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Digital Economy Bill [HL]

My Lords, I support the noble Baroness, Lady Bonham-Carter, and I hope that her lucky run from earlier in the Report stage will continue today. I moved an amendment in Committee suggesting that media mergers be moved from the Competition Commission to Ofcom as a knowledgeable specialist surveyor of the media marketplace. I withdrew my amendment at that stage and, within a week, the Competition Commission announced that, after three years of deliberation, it would not make any significant changes to CRR. Had my amendment been moved after that decision was announced, I would have been strongly pressed to push the matter to a vote and I suspect that I might have had considerable support throughout the House. As the noble Baroness said, this amendment does not pronounce on CRR; it simply gives the Secretary of State power to review it. It is the minimum position that we should aim for. We are in something of a mess in terms of media mergers and, frankly, the Competition Commission has not been on top of the job. It seriously worries me that a good government Bill, which among other things does quite a lot to help the commercial sector in both television and radio, will find its best efforts vitiated by the Competition Commission refusing to move on matters such as CRR. All the improvements that the Government are bringing about through the Bill could well be vitiated if that situation is maintained. I support the amendment.