UK Parliament / Open data

Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill

My Lords, in supporting the thesis of the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, I just wonder whether this is meant to be unclear. It is very long and there are lots of tos and fros. You get caught up in considerations of exactly how independent the CMA is when something called public interest comes on the horizon. My suspicion is that it is not very independent at all. Schedule 4 makes certain that you had better do what you are told when the chips are down. It also seems to me that the weakening of the operations of phase 2 by the creation of a panel that floats freely without being rooted into the ground in any way that I can see also makes it all a bit unclear. Surely the sort of panels that there have been on the Competition Commission have been pretty good at public interest considerations, which vary widely. I entirely agree that there needs to be some clarity as to what this is all for.

5.15 pm

Type
Proceeding contribution
Reference
741 c493GC 
Session
2012-13
Chamber / Committee
House of Lords Grand Committee
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