UK Parliament / Open data

Online Safety Bill

My Lords, I enter the fray with some trepidation. In a briefing, Carnegie, which we all love and respect, and which has been fantastic in the background in Committee days, shared some concerns. As I interpret its concerns, when Ofcom was created in 2003 its decisions could be appealed on their merits, as the noble Lord has just suggested, to the Competition Appeal Tribunal, and I believe that this was seen as a balancing measure against an untested regime. What followed was that the broad basis on which appeal was allowed led to Ofcom defending 10 appeals per year, which really frustrated its ability as a regulator to take timely decisions. It turned out that the appeals against Ofcom made up more than 80% of the workload of the Competition Appeal Tribunal, whose work was supposed to cover a whole gamut of matters. When there was a consultation in the fringes of the DEA, it was decided to restrict appeal to judicial review and appeal on process. I just want to make sure that we are not opening up a huge and unnecessary delaying tactic.

Type
Proceeding contribution
Reference
831 c400 
Session
2022-23
Chamber / Committee
House of Lords chamber
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