Clause 57 - Intervention by Secretary of State
Enterprise Bill
6:45 pm
Miss Melanie Johnson (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Department of Trade and Industry; Welwyn Hatfield, Labour)
I take it that the amendment is probing, which the hon. Gentleman has confirmed. To date, we have had no representations. The purpose of the special public interest provision is to ensure that mergers of certain enterprises with special defence-related Government contracts can be investigated, even though they fall short of the competition thresholds. That provision applies to a small, narrowly defined subsection of merger cases, which have been developed to work under ministerial discretion, as with other public interest cases. However, unlike other national security cases, they will not be scrutinised on competition grounds as they do not meet competition thresholds. The amendment would remove the Government's ability to consider those special cases. That ability should exist, so I trust that in light of my explanation the hon. Gentleman will feel able to withdraw the amendment.