My Lords, I have attached my name to Amendment 65 and want to examine the cash and resources which the Government intend to put into the CMA.
Talking of cash and resources, I was very disappointed to read the Minister’s letter to my noble friend Lord Purvis today, in which he says of a previous debate about money:
“I regret that I am not in a position to confirm the per capita allocation of the UK shared prosperity fund in each nation at this stage. However, I emphasise that the Government is meeting its manifesto commitments in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. The fund will match previous EU funding in real terms for all these places.”
The letter says that the fund will match previous funding, but it also emphasises that they are meeting their manifesto commitments. How on earth can you
say that you are meeting your manifesto commitments when you cannot tell us whether you are giving £780 per head to Wales in the way that it was described, as a per capita allocation? Clearly, having a per capita allocation is how you judge whether you are meeting your manifesto commitments. I am very disappointed that the Government say that they are meeting their commitment but are unable to provide the figures to show that they are doing so. I hope they will rectify this swiftly.
Turning to the CMA and its resources, we were very fortunate some years ago to receive evidence from the CMA on its readiness to take part in the new world we were entering. However, it is very important to separate out the CMA’s need for resource to carry on its traditional functions of mergers, acquisitions and so on. The chair of the CMA said then, regarding the non-subsidy side:
“We will be involved in much bigger and arguably more complex cases than we typically deal with. We will have to deal with mergers. We will also be involved in the enforcement cases. The extra workload, the complexity and the likely litigation that follows such cases ... implies significant expansion in our activities.”
The chief executive then said:
“We expect a 30-50% increase in mergers coming our way. However, these will tend to be bigger and more complex mergers. On the antitrust side we think we will do between five and seven large extra antitrust cases a year. That will mean an increase of at least 50% on our current workload in that area.”
Between the two of its own size, it is clear that the CMA found that cash was very important.
The chair went on:
“The key point on resources … is that we need approval for the extra cash that we need … We need the cash, but then we need the time to attract and recruit the talent and get them up to speed in terms of the work. We need to start having action relatively soon, given the timescales that we are talking about.”
Given that this was a few years ago, the timescales are now upon us because this Bill is where it all happens. On state aid, he said:
“We have no experience in this area … It would add, I would emphasise, to the expansion that we have to undertake anyway”—
that is, on the other side of the CMA’s work—
“and we would have to find the skills … given the lack of experienced people in the UK itself. It would be a challenge”.
The key challenge identified was the recruitment of lawyers. How is that going? As far as I can tell, lawyers do not come cheap and, with respect to my colleagues behind me, good lawyers come even less cheaply. It is a matter for the CMA to have the appropriate lawyers. At one point, the chief executive said that they are difficult to find and that
“we are now thinking about expanding our office in Scotland, to tap into talent there.”
So it will have talent from Scotland but no representation regarding the decision-making powers of the board—but there we are. He went on:
“We want to see where talent is and what we can do to attract people and keep them in the CMA.”
The price of the challenge was that of finding appropriate salary levels.
In replying, can the Minister tell us how much money, in raw terms, has been put into both sides of this equation: into the traditional work of the CMA, which has now fallen upon it because we have left the
European Union; and into the subsidies side? How many new lawyers has the CMA been able to attract? At the time, the chair said that there are lawyers working in private practice
“who are well experienced … in dealing with state aid applications”
on the side of the role now needed by the CMA. How many lawyers with this sort of experience have now been recruited, and at what level? Earlier, the noble Lord, Lord Lamont, talked about the need to have experience on the side of the regulator that is greater than the experience of the people operating the subsidies. We will need lawyers who are even more skilled and who have the greatest skill in managing this sort of operation. I repeat: I suspect that they do not come cheap.
In replying, can the Minister outline specifically where and when the recruitment will take place, how much money is on either side of the equation and whether the Government have a deadline for making sure that all the resources are in place? Also, I will continue to pursue my claim: can the Minister tell me when the Government will match the £780 per head that was promised and is now in the letter?