Sainsbury and Asda Merger Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy
Vince Cable
Main Page: Vince Cable (Liberal Democrat - Twickenham)Department Debates - View all Vince Cable's debates with the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy
(6 years ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Andrew Griffiths
My right hon. Friend is a doughty fighter for his constituents, and I understand that he will be lobbying hard to ensure that there are no job losses. I reassure him that some 330,000 people are employed by this joint, merged organisation. It is a huge employer. It has given us very strong reassurances about jobs in stores. I urge him to engage not only with the CMA in relation to this investigation, but with both Asda and Sainsbury’s to make those points strongly and forcefully, as he always does.
Sir Vince Cable (Twickenham) (LD)
The Minister referred to the importance of online business in driving this merger. Can he explain how the CMA’s terms of reference enable it properly to take into account competition between domestic bricks-and-mortar businesses and global online corporations such as Amazon?
Andrew Griffiths
Very few people know this area of competition policy better than the right hon. Gentleman. As I have pointed out, phase 2 of the CMA investigation will involve drawing together a panel that will consider all the facts about the size of the market and the impact. As part of that, they will use all their resources to ensure that they fully understand not just, as he puts it, the bricks-and-mortar marketplace, but competition from online retailers.