Asked by: Lord Bradshaw (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the ability of trading standards organisations to address consumer protection problems, including fraud; and whether they intend to increase the powers of such organisations to address those problems.
Answered by Lord Prior of Brampton
The Government is considering carefully the findings of the National Audit Office’s recent report “Protecting Consumers from Scams, Unfair Trading and Unsafe Goods”, published in December 2016. National Trading Standards already work closely with the Home Office Joint Fraud Taskforce to promote closer cooperation between industry, law enforcement and Government in order to protect the public from fraud.
The consumer protection regime will be further examined in the Consumer Green Paper to be published in spring 2017.
Asked by: Lord Bradshaw (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon on 19 October (HL2257), how much has been spent by departments other than the Department for Transport.
Answered by Baroness Neville-Rolfe - Minister of State (Cabinet Office)
There has been no further expenditure made by any other ministerial department into the Competition and Markets Authority inquiry regarding the overlap between Arriva buses and Arriva Trains.
As an independent non-ministerial department, the CMA is responsible for merger inquiries. In this role, it has spent approximately £480k (including staff time, legal fees and consulting fees) investigating the acquisition of the Northern rail franchise by Arriva Rail North Ltd. It is not possible to establish what proportion of this figure was spent on the assessment of the overlap between Arriva Buses and Arriva Trains.
Asked by: Lord Bradshaw (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government how many investigations have been conducted by the Competition and Markets Authority into the bus industry over the last 10 years and how the total number compares to other sectors in the transport industry.
Answered by Baroness Neville-Rolfe - Minister of State (Cabinet Office)
In the last ten years there were 43 investigations involving bus companies, 15 for rail, 11 for airports, 2 for trams, 1 for cars and 1 other.
These figures include investigations carried out by the Competition and Markets Authority’s predecessors (the Office of Fair Trading and the Competition Commission).
Asked by: Lord Bradshaw (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government how much has been spent by the Competition and Markets Authority conducting investigations into the bus industry, including fees paid to consultants and legal fees, over the last 10 years.
Answered by Baroness Neville-Rolfe - Minister of State (Cabinet Office)
The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) was formed in 2014 after the Office of Fair Trading and the Competition Commission were merged. It has the function to carry out investigations into sectors where there is risk of anti-competitive behaviour.
Since its inception in 2014, the CMA has carried out five Phase 1 merger investigations into the bus industry. The estimated cost for these investigations was £308,229.55. The Government does not hold information on the cost of individual investigations undertaken by the Office of Fair Trading or the Competition Commission.