My Lords, I rise to move Amendment 70 in the name of my noble friend Lord McNicol. I am sure that we can be brief on this matter and that, given the complexity of the other amendments we have been discussing, it is one that the Minister will be able to consider with a good outcome.
We are looking to extend the time limit for applications to the tribunal under Clause 70 from one month to three months. Of course, we have touched on this area several times through our many discussions over the last three sessions and, indeed, today. There is a real concern that the Bill does not provide enough oversight for the new subsidy regime; we have heard different elements of this through the amendments that have been put forward. As noble Lords have observed, there is a significant disparity between the time given to authorities to publicly disclose their subsidy decisions and that given to interested parties to refer matters to the Competition Appeal Tribunal. Only interested parties and the Secretary of State can legally challenge subsidies, and must do within one month of the new subsidy being published. Our contention is that this is unreasonable.
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Amendment 70 seeks to extend the current one-month period to three months. This would still remain a modest time period given that, as things stand, there will be either six or 12 months for subsidies to be uploaded on to the database. It is quite possible that different interested parties and enterprises might have entirely valid complaints that would be upheld by the CAT but, for any number of reasons, they might be unable to refer the matter to the CAT within the one-month time limit.
I hope that this amendment will be agreed to but, if the Government are unwilling to extend the current arrangements, can the Minister at least commit to allowing referrals outside that window in certain cases? I beg to move.