Lord Collins of Highbury
Main Page: Lord Collins of Highbury (Labour - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Lord Collins of Highbury's debates with the Scotland Office
(7 years, 4 months ago)
Lords ChamberWith respect to the query raised by my noble friend Lord Inglewood, I referred to the chair of the committee as being included among those to whom the decision will be intimated, together with the Leaders and Speakers of both Houses.
My Lords, I seek reassurance from the noble and learned Lord in respect of the issue of data. When the original Statement was repeated in this House, I raised the issue of data protection, and the noble and learned Lord referred to the Data Protection Act—but that is not what the issue is really about. It is about how data are mined, used and abused in terms of media plurality. Can I have a reassurance, if the Minister refers this to the CMA, that the CMA will have the ability to look at this key issue? It is about how things can be manipulated—it is not simply about data protection.
My Lords, regulators do not have a role in scrutinising what data are held by companies involved in mergers, but if representations are made about the issue of data, such as data-scraping or data accumulation, those are matters that the Competition and Markets Authority will take into account in arriving at any decision that it makes in the context of a phase 2 inquiry.