Competition and Markets Authority

Lord Hain Excerpts

Thursday 25th June 2020 Lords Chamber

[The Deputy Speaker (The Earl of Kinnoull) (Non-Afl)]

The noble Lord, Lord Rogan, is not available, so we will go straight to the noble Lord, Lord Hain.

[Lord Hain (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, surely the noble Lord, Lord Tyrie, standing down is a devastating indictment of the unwillingness of Tory Ministers to permit him to do his job properly, as well as the Government’s subservience to vast vested interests and the immense power of digital platforms at the expense of customers and competition. The Covid pandemic means that there will be lots of business casualties, allowing national and especially local monopolies to trample over customers. I am sorry, but the Minister is not coming clean with us; the noble Lord, Lord Tyrie, is both honourable and highly capable: will he tell us straight, please, why Ministers have been so shamefully subservient to tycoons, plutocrats and dodgy dealers that he, an eminent fellow Tory, has been forced to resign from a job he wanted to do properly?

[Lord Callanan]

Well, characteristically the noble Lord has a great grasp of hyperbole, but I do not think that he is fairly characterising the situation here. It is a complicated area of detailed policy. We have an excellent competition regime in this country, the CMA is a highly regarded regulator and, as I said, we will consider giving it additional powers to protect consumer and business interests if that is required.