Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask Her Majesty's Government how they have responded to the Competition and Market Authority's (CMA) 2019 proposal that the CMA's powers to enforce consumer protection law should be improved.

As outlined in our manifesto, the Government is committed to giving the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) enhanced powers to tackle consumer rip-offs and bad business practices.

The Department and the CMA have been working closely together to develop the proposals made by the CMA in 2019. For example, following a commitment made in June 2019 by the previous Secretary of State, we are looking into the possibility of putting the CMA’s powers on an administrative basis. This would allow the CMA to decide itself if a breach of consumer law has happened, rather than going to court.

Furthermore, we have announced that we will introduce a new power to impose fines of up to a maximum of 10% global turnover on businesses who have breached consumer law.