Clause 20 - Duty to make references in relation to completed mergers
Enterprise Bill
3:30 pm
Mr Harry Barnes (North East Derbyshire, Labour)
I hope that that is the impact of the development that my hon. Friend describes, but it is doubtful whether that extra avenue will be sufficient to overcome the problems that I have suggested. I believe that other considerations should be taken into account.
What if I over-egged the pudding in connection with a firm like Biwater and it was nearer to the break point? If that were the case, the public interest factors, such as the distribution of employment in a deprived area, the distribution of industry and the important considerations of the export market, could tip it over the edge, and the case could be sent to the Competition Commission. That is another body that will have a further and wider look at the matter. The add-on is important, even if it is easier for the future equivalent of the Biwater workers to access the new OFT.
I now want to consider the position that the Government adopt when closures take place, and particular problems exist, in an area such as Clay Cross. Special measures can be taken and provisions used, but many of these take a considerably long time
to bite in terms of helping to create alternative forms of employment with something like the wage levels that existed previously. We therefore need something that allows us to ease ourselves into situations more dramatically than the extremes of pure market considerations allow. That is why making the competitive considerations the sole ones is important. Although it tempers the measure, it does not destroy it. I took the message from the British Bankers Association that it was all a foregone conclusion and that I would not be able to change what has taken place, although I live to fight another day. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.