Submission to the Department of Business and Trade on the draft Strategic Steer to the Competition and Markets Authority

In our submission we highlight the following:

- The risk of undermining the CMA’s independence, particularly it if becomes more focused on how decisions are received by politicians, business and the media and, in effect, less focused on high quality decisions.

- Competition is beneficial long-term growth, and therefore weak regulation and enforcement of competition policy will hamper growth and accelerate the trend in increasing industry and market concentration and a decline in competition.

- De-prioritising international mergers contributes to the systematic underenforcement of merger control enabling continuous consolidation, and risking leaving UK consumers and businesses exposed to greater anti-competitive harms.

The CMA and the Government need to make full use of new DMCCA powers to protect the UK’s markets, digital sovereignty and democracy.