers, NHS Employers and NHS Confederation all said that the Bill was incredibly unhelpful and that additional legislation could make things more difficult, rather than improving the situation. Sir Julian Hartley, the chief executive officer of NHS Providers, said so. Why is the Minister going against the employers, not just the trade unions?
Kevin Hollinrake
We do not see that as being the case and we do not agree with that position. We think the Bill is effective and that it is the right thing to do to make sure that people can go about their daily lives unhindered, without fear or concerns about not being able to access vital public services.
I turn next to Lords amendment 1, which changes the application of the Bill from the whole of Great Britain to England only. The amendment would mean that strike action would continue to have disproportionate impacts on the public in Wales and Scotland. As the Government have always maintained, the purpose and substance of the Bill is to regulate employment rights and duties and industrial relations in specified services. Industrial relations is clearly a reserved matter and therefore we consider it right and appropriate to apply the legislation to the whole of Great Britain.
I also point out that the employer has statutory discretion on whether to issue a work notice ahead of the strike, specifying the workforce required to achieve the minimum service level. We hope that all employers will issue work notices to ensure that minimum service levels are achieved where it is necessary to do so. Employers must consider any contractual, public law or other legal duties that they have.
John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)
The Lords passed an extremely sensible amendment asking the Government simply to consult before they go further with this legislation. To give an example of why consultation is needed in my constituency, there is no such thing as a minimum service for air traffic controllers. In effect, that means that the Government are barring air traffic controllers from ever taking industrial action. Those sorts of consultations need to take place before the Government, as others have said, inflame the industrial relations climate in this country.
Kevin Hollinrake
As the right hon. Gentleman knows, we have already consulted. Those consultations closed around the middle of May. We will obviously look carefully at all the submissions made; it is important that we do. Ministers—I have one sat next to me: the Minister of State, Department for Transport, my hon. Friend the Member for Bexhill and Battle (Huw Merriman)—will make sure that stakeholder submissions are properly taken into account.
Several hon. Members rose—
Kevin Hollinrake
I will make some progress. Lords amendment 2 would require a consultation be carried out and reviewed before use was made of the power to make regulations setting minimum service levels. The primary stated motivation for tabling the amendment was to increase parliamentary scrutiny of the regulations implementing minimum service levels. Although there may be some merit to the intentions behind the amendment, it is, in the Government’s view, duplicative, and would ultimately delay the implementation of the policy. For those reasons, we disagree with it.
I turn to Lords amendments 4 and 5, and the associated tidying amendments, Lords amendments 6 and 7. In the Government’s view, the amendments were tabled to make the Bill inoperable.
Janet Daby (Lewisham East) (Lab)
Will the Minister explain how the legislation complies with all International Labour Organisation conventions?
Kevin Hollinrake
We believe that it does. The ILO endorses the use of minimum service levels to make sure that the provision of public services is maintained during periods of industrial action. We are happy with our position on that.
We resist Lords amendments 4 to 7 on the principle that the Government have a duty to pass effective legislation. It is regrettable that Opposition Lords have sought to undermine that principle. Lords amendment 4 would mean that there were no consequences for a worker who did not comply with a work notice. The Government disagree with the amendment, as without those consequences, employers would be powerless to manage instances of non-compliance, and strikes would continue to have a disproportionate impact on the public. That would severely undermine the effectiveness of the legislation. Given that the amendment would make the Bill ineffective, as I suspect the Opposition intended, the Government cannot support it.
Chris Stephens (Glasgow South West) (SNP)
It looks as though the unelected House has a better understanding of what happens in the workplace than the Government do; that should worry the Minister. Can he name other countries where a worker could be dismissed in such circumstances?
Kevin Hollinrake
In some countries, such as those I referred to earlier, strikes are banned completely for those working for some blue light services. We already have that situation in the UK for the armed forces, prison officers and the police. There would be a breach of contract if people in those positions were to strike.
Kevin Hollinrake
I will make progress, if I may. Lords amendment 5 also seeks to make the Bill inoperable. It would mean that there were no legal consequences for a union that induced people to go on strike when they had been identified, through a work notice, as needing to work, or for a union that failed to take reasonable steps to ensure that their members complied with work notices. The amendment would mean that unions had no responsibility for ensuring that their members did not participate in strike action and attended work if named in a work notice.
Bob Seely (Isle of Wight) (Con)
Minimum service levels are entirely sensible; it is an idea whose time has come, and it shows that we support the working people in this country, unlike the Opposition parties. On the awfulness of Lords amendment 5, given that we have here the Minister of State, Department for Transport, my hon. Friend the Member for Bexhill and Battle (Huw Merriman), I wanted to ask this. Secondary legislation will be used to decide which industries are to be covered by the measures. The Bill is particularly targeted at rail, but I would like at some point to have a conversation with the Minister about including the Solent ferries. They are truly a lifeline service, because unless my constituents fancy swimming the Solent, they do not have an alternative to ferries, whereas people have an alternative to rail and other services.
Kevin Hollinrake
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that point. He has raised it with me offline. I am of course very happy to have a proper discussion with him about that, and I know that Transport Ministers would also be happy to.
Alan Brown
On making unions responsible for forcing workers to comply with work notices, does the Minister not understand that unions work for and on behalf of their members, and reflect their wishes? If their members wish to go on strike, how is it just or moral to force unions to make their workers break that strike?
Kevin Hollinrake
There is a balance to be struck, and what I think is just and moral is ensuring that public services are maintained. That is the balance that we are trying to ensure. We are not at all saying that people cannot strike; we are saying that a minimum service level should be maintained during the strike.
Lords amendment 5 would mean that there were no consequences for trade unions that failed to meet their responsibilities. If we remove the consequences for trade unions that fail to take reasonable steps, we will be far less likely to achieve minimum service levels, as trade unions might attempt to persuade workers not to comply with work notices, and to take strike action instead.
Sam Tarry (Ilford South) (Lab)
In its original form, this Bill represented what many call a sackers charter, because it was a mishmash of unworkable draconian assault on workers’ rights. I would say it is one of the biggest setbacks for workers’ rights in generations. If it passes, it will shackle trade unions, ordinary workers and a whole list of people struggling for fair wages in so many sectors of our economy. It will place unacceptable restrictions on the fundamental right for workers to withdraw their labour, and to defend their and their colleagues’ pay, which at the moment mostly seems to mean defending themselves from the Government’s inability to offer fair pay rises in so much of our public sector.
Worst of all, particularly in a sector such as the railways, the Bill will worsen industrial relations, create more delays on rail and create a worse situation for passengers. It will worsen industrial relations overall. I note that one union did successfully get a decent pay rise, because the Government clearly could not stomach the fight with it. It was our beloved firefighters who did actually get a decent raise out of this Government.
This Bill is anti-democratic because it gives the Secretary of State enormous power to define and introduce minimum service requirements. It is draconian because, in its original form, workers could be sacked for participating in industrial action supported through their own democratic processes. By the way, with trade unions facing enormous damages, we should bear in mind that they are the biggest voluntary organisation movement in this country, with more than 6 million people, and the majority of the reps do not get a single penny for the trade union work they do.
The Bill is also counterproductive, because the Government’s own analysis says that minimum service levels could lead to more strikes and more non-strike industrial action—in other words, action short of strike—so what on earth is the point of going ahead with it? It is unnecessary to its very core, because it is already custom and practice, especially in the NHS and the blue light services, for cover to be agreed by unions during industrial disputes.
Ian Lavery
My hon. Friend makes a good and valid point that the trade unions are the workers themselves. It is as simple as that.
In conclusion, will Government Members tell us why we are not having a minimum service Bill for non-strike days? In the past year or so, in particular when the paramedics and ambulance workers have gone on strike, efficiency has increased and has been first class on strike days. On non-strike days, like the 360-odd days other than those strike days, unfortunately what we see is people lying on pavements or having heart attacks who cannot get an ambulance. Let us look at a Bill for non-striking days so we can enhance the efficiency of all of the services outlined tonight. If the Minister did that, he would get our support.
Kevin Hollinrake
I thank all Members, on both sides of the House, for the robust debate we have had as the legislation has passed through both Houses. It is fair to say that the discussion and debate about the legislation has pretty much divided along party political lines. Our position is that this legislation strikes a balance between the right to strike and the right of the public to go about their daily business and daily lives.
It is also fair to say that we could have chosen an option that went much further. As I said earlier, the USA, Australia and Canada have completely banned strikes in certain sectors, prohibiting them completely. Spain and Belgium have similar legislation on minimum service levels. Indeed, in France there are penalties of up to six months in jail for anyone who is under a requisition notice to return to work.
It is interesting that many Opposition Members have talked about restricting the right to strike. Well, we already restrict the right to strike for the armed forces, the police and prison officers. Will Opposition Members repeal that legislation to allow people who work in those parts of our society to strike? There are already some restrictions; we are putting in place sensible restrictions that are already in place in many other countries.
The guidance from the International Labour Organisation says:
“A minimum service may be set up in the event of a strike, the extent and duration of which might be such as to result in an acute national crisis endangering the normal living conditions of the population.”
It is clear the ILO supports the kinds of measures we are putting in place. I have heard Opposition Members say that no one wants this legislation but interestingly, when surveyed, 56% of the public say that they do, against 31% who do not.
Earlier today, the deputy Leader of the Opposition tweeted her support for the 121 politicians who have condemned the Bill. May I gently urge her to look at some of the people who signed that letter? Some of those signatories are anti-Zelensky, anti-Ukraine, anti-Israel and pro-Russia. I urge her to look at that again and withdraw her tweet.
We believe the legislation strikes the right balance between the right to strike and the rights of the public to go about their daily business and protect their livelihoods. There have been over £3 billion of costs to our economy because of these strikes, which is putting many businesses and many jobs in danger. The Bill presents a fair balance between the rights of workers and the rights of the public.
Chris Stephens
The Minister is generous in giving way. He mentions balance. Can he tell me what is balanced about a piece of legislation, which he supports, whereby an employee who does not get a work notice can be dismissed?
Kevin Hollinrake
There have to be measures that employers can use to make sure people comply with the work notice—that is how it works in many other countries. The reality is that nobody will be sacked as a result of the legislation. There are other disciplinary measures that can take place. We already have derogations in place on a voluntary basis that do not always prove ineffective. We are formalising the process to allow these measures to take place in other vital public services.
The amendments would make the legislation ineffective, which is why I urge all Members on both sides of the House to vote with us and disagree with the amendments.
Question put, That this House disagrees with Lords amendment 1.
Draft Register of Overseas Entities (Penalties and Northern Ireland Dispositions) Regulations 2023
Kevin Hollinrake Excerpts(1 year, 1 month ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business and Trade (Kevin Hollinrake)
I beg to move,
That the Committee has considered the draft Register of Overseas Entities (Penalties and Northern Ireland Dispositions) Regulations 2023.
It is a pleasure to speak with you in the Chair, Dame Angela.
The regulations, which were laid before the House on 26 April, form part of a series of secondary legislation needed to effectively implement the register of overseas entities. The register was created under part 1 of the Economic Crime (Transparency and Enforcement) Act 2022, which I will refer to as “the Act”.
The register will help crack down on dirty Russian money in the UK and corrupt foreign elites abusing the openness of our economy. Overseas entities owning or buying property or land in the UK must give information about their beneficial owners or managing officers to Companies House. Law enforcement agencies now have a wealth of new information to help them track down those using UK property or land as a vehicle for money laundering.
The register went live on 1 August last year, with the deadline for registering set for 31 January this year. There has been a high level of compliance, with more than 27,900 overseas entities registering to date. Entities that have disposed of their land are required to provide statements with information about their beneficial owners and details such as title numbers. More than 750 have provided details to Companies House, having disposed of all their interests in land before the end of the transition period. That means that just under 29,000 entities have complied with the requirements.
Although that likely leaves a few thousand entities still to register, some of them are believed to have been dissolved or struck off, and others have not kept their address details up to date with the land registries. That means they might not have received the letters that have been sent to them so far by Companies House. I know that Members want to be reassured that compliance and enforcement action is being taken. I want to reassure them that case preparation takes time, but is happening.
Companies House continues to work to increase compliance even further and is actively preparing cases for enforcement action. Any overseas entity that has failed to register is already restricted from selling, leasing or raising charges on the land it owns until it registers. Overseas entities are also unable to purchase any new UK land without registering. These are novel and severe sanctions—indeed, the most severe in the world.
It is worth reminding hon. Members that when the draft Registration of Overseas Entities Bill was scrutinised by Parliament, the Joint Committee on Human Rights warned of the severity of the restriction, in particular the “chilling effect” that it would have. The Government of course took seriously the concerns raised, but felt the sanction was proportionate given the policy objectives of the register. This shows the seriousness of the sanction and the need for the Government to get the balance right with the approach to enforcement so as not to deter legitimate investment in the UK.
Once the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Bill receives Royal Assent, a further enforcement tool will be added to the arsenal: a person who receives a financial penalty from the registrar or is convicted of an offence may be disqualified from acting as a UK director. Once the Bill receives Royal Assent, I will bring forward further regulations under new and amended powers that will further strengthen the requirements of the register.
The statutory instrument deals with two main elements: financial penalties arising from misconduct in relation to the register, and the treatment of land disposed of in Northern Ireland by overseas entities and rights of those acting in good faith.
The Economic Crime (Transparency and Enforcement) Act sets out that the registrar may impose a financial penalty as an alternative to criminal prosecution. The draft regulations set out the procedure for the imposition and enforcement of financial penalties. A financial penalty could be imposed on a variety of persons, depending on the offence—for example, where an overseas entity has failed to register, on a verifier who has knowingly submitted a false filing, or a person who has failed to respond to an information notice sent by an overseas entity.
If the registrar suspects that a person is engaged in conduct amounting to an offence, she may issue a warning notice in writing to that person giving 28 days to make representations about their conduct. If the registrar is satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that the person has engaged in conduct amounting to an offence, she may issue a penalty notice in writing to that person giving 28 days to pay the penalty. If a person fails to pay, interest will accrue at 8%, the statutory interest rate.
The instrument sets out that a financial penalty imposed by the registrar may be a fixed penalty, a daily rate penalty, or a combination of both. Where the criminal fine set out in the Act is a fixed penalty, the registrar may impose more than one penalty in relation to the same conduct if there is continued contravention. That means that a further penalty can be imposed if a person remains non-compliant despite having a penalty imposed. Subsequent penalties could increase to encourage compliance.
The instrument does not prescribe the specific amounts of financial penalties that may be imposed in relation to each offence. Instead, it states that a financial penalty
“must not exceed the maximum fine that could be imposed by a court…under criminal proceedings in the jurisdiction in which the offence was committed.”
That flexibility allows proportionate and effective targeting of non-compliant persons and penalties that can be adjusted according to the seriousness of the misconduct and the specifics of the case.
Given that penalties are an alternative to criminal prosecution, the registrar should bear in mind the process a court would follow. The goal of the financial penalty regime is to encourage ongoing compliance with the requirements. When deciding whether to prosecute and what sentence to give, courts follow sentencing guidelines to ensure that it is in the public interest to prosecute and that the sentence is proportionate to the seriousness of the offence. The registrar should also consider the public interest and be proportionate when imposing financial penalties.
For the failure to register offence, the Act sets out that the criminal fine that courts in England, Wales and Scotland can impose can be unlimited. That means that, in theory, the registrar may impose an unlimited financial penalty when an overseas entity has failed to register.
As an indication of the seriousness of the failure to register offence, the registrar will review the portfolio owned by an overseas entity that has failed to register. The registrar will use a range of sources to estimate the value of the portfolio owned, including the UK house price index and data on business rate bands. The registrar will apply different starting points for the financial penalty depending on whether the estimated value of each property or piece of land falls into one of three bands. If the value of the property or land is estimated to be in the lower band, the starting point for the penalty will be £10,000. If the value is estimated to be in the middle band, the starting point will be £20,000. In the higher band, the starting point will be £50,000.
Hilary Benn (Leeds Central) (Lab)
If an entity has broken the law and has been fined, does the UK have any powers to say that that entity cannot in future buy any properties in the UK, even if they then choose to declare the beneficial owner in that case? Is that fine followed up by any further sanction?
Kevin Hollinrake
If they have not registered properly, they cannot buy UK property.
If an overseas entity owns more than one property or piece of land, the penalty values will be added up to provide a starting point. Given that interest will accrue at the statutory interest rate of 8%, the penalty will rack up quickly if an overseas entity fails to pay. The registrar may also consider other aggravating factors, such as whether the person has committed the offence previously. When any financial penalty remains unpaid, it can be enforced as if it were a judgment debt, including by a charge being registered against property or land owned by an overseas entity.
The registrar will keep the model under review ahead of imposing financial penalties for failure to file the annual update on time. If the registrar finds that the level of penalties needs to be reviewed because they are insufficient to provide a deterrent, the instrument gives her the flexibility to do so. The instrument also gives the registrar the power to vary or revoke a financial penalty on a case-by-case basis—for example, if new information comes to light that may aggravate or mitigate the misconduct. The instrument also sets out the grounds for appeal and the court’s powers in relation to an appeal.
Companies House has been preparing to operationalise the regulations and will be ready to issue notices as soon as the regulations come into force. Companies House already includes in its annual report the details of financial penalties imposed in relation to UK companies, and the Insolvency Service publishes enforcement outcomes annually. The Government consider that those are appropriate places for these details to be published in relation to the register.
The second part of the instrument sets out the grounds for registering dispositions in Northern Ireland that would otherwise be prohibited. Schedule 8A to the Land Registration Act (Northern Ireland) 1970 is amended to provide a mechanism to allow the Secretary of State to consent to the registration of a land transaction that would otherwise be prohibited.
If a third party transacts with an overseas entity at a time when the overseas entity is non-compliant with the requirements of the register, the third party will be prohibited from registering the transaction; for instance, if it has bought land from an overseas entity that is non-compliant, it will be unable to register itself as the new proprietor. The intention of that sanction is to disincentivise anyone from transacting with a non-compliant overseas entity, which I think was the point that the right hon. Member for Leeds Central was making.
However, in certain circumstances, it is possible that a third party may transact in good faith, without knowing that the overseas entity was non-compliant, resulting in its acquisition of a land title that cannot be registered with the Land Registry. The Act is not intended to penalise innocent third parties and so this mechanism is necessary to allow for the effective functioning of land transactions. A similar mechanism is already available in England and Wales, and Scotland.
In conclusion, I emphasise that the measures in the draft regulations are crucial for the effective operation of the register. I hope that the Committee will support the measures and their objectives. I commend the draft regulations to the Committee.
Kevin Hollinrake
It is a pleasure to respond to the important points raised in the debate. The shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Feltham and Heston, asked when the draft regulations come into force. The date they come into force is 21 June. Companies House will be able to impose financial penalties from that date forward. On warning letters, on different occasions Companies House has written to entities that have not registered—to the property of the address they own or to the service address provided to the registry.
The right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill asked about the number of overseas entities that are not registered. We estimate that there are 32,000 entities and that 29,000 are now compliant, so it is 3,000. We think that a significant number of those might not have received the communications and might not be deliberately not co-operating. It is important that any enforcement action taken is proportionate. That is what Companies House is there for.
The right hon. Gentleman also made an important point about resources. As he knows, I am totally aligned with him on ensuring that Companies House has the right resources. We are undertaking a body of work with Companies House to determine what resources it needs and how we apply the right registration or incorporation fee—it will be a higher fee than the current £12. There are also annual fees—recurrent fees—for filing, which can also be used to ensure that Companies House has the right level of resources. We think that that is the horse before cart approach; we are seeing what resources it needs for this and its other work to ensure that the register is accurate.
The shadow Minister mentioned the £2,500—the daily fine for the failure to update offence. The other fines for failing to register are much more significant. The bands I set out earlier are based roughly on council tax bands: A to C will be the £10,000 fee, D to F £20,000 and G to H £50,000. That fine would apply to each property in the portfolio. If we imagine a portfolio of three properties in the mid-range, that would be an initial fine of £60,000, which could be doubled subsequently for non-compliance. The fines are not insignificant and we think that they are at the right level to encourage compliance.
The shadow Minister also made a point about the 750 who have provided the details as required by Companies House, in which they basically say that they no longer hold the properties—the properties have been disposed of—and we therefore feel they are compliant. The 28 days is the time to respond; that was the response time required after the request by the registrar.
On the proxy directors, I understand the point made by the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill, but that does not obviate the requirement for the beneficial owner to be named. Whatever proxy directors there might be, the requirement is for the beneficial owner to be named in any circumstance. That is in existing ownership or future ownership. Someone cannot technically hide behind the proxy director without being guilty of a false filing offence.
Liam Byrne
I am grateful for the clarification. Will the Minister also clarify whether, if the penalty regime stops people trading with an unregistered overseas entity, they could still trade with a beneficial owner who was standing behind an entity based overseas that had not fulfilled its obligations?
Kevin Hollinrake
Either way, if it were an entity established now or in future, it would be in breach of the legislation—it would be breaking the law by doing that, by not declaring who the beneficial owner was, in any circumstance. Whether that is through shareholders or directors, it is about the person with significant control. That person does not even have to have a shareholding to be a beneficial owner or a person with significant control, if they exert influence by other means. The legislation is in the right place, though enforcement is a different matter, of course, and we must ensure that the relevant enforcement agencies have the resources they need.
The final point was on concerns about trusts. The Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Bill, which is going through the Lords, includes some additional mechanisms to ensure that we get behind trusts so that they are not used as a vehicle for non-compliance or to avoid the rules. His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs has a great deal of information that is not publicly available for good reason—some people have trusts to protect individuals, such as minors.
To conclude, the draft regulations will complement the measures in the Economic Crime (Transparency and Enforcement) Act 2022 to ensure that the register is as effective as possible. I commend them to the Committee.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That the Committee has considered the draft Register of Overseas Entities (Penalties and Northern Ireland Dispositions) Regulations 2023.
Oral Answers to Questions
Kevin Hollinrake Excerpts(1 year, 1 month ago)
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Simon Fell (Barrow and Furness) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business and Trade (Kevin Hollinrake)
The Government are providing better support in a number of ways, including through our network of 38 growth hubs across England, our Help To Grow management scheme and mentorships. We are improving access to finance, not least through our start-up loans and recovery loan scheme. We are removing barriers to trade for our SMEs. Those that are seeking to grow through exports can now access support through our UK Export Academy and UK Export Finance.
Samantha Dixon
Small and medium-sized businesses are the beating heart of Chester and our country’s economy, yet their costs have become crippling, with extortionate energy bills, staff shortages and businesses forced to shut their doors for good. Reports show that a record number of people are off work due to health reasons, notably an increase in mental health issues. What is the Government’s plan to put that right and help businesses in Chester and up and down the country?
Kevin Hollinrake
The hon. Lady raises an important point. The first thing we will do for any business is to ensure that the economy is growing, as it is. We are seeing much higher rates of growth than anticipated by many, and we are cutting the costs of doing business by halving inflation, which again is incredibly important for business. In the short term, we are providing support with £13.6 billion of business rate discounts. We put £23 billion into energy discount schemes, too. We also have a big programme, across government, to try to get 9 million people who are economically inactive back to work.
Stephen Morgan
Portsmouth’s fantastic small and family-run businesses tell me that after the Tories crashed the economy, they are struggling with rising business rates, supply chain issues and soaring energy costs. Why does the Minister not just adopt Labour’s plan to scrap business rates and replace them with a system fit for the 21st century?
Kevin Hollinrake
We would all like to reform business rates. When people in my constituency hear about Labour’s plans to scrap business rates, the question I always get is, “Where is the money coming from?” Business rates raise £22 billion in England alone. I have heard Labour’s plans to scrap business rates. Which taxes will be increased to make up that shortfall? That is the question. We are reforming business rates to ensure that small businesses pay less, and providing short-term discounts. Labour cannot simply wipe away £22 billion without telling us where the money is coming from.
Robbie Moore
I recently had the pleasure of hosting a business roundtable in my constituency for small and medium-sized businesses, many of whom are proud of the products and services they want to export. Will my hon. Friend outline what additional steps the Government are taking to support small and medium-sized businesses in my constituency and across the UK that are looking to export their world-leading products to the global market?
Kevin Hollinrake
My hon. Friend is a great champion for his businesses across Keighley, and I thank him for the work he does. He will know that through our export strategy, “Made in the UK, Sold to the World”, we provide extensive support and advice to SMEs, whether they are considering exporting, learning about how to go about it, or expanding into new markets. UK Export Finance focuses on supporting SMEs so that they can secure export opportunities.
Simon Fell
Barrow-in-Furness is, I hope, about to enter a 25-to-30 year jobs boom thanks to the Government’s steadfast support for Dreadnought, AUKUS and the renewable energy projects up and down our coast. However, that causes issues for our local SMEs, which are struggling to retain and recruit, not least because of the geographical isolation of Barrow-in-Furness. May I invite my hon. Friend the Minister to cross the Pennines to speak to the SME cluster that I chair over there and hear some of their concerns? Does the Department have some specialist support to help those businesses leaning into this new economic challenge?
Kevin Hollinrake
I would be happy to cross the Pennines; I have been known to. It would be my pleasure to do that. What businesses want more than anything is to make sure that we have a growing economy, which we have, and that we are controlling costs by halving inflation. The next thing that businesses want is access to labour and skills. I attended the British Chambers of Commerce’s global event yesterday at the QEII Centre, and it was one of the key asks. We are doing many things on making the workplace more attractive: flexible working and, for example, carer’s leave. We have a programme across government to try to get those 9 million people who are currently economically inactive back to work. That can solve many of the problems, along with reform of childcare and other things. I am happy to come and listen to my hon. Friend’s businesses and find out the particular challenges they are facing.
Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)
Twenty billion pounds! That is the amount of money currently held up in late payments—more than the entire science budget. It should be flowing to small businesses, allowing them to innovate, develop new products, create new jobs, drive our local economies or simply stay afloat. Instead, every day thousands of our great British small and medium-sized enterprises are wasting precious time and money chasing late payments, at an estimated cost of £684 million a year. For the sake of British business, will this Government take a leaf out of Labour’s policy book and properly legislate to tackle late payments to small businesses?
Kevin Hollinrake
Well, £90 billion is the amount of Labour’s uncosted spending plans, but let us talk about the £20 billion for now. The hon. Member is absolutely right to raise the issue of late payments. I attended a roundtable yesterday as part of our payment and cash flow review consultation, which is hugely important. We have significant engagement with businesses across the piece. We are determined and ambitious to reform the rules on late payments to ensure that businesses get paid on time. We have made significant progress in recent years in our international performance, so we are not an outlier. Nevertheless, we can and shall do more. The results of the consultation will be made available shortly.
Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD)
Nadhim Zahawi (Stratford-on-Avon) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business and Trade (Kevin Hollinrake)
The Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Bill will establish a new pro-competition regime for digital markets. This will boost competition between businesses in digital markets, driving productivity, growth and innovation.
Nadhim Zahawi
The Competition and Markets Authority’s recent ruling blocking the acquisition of Activision Blizzard has made us an outlier. Its intervention in the nascent, innovative cloud gaming market was based on potential rather than real market power. You will know, Mr Speaker, that regulators have as much of a lever on growth in the economy as the Government. As we are doing in financial services, all regulators should have a remit for growth, and maybe—just maybe—we can call them “regulators for growth”.
Kevin Hollinrake
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for his question. He may have noticed that we recently launched a paper, “Smarter Regulation to Grow the Economy”, so we absolutely agree with that point. Some of the measures it proposes are about ensuring that Ministers, officials and others look at alternatives to regulation, rather than jumping straight to regulation, and have an earlier impact assessment of what regulation would mean for businesses’ costs, rather than just looking at other factors. I absolutely agree with him that the best regulator is competition—the No. 1 thing we want to drive forward—which is also the best thing for growth. I am keen to talk to him about this matter in further detail after these questions.
Martin Docherty-Hughes (West Dunbartonshire) (SNP)
A huge element of growth in the digital market is the crypto industry. The European Parliament has just signed off the Markets in Cryptoassets Regulation. That ambitious and forward-thinking law gives the European Union the first rules to govern the crypto industry. When will this Government do the same?
Kevin Hollinrake
We are looking at the crypto sector carefully, and there was a report yesterday from the Treasury Committee on that matter. The crypto sector is moving at pace, and it is important that regulation keeps up with that. We have regulated already on some of the promotions around cryptocurrency, and it is something we will keep under scrutiny. I am sure my Treasury colleagues will be doing that even more than I shall.
Jessica Morden (Newport East) (Lab)
James Wild (North West Norfolk) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business and Trade (Kevin Hollinrake)
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his fine work as part of the Regulatory Reform Group, which has just published a report. Last week the Government published “Smarter Regulation to Grow the Economy”, setting out our vision for the UK’s regulation and how we can harness the opportunities that Brexit presents to re-think how and when we regulate. As part of that, we set out our agenda to ensure that regulators help drive economic growth.
James Wild
I thank the Minister for his answer and for the reforms published last week. He kindly mentioned the Regulatory Reform Group and our report last week. Will he carefully consider our recommendations in the report on the Government better holding regulators to account, and look at the proposal for an accountability framework that looks at key metrics, including competition, to judge their performance?
Kevin Hollinrake
I read that with interest, and I spoke to my hon. Friend the Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Bim Afolami) yesterday about the matter. It is important that all regulators with responsibility for regulating and promoting growth continue to be held to account for delivering on those objectives. His proposed joint committee of Members of both Houses is for the House authorities to consider, but I note that in a regulatory system that already has a number of accountability mechanisms, adding another layer could risk more uncertainty rather than clarity.
Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)
Leaving the cost of formula up to the market has resulted in soaring prices, as Sky News has revealed this week. Parents are stealing formula from shops, relying on baby banks and formula foraging on Facebook, while profits and marketing spends of the companies have soared. Will the Minister instruct the Competition and Markets Authority to investigate the sector to protect our younger citizens?
Kevin Hollinrake
The CMA is an independent body that decides where it should intervene. We keep these matters under very close scrutiny. Competition is the best regulator. We have a very competitive market for the supermarkets. There are 14 supermarkets, all regulated by the Groceries Code Adjudicator. It is important that competition is allowed to play its role in driving down prices, but we will keep an eye on that.
Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)
Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business and Trade (Kevin Hollinrake)
The best thing we can do to help people with employment is to have a strong economy with low unemployment, and I am pleased to say that we have both. Although there is no employment Bill, the Government are supporting six private Members’ Bills to deliver on our manifesto commitments: helping new parents and unpaid carers, giving employees easier access to flexible working and giving workers the right to request a more predictable working pattern. The Employment (Allocation of Tips) Act 2023 has also now completed its journey.
Rachael Maskell
According to Stop Hurt at Work, 27% of employees experience bullying or harassment at work. There is no legal definition of workplace bullying and no simple path to restitution. Although we have been promised employment legislation by this Government since 2017, and in the light of Matthew Taylor’s “Good work” report, we have not seen an employment Bill in this Parliament to protect workers at work. Can we expand employment rights in legislation to ensure that there is a clear path to restitution for people experiencing bullying at work?
Kevin Hollinrake
I point out that the unemployment rate in York is at a record low of 1.4%, which is below the national average, as I am sure the hon. Lady would welcome.
Since the good work plan was published, the Government have taken forward a wide range of commitments, including giving all workers the right to receive a statement of their rights on day one and the right to request a more predictable working pattern. I am very happy to meet the hon. Lady following these questions to discuss the points she raises.
Justin Madders (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)
Ministers have promised an employment Bill more than 20 times, but they have consistently failed to deliver. It seems that not a week goes by without a company in the gig economy announcing that it is stripping back workers’ rights and protections, presumably because they are confident that this Government will not legislate to introduce protections in the gig economy. Will the Minister come clean on the Government’s plans? If they are not going to bring in any protections for gig economy workers, will he now apologise to them for another failed promise?
Kevin Hollinrake
Paying the national living wage is the law, and failing to pay workers the correct wage can result in significant fines, public naming and, for the most serious offences, criminal prosecution. The national living wage applies to all those who are classified as employees or limb (b) workers. If an individual feels that their employment status has been misclassified, they have the right to go to an employment tribunal.
Peter Aldous (Waveney) (Con)
Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)
What would have been the answer to Question 19? How many businesses were supported by grant funding in North Northamptonshire during the pandemic?
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business and Trade (Kevin Hollinrake)
Off the top of my head, I can say that during the pandemic the Government delivered an unprecedented package of support for businesses. In total, more than £22.6 billion was provided to businesses via local authorities. In Kettering, more than 5,000 covid-19 business grants were issued, amounting to £24 million. North Northamptonshire Council delivered £29.9 million to local businesses through the covid-19 business grant scheme.
Marion Fellows (Motherwell and Wishaw) (SNP)
Kevin Hollinrake
The hon. Lady raises an important point. As she knows, one of the Government’s commitments is to halve inflation, which will also have an impact on food prices. We absolutely need to do that, particularly for those low-income households. That is why we directed support mostly at low-income households, with more than £2,000 a household this year and £900 in additional support for low-income households this year. This is a twin-track approach, tackling inflation and lowering food prices, and also providing direct support.
Eddie Hughes (Walsall North) (Con)
Some 70% of our economy is services, so what is the Department doing to reduce barriers in that area and supercharge our global trade in services?
Jessica Morden (Newport East) (Lab)
May I draw the Minister’s attention to a Which? investigation into the lack of consistency in unit pricing by supermarkets? That makes it difficult for consumers to work out the real price of goods and, crucially, to choose between them. The Competition and Markets Authority is looking at this issue, but will the Government talk to the supermarkets too?
Kevin Hollinrake
The hon. Lady raises an important point. Which? does fantastic work. The CMA acts independently, without ministerial influence, and it is right that it does. However, I am sure it is keeping a close eye on that matter. As I said in a previous answer, the best way we can regulate prices in the UK is through strong competition. We have a very strong, competitive market in the supermarkets, with 14 chains in this country, and that is the best way to hold down prices. However, she raises an important point and I am sure the CMA will have listened to it.
James Wild (North West Norfolk) (Con)
UK Export Finance plays a vital role in supporting export opportunities, but a company in my constituency is having difficulties landing support to secure a contract based in one of our Trans-Pacific Partnership area countries. Will my right hon. Friend meet me to discuss this and how we can support that business?
Richard Foord (Tiverton and Honiton) (LD)
Kevin Hollinrake
The hon. Gentleman raises a very important point. Clearly, our regulation must work in favour of employment and helping people to get work and stay in work. I am very happy to meet him, possibly with one of my colleagues from the Department for Work and Pensions, to look at this matter.
Stephen Kinnock (Aberavon) (Lab)
I am honoured to chair the all-party group on steel, and, as such, I have invited the Secretary of State to meet us, as all four of her predecessors have agreed to do. I am very disappointed that she has declined to do so. I urge her to reconsider that position.
The US is investing $282 billion in green manufacturing. The Spanish and German Governments are each investing £1 billion in the decarbonisation of their steel industries. Labour would match that opportunity with a £3 billion clean steel fund, but the Government’s response to date has been woefully inadequate. When will the Secretary of State bring forward a steel transition strategy that matches up with what our competitors are doing and that matches the ambition of our professional and dedicated steelworkers?
Judith Cummins (Bradford South) (Lab)
Marshalls Bakery, a small business in my constituency, has just closed its doors after 43 years of trading. The owners told me that they were unable to withstand the combined pressures of covid, rising wheat and container charges and high energy costs. They feel let down and are angry at the lack of Government support for businesses such as theirs. Can the Minister tell me what further steps he is taking to ensure that other small businesses can survive in this challenging climate to provide the certainty from Government that they so desperately need?
Kevin Hollinrake
I am sorry to hear about the demise of that business in the hon. Lady’s constituency. Clearly, it has been a very tough time for businesses in recent years, with the covid crisis followed by the cost of living crisis. I am very happy to meet her to discuss what support we provide, which is to the tune of hundreds of billions of pounds. I am informed that there has been £1 billion of support to businesses over recent years. The schemes running at the moment include: the rates discount at £13.6 billion; and £23 billion has been put into helping businesses with energy costs. I am very happy to meet her to discuss that further.
Carol Monaghan (Glasgow North West) (SNP)
UK semiconductor businesses have been crying out for the semiconductor strategy. I have asked a number of questions about this, and two weeks ago the Minister for Science, Research and Innovation told me it would be published in “a matter of days”. The Secretary of State loves a doughty champion; can she be a doughty champion for the semiconductor industry and speak to colleagues in the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology to get the strategy published?
Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)
Businesses and organisations in my constituency, and no doubt beyond, have ended up marooned on exceptionally high energy tariffs because they were forced to sign contracts at the height of the crisis. What conversations have Ministers had with Ofgem and with the energy companies to see what can be done to support those businesses, as those tariffs will be a drag on their future growth and development, and in some cases threaten their very survival?
Kevin Hollinrake
The hon. Lady makes an important point. Alongside the Minister for Energy Security and Net Zero, I met energy suppliers and Ofgem recently to discuss the matter. The problem is principally that energy prices have fallen, so businesses entering into new contracts today are getting more competitive rates, but the ones who entered contracts between July and December last year are facing difficulties. The energy suppliers have promised to help, but if the hon. Lady wants to talk to me about any particular instances, I am happy to help.
Stephen Kinnock
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Following the exchange I just had with the Secretary of State, I want to underline the point that her office has declined and said that she would not be interested in meeting the all-party parliamentary group for steel and metal related industries. While she did come to visit the Port Talbot steelworks in my constituency, which of course I welcome, I was not invited to join her on that visit, whereas I understand the hon. Member for Scunthorpe (Holly Mumby-Croft) was invited to join her on the visit to the Scunthorpe steelworks. I just want to set the record straight on those points.
Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Bill
Kevin Hollinrake ExcerptsWednesday 17th May 2023
(1 year, 1 month ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 View all Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 Debates Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business and Trade (Kevin Hollinrake)
I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
Digital technologies are a 21st-century miracle. They bring us closer together and connect us to the world. Today it is difficult to remember a time without answers at our fingertips, or the ability to buy goods and services from across the globe in just a few clicks. Technology has hugely increased our choices of goods and services and how they are delivered to us. It allows us to work in entirely new ways when we are on the move or in far-flung places abroad.
Just as digital technologies have profoundly altered our lives, they have also transformed the UK economy. We now have more tech unicorns than any other country in Europe: indeed, we have more than France and Germany combined. Eight cities in the UK are home to at least one unicorn, and this success continues. Last year, our tech start-ups and scale-ups also attracted more investment than those of France and Germany combined, creating jobs and opportunities throughout the United Kingdom. It is clear that tech will be key to achieving the Prime Minister’s priority of driving economic growth across the UK. Our figures forecast that the digital sector could expand by an additional £41 billion by 2025. However, the UK’s continued tech success depends on markets that are fiercely competitive, where the best companies can thrive and create innovations that spur growth.
Over the last decade, the UK’s digital markets have developed at an exponential rate, but our competition framework has failed to keep up. Its last legislative overhaul took place nearly a quarter of a century ago, when the internet was in its infancy and smartphones had not yet been invented. Since then competition across the broader economy has declined, and in the tech sector a small number of firms exert immense control across strategically critical services with practices such as self-preferencing, restricting operability, and exclusivity requirements.
Competitive markets are, of course, the best way to provide the best outcomes for consumers, and Governments and regulators should step in only when we see market failure or excessive market power. The International Monetary Fund has found that market power in the tech industry increased significantly between 1995 and 2016, which included increases of more than 30% in mark-ups and more than 10% in concentration globally. The Competition and Markets Authority estimates that in 2021 alone, Google and Apple made excess profits of more than £4 billion in the UK. Apple and Google determine which apps are in the App Store, how they are ranked and how they are discovered. They often charge significant levels of commission, up to 30% of revenue, and require all transactions to be made through in-app systems—which, as we all know, means that at the end of the day, all charges, commissions and taxes are paid for by consumers.
Dominance of display ads for Facebook and Google cost UK consumers about £2.4 billion a year. Between 2009 and 2019, GAFAM—Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon and Microsoft—made more than 400 acquisitions without any regulatory intervention or referral through the voluntary mechanisms. This is why in recent years there has been an increasing acceptance of the need for new legislation that is fit for these dynamic and rapidly evolving markets. The Digital Competition Expert Panel, led by Harvard’s Professor Jason Furman, and the Digital Markets Taskforce have conducted independent assessments of how digital markets operate, noting that they have specific features which can allow them to tip in favour of one particular firm.
Colleagues on both sides of the House, including my hon. Friend the Member for Weston-super-Mare (John Penrose) and the hon. Member for Bristol North West (Darren Jones), have called for more to be done to allow consumers to benefit from greater competition in these markets. However, there is also a growing consensus that in a market which functions well, competition must work hand in hand with consumer protections. People must know that they can spend their money with confidence, safe in the knowledge that they have the right information and support if something goes wrong. That is critical, because when consumers feel that they risk losing their hard-earned cash, they also risk losing trust in markets as a whole. The Bill seeks to achieve all these goals and unleash the full opportunities of digital markets for the UK, so that every part of the country can reap the rewards. All told, under these measures we expect consumers to benefit to the tune of almost £10 billion over the next 10 years.
My right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer recognises this legislation’s significance to the UK economy and its importance to consumers, particularly during a cost of living crisis, which is why he announced the earlier introduction of the Bill in his autumn statement. I should remind the House, however, that the majority of the Bill’s measures have been thoroughly scrutinised and analysed by experts and businesses over a number of years. This included a consultation in 2021 and a careful consideration of the responses.
I will now speak to the Bill’s measures in greater depth. Part 1 sets up a new pro-competition regime for digital markets, which will be overseen and enforced by the Competition and Markets Authority’s Digital Markets Unit. This legislation gives the DMU the ability to tackle the causes and consequences of market power, ensuring that people and businesses large and small are treated fairly by the most powerful tech firms. By encouraging greater competition, this work will lead to lower prices for everyday online goods and services and give consumers more choice and control.
The measures in part 2 will refine the CMA’s competition enforcement work so that it is better targeted, faster and more effective, allowing the free market to operate more efficiently.
Damian Collins (Folkestone and Hythe) (Con)
My hon. Friend got through part 1 a bit quicker than I thought he would—I have a question relating to part 1. Clause 38 creates a final offer mechanism for dispute resolution. The news media industry has been waiting for this legislation for a long time but it is not expressly referenced in the Bill. Can he confirm that the news industry and other industries could benefit from this final offer mechanism?
Kevin Hollinrake
My hon. Friend makes a good point. I wish him the best of luck in the election this afternoon. It is for a very important Committee that will scrutinise this legislation. The final offer mechanism is innovative and represents a positive way forward, in that it will bring parties to the table and they will both have to make sensible offers relating to how they see a fair resolution. This will avoid them putting unrealistic claims on the table, and it could well help the news industry and many other sectors.
John Penrose (Weston-super-Mare) (Con)
Like my hon. Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Damian Collins), I was concerned that the Minister might be moving on from part 1 a fraction early. This is a welcome Bill that will do an enormous amount of good, and it has allowed me to tick off a large number of the recommendations that I made in my report, which he referenced earlier. The concern about the Digital Markets Unit’s powers is not that they are not good enough; it is that they might over time add more and more of a regulatory burden as ex ante powers build up over the years. Does he have thoughts on how he can ensure that, after those ex ante powers have been in place for a couple of years as regulations, the CMA can analyse whether they could perhaps be replaced by pro-market reforms?
Kevin Hollinrake
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his engagement on this. We have discussed this at length many times, both in my role as a Minister and in my previous role as a Back Bencher, when we looked at the best form of regulation. I think we both agree that ex post regulation is preferable to ex ante regulation, as is a pro-competitive environment, as I said earlier. We should step in only when there is market failure. Of course we should look at the powers and ensure that they are being used wisely, and I have confidence that the CMA will do that. There are a number of checks and balances on the CMA and the DMU, not least through the competition appeal tribunal and the courts, which ensure that decisions are valid and worthwhile, but we should also have a good debate on how we scrutinise the DMU and CMA generally. Obviously they report to Parliament every year, and the Select Committee work is also important. I think that my hon. Friend and I would agree that the best way to regulate markets is through competitive environments, and that is what we should always favour in this discussion.
Andy Carter (Warrington South) (Con)
I echo the comments of my colleagues who have welcomed the Bill. The Minister will know that the DMU will be regulating a highly specialised area and that detailed knowledge of the sector will be critically important. Can he assure me that the DMU will have sufficient powers to recruit people who really understand the sector? Will it be able to pay accordingly in order to recruit those people, and not be bound by civil service contracts and pay bands that might limit its ability to recruit very experienced people?
Kevin Hollinrake
My hon. Friend makes an important point. The tech industry is clearly very powerful in terms of its resources and its ability to recruit the best people. My experience of the CMA is that there are good people within it, and I expect that to be reflected in the DMU as well. People who have been connected to the CMA, including former chairs, have spoken highly of its abilities, but my hon. Friend makes the important point that we need to have the best people so that we can hold those powerful entities to account.
The legislation will be delivered through making market inquiries more efficient, focused and proportionate, updating the merger regime and amending existing legislation concerning anti-competitive conduct and abuse of a dominant position. The measures in parts 3 and 4 make important updates and improvements to consumer law. The UK is currently the only G7 country without civil penalties for common breaches of consumer protection such as unfair trading. Part 3 creates a new model that will allow the CMA to act faster, tackle more cases and protect consumers’ interests while creating a level playing field for businesses.
Part 4 tackles the subscription traps that cost consumers £1.6 billion a year. We expect there to be a £400 million saving for consumers as a result of the measures we have proposed. I am sure that many Members know constituents—
Kevin Hollinrake
I think I am going to hear about one in a moment. Many Members will know constituents who have received shock charges for a subscription or faced difficulties when trying to cancel one. The Bill contains new rights to subscription reminders and easier cancellations, so that those who want out can get out.
Craig Whittaker
The Minister is not going to hear about a constituent, but I would like to point out that charities’ lotteries, which are great fundraisers for great causes that put so much back into all our communities, are already heavily regulated by the Gambling Commission. Will my hon. Friend look at schedule 19 to see whether subscription-based charity lotteries can be excluded?
Kevin Hollinrake
That is an interesting point and I would be happy to look at the matter in detail. It is not something that I have considered thus far but perhaps we can have a discussion about it at a later stage. We will certainly pick it up if we can and make sure that it does not cut us across anything that my hon. Friend is concerned about.
This legislation includes other measures to help consumers to keep more of their hard-earned cash, including a power to add to the list of banned practices. We intend to use this power first to tackle the wild west of fake reviews, which can dupe customers into buying shoddy goods and services. There are also new protections for consumer prepayments to consumer saving schemes, so that devastating cases such as the collapse of the Farepak Christmas savings club, which left vulnerable consumers out of pocket, can never be repeated. Together, these measures deliver on our manifesto commitment to tackle consumer rip-offs and bad business practices, demonstrating that this is a Government who back consumers.
Alun Cairns (Vale of Glamorgan) (Con)
I recognise that the Bill would introduce enhanced competition and protect significant areas of consumer policy, but it would also extend the powers of the CMA significantly. May I draw my hon. Friend’s attention to the regulatory reform group that my hon. Friend the Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Bim Afolami) and other hon. and right hon. Members have sat on, which is seeking a cultural change among regulators to ensure that they have an interest in the wider industry as well as in consumers? For business and industry to be sustainable, the CMA must be able to respond in a proactive, business-friendly way.
Kevin Hollinrake
My right hon. Friend makes a strong point, and it is one reason why we are reviewing the economic regulators. The work has been ongoing for 18 months, and we are due to produce our thoughts this spring. It is important that regulators focus on consumer outcomes and, as others have said, a more competitive environment produces the best outcomes, so he is right to draw attention to that issue.
John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)
Briefly, what will be the direct impact of the Bill on the cost to the state and to business?
Kevin Hollinrake
The annual cost to business is £178 million, which we must consider carefully when we bring forward new regulatory burdens, but most people will think that the measures are needed because there is a huge consumer benefit of roughly £1 billion a year over 10 years, so it is important that we strike that balance. I am not aware that the cost to the state has been calculated, but my right hon. Friend and I are probably most concerned about the cost to business.
John Penrose
I thank the Minister for his generosity in giving way again.
The Minister’s response to the question about regulatory burden mentioned the welcome, necessary and important review of economic regulators. However, he will understand that enormous regulatory burden is created by other regulators. There are only eight economic regulators, but there are dozens of other regulators, many of which create vastly more regulatory burden than the economic regulators, although the economic regulators are not exempt. What plans does he have to address those regulatory burdens, which are much broader and cover much more of the economy?
Kevin Hollinrake
My hon. Friend makes a very good point, and it is why only a few days ago we published a framework for better regulation to look at these things in the round and to make sure we have regulators that serve the public, rather than the interests of the regulator. We do not want to see regulatory creep for any purpose other than consumer benefit, and he and I will continue to have significant dialogue on those issues.
Some Members will argue that we should legislate more like the EU’s Digital Markets Act, by using this Bill to create sweeping, one-size-fits-all measures. However, our Brexit freedoms mean we can draft legislation that drives innovation without placing blanket obligations on firms or creating unnecessary regulatory burdens. Some will respond to the Bill by saying that we should go harder against big tech, but I remind them that the Bill’s primary purpose is to reduce economic harms, to boost competition, to create a fair and level playing field, and to give consumers greater choice and better prices.
We need to act, but we must act proportionally because tech firms make a valuable contribution to the economy and our lives. Big does not equal bad. A war on tech will not create growth. It has already been argued in this debate that the CMA has enough power, and my response is that technology is changing rapidly and our watchdogs need to be equipped to fully support businesses and consumers in this competitive world.
I look forward to engaging with colleagues as the Bill makes its way through the House, and I hope Members will give it their backing so that the Government can continue our work of protecting consumers, increasing competition in all markets and growing the UK economy.
Richard Thomson
The right hon. Member is absolutely right that it is not easy, but that does not mean it is something that we should avoid trying to tackle, or that we should not try to come up with a way of improving the competitive environment. I am certainly more than happy to engage on an open and constructive basis with anyone about how we might do so.
Kevin Hollinrake
Will the hon. Gentleman therefore support our approach, which is to consult in parallel with the passage of the Bill through both Houses about things like drip pricing and fake reviews, so that we can have that open dialogue and make sure that we get the answers right, including to the questions posed by my right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (John Redwood)?
Richard Thomson
I thank the Minister for his intervention. Indeed, I would be quite happy to see what comes back from that consultation, because there are areas of real concern. If we can find consensus on how those matters can best be tackled—we might not be able to please everybody, but we can address them as best we can—that would be a welcome step forward.
In closing, the Bill is important for growth and competition, but also for consumer protection. The exchange that we collectively had just now on those matters was encouraging, and I would certainly like that spirit to continue in Committee. I do not think I have ever managed to successfully get something passed in Committee; I look forward to that changing.
Matt Warman (Boston and Skegness) (Con)
I enjoyed the Minister’s opening gambit about how much the internet has changed our lives over many years. He is right, but the House has now been regulating the internet and its effects for many years as well, and this is in some ways a long-overdue Bill. When I was the Minister, my great fear was that Back Benchers would treat it like a Christmas tree and try to add many great ideas of their own. Now that I am on the Back Benches, that is precisely the approach that I intend to take.
I hope that the Minister—and you, Mr Deputy Speaker—will indulge me on a few issues that are somewhat in the weeds of the Bill as well as on two broader points. This is fundamentally a welcome Bill. It is hugely consequential in the effects that it will have on the digital landscape and Britain’s ability to regulate in a new and different, fundamentally pro-competition way in an age that will be affected by markets that operate very differently online from those that we have been used to regulating.
There are a couple of relatively small issues. First, on subscription traps, we have heard a little from other hon. Members about auto-renewal. I think that it should simply not be the default. That is worth looking at. The Minister may take the view that it is for the CMA or the DMU to look at that rather than for the Government to take a view, but that fundamentally could protect consumers.
Secondly, the Minister has made really welcome moves on protecting consumers from online scams. Such scams operate fundamentally differently from the scams of the past, so his new approach is welcome. There is, however, a key interaction in scams and unsafe goods. People who knowingly sell unsafe goods online are surely, by some definition, scammers, yet the Bill does not appear to do quite the whole job. He may be able to offer reassurance on that.
Kevin Hollinrake
My hon. Friend raised a fair point. A fair and level playing field is important for our wider economy and opportunity. Alongside the Bill, we are keen to bring forward the product safety review, which looks at online marketplaces and how they sell and distribute products compared with our normal high-street locations, which have far more stringent product safety requirements. So a body of work is going on alongside this one.
Matt Warman
I welcome that. The Minister will know that that body of work has been going on in parallel with this one for some time. It is welcome, and I hope that its results will be presented relatively quickly.
The new judicial review standards for CMA and DMU decisions have been welcomed by the Coalition for App Fairness, which is a good and credible group. But, simultaneously, this is a big shift and we need to be confident that it will genuinely protect both larger operators in the right way and smaller operators. I think we will hear more about that from hon. Members in this place as well as in the House of Lords.
I have two larger points. First, it is DMU mission creep, which we heard about briefly from my hon. Friend the Member for Weston-super-Mare (John Penrose), that we should fundamentally be most nervous about. It was certainly my concern a little while ago that the Bill gives the regulator the flexibility it needs to deal with the modern world in the right way. That is absolutely the right approach and I am pleased that it has persisted, but it is important that it is appropriately regulated—if I can use that word about a regulator—so that it does not end up potentially going further than any Minister or Government might wish. It is important that the CMA and the DMU operate in the way that this House intends, with all the independence that this House also intends.
My final broader point is that the Bill does some excellent work on interoperability of software. What it does not do, at least on the face of the Bill, is consider that interoperable software is fundamentally linked to interoperable harm. If I can try to turn that into real terms, it is obviously great that operators such as Apple are able to build their own superb and unique ecosystems. The same goes for Android and so on—there are other equivalent versions. What would be useful to try to guard against, probably via the DMU rather than directly via Government, is the current situation whereby, to take one example, the way we use iMessage or video calls is fundamentally limited if we seek to do it on a different platform. We have all seen the different blue and green bubbles on Apple iMessage. That is partly because of the interoperability of hardware and software. I am somewhat conflicted about whether that should be a point of differentiation for Apple, Android, WhatsApp or other operators, or whether we see it as part of a problem within emerging monopolies. I therefore suggest it is exactly the sort of thing that an independent regulator might wish to take a view on.
We heard, furthermore, about the metaverse. What we do not want, surely, is a series of emerging and conflicting metaverses—if that were to be the case—that fundamentally embed monopolistic behaviour, because they will be some of the largest economies of the future. Again, it is potentially hugely beneficial to have a unique and brilliant metaverse under the personal command of Mark Zuckerberg and one under the personal command of Tim Cook, as a competitor. However, a regulator may take a different view and it is important that we think through these emerging opportunities. The Bill is a place where we may start some of that work. It is right that it seeks to be future-proofed against some of those interesting challenges, but at the moment there are a small number of potential opportunities that the Minister may yet seek to seize—shall we put it like that?—rather than allow them to pass by and have to address them later on.
Fundamentally, I welcome the Bill. It already embodies some huge opportunities to make real progress and there are some more that we may be able to take forward. I look forward to supporting its passage through the House.
Kevin Hollinrake
I certainly do not ask for any bragging rights. May I thank the hon. Lady for the work she does on the all-party parliamentary group on ticket abuse? On the case she refers to, she is right to say that it is three years since the conviction took place, but the confiscation order, which was for £6.1 million, took place only in December last year. Does she think that sends a strong message to the cohort of people she refers to that there are strict and strong penalties for people who engage in that kind of activity?
Mrs Hodgson
We would all like to think that it would with right-minded people, but I do not think professional touts think like the Minister or any of us in this House, so they probably have not seen it as a deterrent. From what I am hearing from the experts I work with, it is still going on—it is business as usual for the touts. We really need more enforcement in this area. More laws are good, but laws without enforcement just do not work.
The UK is rightly proud of its live event industry, but do the Government really know what the consumer experience often is? I would be interested to learn which experts, campaigners or live music representatives the Government worked with or consulted when they rejected the CMA’s advice so firmly. I have written to the Minister to ask him that, so he can respond in writing if he does not have that information to hand or in his memory from those meetings.
The Minister rejected the advice on this area, saying that resale sites like Viagogo may
“still provide a service of value to some consumers”.
The many tens of thousands of victims of Viagogo may disagree. That misses the point entirely. Resale sites allow touts to commit fraud every single day and permit them to charge inexplicably high prices for such tickets. Illegal activity is happening on those sites right now, as we sit here discussing the issue. Such sites are profiting from that, and the CMA has no power to do anything about it, which is why the Bill needs additional measures. I hope the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology will take a different approach to its forerunner Department, because the Bill is a perfect and timely opportunity to rectify the situation.
If, as the Minister has said, broader changes to consumer law are the priority, I look forward to learning what changes to the proposed legislation his Government will allow. At present, despite the enhanced consumer protection in the Bill, which he spoke of in his opening remarks, it will not be able to tackle all the problems in the online secondary ticketing market, as the enforcement is just not there. Speak to any National Trading Standards officer: they want to go after the touts, but their budget of circa £16 million is for everything they need to do and is not sufficient. I am sure they could spend that on enforcement against illegal ticket touting alone.
The Bill looks to provide the CMA with stronger tools to investigate competition problems and take faster, more effective action, including where companies collude to bump up prices at the expense of UK consumers. Is that not exactly the case in the secondary ticketing market, where sites like Viagogo allow individuals, as well as themselves, to profiteer from a manner of resale that contradicts legislation? As part of the Bill, will the Government take the necessary steps to make sure that laws, including those in the Bill, are upheld and enforced properly?
I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response on this matter. Our cross-party group, the all-party parliamentary group on ticket abuse, would be delighted to work with him and his Department to strengthen the legislation and to protect consumers from the abomination of ticket abuse.
Paul Scully
Many of the regulators will be under the remit of the Under-Secretary of State for Business and Trade, my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake). Indeed, that is something that I did—
Paul Scully
I just heard the verbal nod from him to say that he continues to do that.
I will come to the CMA in a second. In answer to the hon. Member for Washington and Sunderland West, whom I congratulate for the APPG’s work, the CMA is continuing to monitor the online secondary ticketing market, including the issues that have been reported about refunds and cancellations as a result of the pandemic. The Government welcome the CMA’s report, but we believe that we have the measures in place to ensure that consumers have the information that they need to make informed decisions on ticket resales. The Bill will give the CMA significant new civil powers to tackle bad businesses ripping off consumers, so we do not see the need for additional regulatory powers. However, I agree with her that enforcing the existing regulations is key. I thank her for her work in this area.
I will briefly cover some of the other issues. On judicial review, which was raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Hitchin and Harpenden, we have heard that the entire purpose of the Bill is to ensure that we tackle an area where a small number of companies have dominance in many parts of our lives. That is not necessarily a bad thing, so this is not an attack on big tech. None the less, some of the challenger firms mentioned by the hon. Member for Pontypridd, although they may be household names, are rightly scared because of the relationship they have with big tech. We must get the balance right by ensuring that there can be an appeal on judicial review standards, but it must not be something that a company with deep pockets can extend and extend. Because the harms happen so quickly in a tech business, the remediation needs to take place as quickly as possible.
Contingencies Fund Advance: Companies House
Kevin Hollinrake Excerpts(1 year, 1 month ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business and Trade (Kevin Hollinrake)
The Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Bill will reform the operations of Companies House by setting out new objectives for the Registrar of Companies, including additional powers to query and amend the register where it is suspected that there is fraud or error, as well as scope to proactively share intelligence on criminal activity across Government to combat economic crime. These provisions will help Companies House do more to tackle criminals, terrorists, and corruption, strengthening the UK’s reputation as a place where legitimate business can thrive, while driving dirty money out of the country.
The legislation enables further investigation and enforcement activity to be undertaken against corporate entities. In readiness for this responsibility we propose to ensure Companies House has the right staff and systems in place to deliver the Registrar’s new powers.
Parliamentary approval for additional resource of £425,000 and capital of £37,000 for this new service will be sought in a main estimate for the Department for Business and Trade. Pending that approval, urgent expenditure estimated at £462,000 will be met by repayable cash advances from the Contingencies Fund.
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