The Enterprise Act 2002 (Specification of Additional Section 58 Consideration) Order 2026

Caroline Dinenage Excerpts

Monday 26th October 2026 General Committees

[Dame Caroline Dinenage (Gosport) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Barker. I will speak briefly in my role as the Chair of the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee. Telecoms is very new to our Committee’s remit, and indeed to that of the Secretary of State. I am very pleased to see her in her place today, and we look forward to scrutinising the Government’s work in this important area.

With that in mind, I have a few broad questions for the Secretary of State about the order. First, there are protections for vulnerable people and national infrastructure under previous legislation. I wonder if she could expand a little further on why she felt that they are insufficient for what she is seeking to achieve, in particular the protection of vulnerable customers.

Secondly, what assessment has the Secretary of State made of how frequently this provision is likely to be used beyond the particular circumstances of TalkTalk? Does she assess that there are any other issues with the overall financial resilience of broadband providers and potential future use for this legislation? Further to that, will she consider publishing guidance setting out the circumstances in which this new provision might be applied? What evidence of a risk to continuity of service would she expect to see before she was to intervene?

The continuity of telecoms services is obviously vital for consumers, but so are effective competition and opportunities to attract investment. Consumers rely on healthy competition to keep costs and bills down and to improve the quality of their broadband services, so how will the Secretary of State balance those objectives when assessing a merger? In particular, how does she assess the implications for competition of the BT-TalkTalk deal given that BT has a share of almost 40% of the broadband market alongside its ownership of Openreach? Without prejudicing the outcome of the investigation, does she think that the nexfibre-Netomnia deal raises similar questions about continuity of service and financial resilience, or does she see that there are important differences between the two cases?

Can the Secretary of State tell us what mechanisms exist to protect consumers in cases where a provider fails and no buyer can be found? She mentioned that that might have been an issue in this case, so I wonder whether the Government have the powers and tools needed to maintain continuity of service in those circumstances, and whether this legislation will actually help to offer that.

Finally, this process has been very fast. I understand that the CMA has now reported to the Secretary of State on BT and TalkTalk, but the pace of the process has been really unusual, with a very short window, in particular, for comments. Does she know on what basis the CMA decided on such a short window, and will she indicate when she expects to announce whether the matter will be referred for a more detailed investigation?

I look forward to the Secretary of State’s answers today and to her ongoing engagement with the Select Committee on the resilience and competitiveness of the telecoms sector.