Corporate Businesses and Franchisees: Regulatory Environment

Richard Tice Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd July 2025 Commons Chamber

[Sir John Hayes]

That is certainly the risk. I think mergers more generally need to be looked at closely. It is why we have the Competition and Markets Authority, and why these things are indeed considered in the terms I have described.

More recently, of course, as my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East (Sir Julian Lewis) will know—as a former member of the Intelligence and Security Committee, of which I remain a member—the Government introduced other legislation in respect of security, large businesses, mergers and all kinds of similar and related matters. It is important to gauge the national interest in all kinds of ways when one considers business activity.

[Richard Tice (Boston and Skegness) (Reform)]

rose—

[Sir John Hayes]

However, I will say no more about that, as it would be digressing from my main theme, and I can see an eagerness to intervene—I give way to my neighbour.

[Richard Tice]

I am most grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for giving way. He makes a powerful case about the differences between small businesses, entrepreneurs, franchisees and the big corporates. Does he share my concern that franchisees suffer the risk of what is essentially corporate bullying from the mega-companies—the likes, potentially, of Vodafone—and that they do not have any form of umbrella regulatory comfort? Entities such as the British Franchise Association may sound effective, but they are actually toothless in the face of such corporate bullying.

[Sir John Hayes]

I have worked closely with the hon. Gentleman—as ever, he and I are on the same page here. He is absolutely right that franchising can be used as a method to exaggerate the power of the business at the heart of the franchise and to weaken the position of franchisees. My assertion is that that is common and is particular in the case of Vodafone.