Clause 54 - Cooling off period following mandatory referral

Part of Subsidy Control Bill – in a Public Bill Committee at 12:00 pm on 4 November 2021.

Alert me about debates like this

Photo of Kirsty Blackman Kirsty Blackman Scottish National Party, Aberdeen North 12:00, 4 November 2021

I have spent years looking at education reports and care inspectorate reports. There are criteria for giving marks and a particular language is used—something is good, poor or dreadful. Is the Minister expecting that “serious deficiencies” will be used by the CMA in the report? Will it say, “We consider there to be serious deficiencies”, which the Secretary of State would consider to be a red flag, resulting in the potential extension of the cooling-off period? Does the Minister think the CMA will do that explicitly, or will the Secretary of State have to read between the lines and try to work out how bad things are? We do not know how the reports will be structured, so it would be helpful if the Minister could make clear whether the Secretary of State is going to understand the meaning of the reports and whether the SAU would seek an extension to the cooling-off period because it believed there were serious deficiencies.