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Part of Oral Answers to Questions — Justice – in the House of Commons at 3:32 pm on 6 May 2014.

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Photo of Vincent Cable Vincent Cable The Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills 3:32, 6 May 2014

There is nothing in the Enterprise Act 2002 —in retrospect, this is probably regrettable—that refers in any way to the issues that the right hon. Gentleman has described. I was part of those debates; I think he probably was, too. The only areas in which a public interest intervention is allowed under that legislation relate to national security and media plurality. Subsequently, banks were added; as they were overwhelmingly domiciled in the UK, that fell outside European legislation. Those are the very narrow grounds on which the existing legislation allows intervention.