Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what assessment her Department has made of the impact of a potential merger between Three and Vodafone on (a) prices and (b) consumer choice.

In October 2022, Vodafone and Three announced that they were in talks to merge their UK businesses.

It is the statutory responsibility of the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) to review mergers under the Enterprise Act 2002 with input from relevant sector regulators, in this case, it would be Ofcom. The Government has no role in the merger review or decision.

On 10 January 2023, I met Ofcom Chairman Lord Grade and one of the topics discussed was Ofcom’s view on the number of mobile operators in the market.