Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Bill (First sitting)

Neil Coyle Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 13th June 2023 Public Bill Committees

[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.

[Neil Coyle (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (Lab)]

Q Do you have the resources to take on the new powers?

Sarah Cardell: The short answer is yes. We are well funded in terms of our budget. We are carrying out significant recruitment, and we have a good breadth of expertise, which is particularly important to developing our digital data technology expertise. We have done a lot of that already, but it remains a key focus.

[Neil Coyle]

Q Do you have an in-house legal team, or will you be taking on additional lawyers, given that it has taken legal action against some companies even to get to this point?

Sarah Cardell: We have very substantial legal resources internally. We have a legal directorate of around 150 people. We will be growing our resource by more than 200 people over the next two years, and growing substantially outside London, which will be key for us.

[Neil Coyle]

And—

[The Chair]

We will have to move on, I am afraid.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Chair]

We have 12 minutes left, and five Members are seeking to ask questions, so we need to increase the pace.

[Neil Coyle]

Q Electrical Safety First and the British Toy & Hobby Association have described Amazon and other online platforms as a bit of a wild west when it comes to product safety for consumers. I appreciate that you both support the Bill as a step forward, but what is missing for consumers when it comes to product safety? Is it a new sheriff for the wild west?

Rocio Concha: Definitely. Legislation is required to ensure that online platforms take responsibility for the products that they sell on their platforms. We have done lots of reviews and gathered evidence that shows that consumers in the UK can buy very unsafe products on those platforms. Online platforms should be doing more to tackle that issue. The issue probably requires separate legislation, but I want to make it clear that we need legislation, and we need it now.

[Neil Coyle]

Q So this is a missed opportunity. There is nothing within clauses 67 to 82 on the investigatory powers that would allow for sufficient tackling of unsafe products, including toys reaching children.

Rocio Concha: No, I do not think that what is in the Bill will really tackle the issue.

[Neil Coyle]

That is disappointing.

Matthew Upton: I have nothing to add.

[Jerome Mayhew]

Q Mr Upton, I want to come back to you about subscription traps. You are saying that the requirement in the Bill that subscription cancellation should be a timely process is not sufficiently detailed. I declare an interest: in a former life, I used to help write European regulations. Is it not an absolutely basic tenet of writing regulations that you design outcomes— you do not list processes unless you absolutely have to, because things change? Given that point, are the Government, or the drafters of this Bill, not correct to focus on the outcome required and leave the process alone?

Matthew Upton: In a sense, I disagree with you because I agree with your point about it being outcomes-focused. In a sense, you are right; it leaves it fairly open, which gives some space for people to interpret, but I think what will end up happening is that firms will get around those provisions in various ways. They will tweak the subscriptions to find other ways to find people to step in. We will have a game of whack-a-mole, where we chase around trying to clamp down, a little bit like we had in the utility-switching space of four or five years ago. Ultimately, whether people agree or not, that led to much heavier intervention in the market.

Just taking one step to move towards opt-out—in a sense, you are right; it is a process step—is incredibly simple in terms of aligning the incentives. I think that would mean you would have to do less of the tweaking, constant interventions and prodding of firms. It just sets up the incentives in a much more simple way.