Enterprise Act 2002 (Specification of Additional Section 58 Consideration) Order 2020

Lord Holmes of Richmond Excerpts

Wednesday 15th July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Holmes of Richmond (Non-Afl) [V]]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend the Minister for the clear and comprehensive manner in which he introduced these orders. I declare my interests as set out in the register.

I fully endorse the comments of my noble friend Lord Lansley apropos the urgent need for an updated and applicable definition of “media” in the Act, and I ask my noble friend how this work is progressing. Will the Government consider looking at the level of public investment in businesses and at whether they would be in need of, and would take a positive attitude towards having, protection against hostile mergers and acquisitions activity? There have been a number of high-profile cases of incredibly successful businesses that have been well run but built largely on public money. Should there not be the potential to block these takeovers, with the Government, in investing in these companies with public money, taking a more direct stake? This could add to potential work on a sovereign wealth fund. I would welcome my noble friend’s comments on that.

Finally, will the Government consider adding to the list of areas that he set out? Of course it should include AI and cyber, but will he and the Government consider looking at distributed ledger technology, nanotechnology and some specific aspects of financial technology—fintech—which I believe would also warrant being included in the list? Not least of those is distributed ledger technology, which is likely to become one of the most powerful forces globally and on which the UK has a real edge, which is worth protecting. Perhaps in conclusion I may gently point my noble friend towards the report that I wrote in 2017: Distributed Ledger Technologies for Public Good. I would be very happy to discuss this with him and would welcome his comments on these areas.