Oral Answers to Questions

Nadhim Zahawi Excerpts

Thursday 18th May 2023 Commons Chamber

[Kemi Badenoch]

I am aware that the hon. Member had a private Member’s Bill on this very issue. The Government are supportive of preventing harassment in the workplace, and we supported the Worker Protection (Amendment of Equality Act 2010) Bill. We believe that NDAs have a place, but she has raised specific circumstances where they are inappropriate, so I am happy to discuss with her what we can do to stop this problem from continuing.

[Nadhim Zahawi (Stratford-on-Avon) (Con)]

3. What assessment her Department has made of the potential impact of the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Bill on levels of competition between businesses in digital markets.

[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.