Welcome to our final panel in our inquiry today. Mr Madders, we are incredibly grateful to you for joining us today, and for your patience. David and George, would you introduce yourselves for the record?

I am deputy director in the Department for Business and Trade, responsible for consumer protection.

I am the interim executive director for consumer protection and markets at the CMA.

Mr Lusty, before Mr Western opens the questioning with Minister Madders, can I ask you about the CMA report, back in 2010, that concluded its judgment on the merger of Ticketmaster and Live Nation? You will no doubt have read it ahead of this session, but I want to draw your attention to the sentence where it says: “we found that the merger of Ticketmaster and Live Nation was unlikely to result in a substantial lessening of competition in any UK market”. In retrospect, was that judgment a mistake?

The way that merger control looks at particular dynamics and markets has to be taken at the point in time, and that was the adjudication of the CMA’s predecessor body at that moment in time. You have to look at every proposed merger in the light of the circumstances that prevail. My role in particular is looking at consumer protection aspects and, as you are aware, we have had a broad programme of work looking particularly at issues in the ticket resale sector and the CMA’s recommendation, which I am very happy to come on to. More recently I obviously have a live investigation in relation to the circumstances of the Oasis reunion tour ticket sale as well.

This is a business that has an operating margin of 40% on its ticketing business, and that margin has doubled. That shows that competitive dynamics do not appear to be functioning terribly well.

The particular focus of the work I have been leading at the CMA is really on that sort of core consumer protection area—whether people are being treated fairly, and can trust what they see—which applies to any trader irrespective of their market power or size. That is the sole focus of the investigation we have launched.

Are consumers who use Ticketmaster being adequately protected today?

I cannot talk specifically about the Oasis reunion tour investigation.

But they sell many other tickets.

We do not comment at large about whether any particular trader is complying with consumer law. What we expect though, under the general law, is that people can trust what they see, that they are not subject to misleading actions or omissions as they go through a sales process, that they are not subjected to undue pressure or aggressive sales practices, and that they are treated fairly in the terms and conditions that bind them.

We were just invited to believe that one half of Live Nation in the UK does not co-ordinate, collaborate or conspire with another part of Live Nation in the UK to set ticket prices. Do you believe that?

If we are talking specifically about the behaviour of Ticketmaster or other parties in connection with the Oasis reunion tour, I need to be very careful because that is an ongoing investigation.

That case aside, what about the rest of its business?

I really am not well placed to comment on that. We have looked through the particular prism of this investigation using our consumer protection powers.

Minister, in the first panel you heard consumer groups saying how important transparency and predictability in market pricing are for consumers. How do the Government plan to get the right balance between consumer protection and a fair and reasonable objective of profitability on the part of a provider?

First, thank you for allowing me the opportunity to come and speak to you today. I found the earlier evidence sessions fascinating from a number of different perspectives. We would take the view that, as you heard in the first evidence session, dynamic pricing probably has been around for as long as there has been capitalism, and it was called something else. What has happened in recent years is that we have seen a real sort of speeding up of the way that it operates: technology has been used to deal with this in real time in particular sectors, in effect. Obviously we are looking at the live events sector in particular, and how dynamic pricing operates in that. We are about to scope out some further research into how personalised pricing works as well. I noticed from one of the questions earlier that there is a sense that something is not always right, but I am not sure we have the evidence at the moment to support that assertion. We come from a point of view that we want consumers to be empowered, which means that they have to have transparency and confidence that what they see on the website, when they enter it, is going to be the price they pay at the end of it. There are going to be significant new powers in the next month or so through the DMCC Act, which will certainly help in that respect. Obviously the call for evidence is also going to be assisting us in understanding the scope of this issue.

I am sure many of us would agree with your point that historically there has been variable pricing. We heard earlier from the hospitality sector—I think you were in the room—that there has been differential pricing such as on different days, different parts of day, different parts of week. But they are advertised and that is absolutely fair. What we are perhaps getting into with this is that we are seeing dynamic pricing on steroids, where it is variable by second. The great difference that is beginning to become increasingly clear from this session is that it is not advertised. I want to look at the area of public bodies. There has been some discussion out there about how we might see variable pricing in, say, energy finance or transportation and train companies—I think LNER might be talking about this. How do the Government view this, and where do they think they are going to fall?

DBT is responsible for the overall framework. The specific areas that you have mentioned are more for those particular Departments in terms of how prices operate.

We need some sort view of across Government, do we not?

Yes we do. I start from the point of view that—to draw an analogy—if someone goes to a supermarket and take something off the shelf that says it costs this much, as a matter of principle I do not think they should then expect it to be a different price at the checkout. Nor should they then to be told that they have 20 seconds to make up their mind whether they wish to accept that or not and, in fact, that if they do not accept that price that is their opportunity to purchase that product gone forever. There are clear tramlines I would like to see as a basic starting point, but obviously in different sectors of the economy there are other approaches that would be necessary, particularly for things that have a wider social utility.

You have just described Ticketmaster’s business model. Are you concerned about Ticketmaster’s business model?

I would say, Chairman, that the evidence spoke for itself in terms of the questions that were being asked and the answers that were being given. I will be waiting quite interestedly to see what the Committee’s overall conclusions are following that; clearly there is an ongoing investigation as well.

Mr Lusty, in terms of the scope of work that the CMA is doing, how is your work compared to that of the Government, and how do you think it is aligning?

Alongside the Ticketmaster investigation we have started our own projects looking at the case for and against dynamic pricing when it comes to the impact on members of the public and the impact on competition. Interestingly, going back to your question about sectors like rail, rail is within the scope of that exercise. We have identified six sectors—airlines, rail, taxis, retail, events and leisure, and hotels—where we are gathering information about the use of dynamic pricing. We are speaking to all the UK’s leading consumer groups with an interest in the matter, and with academics as well. We are hoping to use that database to provide really useful information to assist the Department in its own review, this Committee, and all the consultations that the Minister has mentioned—the ones the CMA wants to contribute to and bring its knowledge to the table.

Just to be clear, you use the term dynamic pricing and you mean dynamic pricing; you do not mean variable pricing or drip pricing. Or are you looking in the round at all elements where there may be differences in price being offered to a consumer?

Just pinning down a definition of dynamic pricing is genuinely very difficult, because at some level it is simply a price that responds to demand, and to some extent that could be said of all prices. We are looking in particular at new trends in dynamic pricing and how well that is understood by every day consumers. As we have heard from this Committee, there are some circumstances in which people are experiencing dynamic pricing for the first time and in a very different way, and that is combined with other practices that could create problems. But we are looking at both sides of it, including the things that dynamic pricing allows businesses to do in terms of being able to enter markets that they might not otherwise enter and to smooth demand, which in itself might help to keep prices low. We are looking across the piece to be able to give a really informed input into Government decision making.

Minister, thanks very much for sitting in on the other sessions; that was kind of you. For the benefit of the other gentlemen, as per public information, Live Nation Ticketmaster has 25% of the festival market, 46% of the top 60 venue box offices, 60% of event promotion market, and 40% to 50% of the primary ticketing market. So we have massive market shares, massive vertical integration and—I am not talking Oasis because we are not talking about that today—massive market abuse. Is that not enough information to start an investigation? If not, why is it not enough information? What else do you need?

In particular we are working through the parameters of the specific consumer protection approach. I completely accept that there are other ways that could be used with different tools that the CMA has to look at broader issues in the sector. At the same time the Government are calling for evidence and are consulting on consumer protections and ticketing generally. The way we are intending to approach the issues we see before us at the moment is to feed into those consultations, give our view, and bring the expertise from all the enforcement action we have taken in the secondary ticket sector, with the recommendations the CMA made in 2021 for how that could be improved.

Correct me if I am wrong, but I think that means no investigation soon into this company specifically and its market shares.

There is no broader investigation at the moment beyond the Ticketmaster one, and our broader response to those consultations, and a project on dynamic pricing.

Do you think the CMA is too slow to pick up these issues?

The CMA has a broad programme of work across the whole UK economy, in particular trying to tackle unfair and misleading business practices. We have been incredibly active on cost of living issues in key sectors such as groceries, housing and travel.

I get that, but is Ticketmaster not a case in point that the CMA has been asleep at the wheel on increasing market concentration in Britain in a way that is much more pronounced than other western economies, and that has now left us really vulnerable to sharp practice and the use of dynamic pricing in the way we have seen in the Ticketmaster case?

I do not think that is fair. The Ticketmaster investigation that we talked about earlier was launched within a matter of days of concerns being raised about the manner of the sale of tickets for the Oasis tour. It is also important to note that we are still operating within our existing toolkit; as other witnesses before the Committee have mentioned, that is going to get a very significant upgrade in the spring. That will give the CMA direct enforcement powers for the first time and the ability to levy civil fines. That gives us substantially more leverage in how we are able to move our cases forward. We can directly order redress so that people get their money back, which could be as the result of a direction from the CMA. That really takes consumer protection law to a whole new level: it equalises the CMA’s consumer protection and competition functions, which will allow us to move forward with more impact at a greater pace as well.

We will come back to this in a moment.

Thank you for taking the time this afternoon, Minister. Other panels have spoken about the Government consulting on a plan to cap the price of resale tickets. While we are aware that consultations are going on in other regulated markets such as energy that may change or remove price caps, is there a risk that not having a uniform approach makes the UK quite a confusing place to do business?

I would not agree with that. What we are looking at, particularly in terms of secondary ticking, is a very specific issue that has been a source of frustration for many consumers up and down the country. Clearly it is subject to a level of price inflation that is not really seen in other areas. It is a one-off event that creates a premium for that particular product and people have taken advantage of that to make excessive profits. It is right that we look at what tools we have available to try to tackle that.

I was very impressed to see the CMA’s announcement on 22 February of the investigation into Google and Apple. I was concerned to see the chair depart very quickly two days later. I was surprised to see the choice of an ex-Amazon UK boss as the new chair of the CMA. I have a whole load of examples of what the public and the press had to say about that—words like “foxes” and “hen houses” were bandied around the public domain. What sort of message do you think those timescales and actions send to the markets and the public?

It sends a message that we are open to business for international investment. You might say foxes and hen house; you might also say poacher turned gamekeeper. It is important that we have someone who understands the tech sector, because that is clearly an area that is going to be an incredible amount of the CMA’s focus over the next few years. It is also fair to say that the individual has other jobs on his CV that are not related to the tech sector at all, but the conclusion drawn was that our ambitions for growth were better met by a new chair.

The CMA is about promoting and ensuring the proper working of open, fair competition. If you appoint somebody who was in charge of a company that has very strong, maybe dominant, market shares in the UK, yes, you might say the messaging is pro-growth, but if we are going to grow our country, it is about innovation, and monopolistic practices crimp innovation. Do you recognise that as a risk?

I am sure there are processes in place to make sure that there is no direct involvement between individual investigations that might have involved companies that the new chair has been involved in previously. But as you have said yourself, the CMA has only recently announced an investigation into Google and Apple, which shows that we are willing to take on big tech in terms of the way it is operating.

It would show it more if you did not lose your chair two days later. Anyway, thank you.

We look forward to the confirmation hearings in this Committee in due course.

Mr Lusty, your latest “State of UK Competition” report has shown how the average level of price mark-up at the largest firms is significantly greater than at the median firm. Can the pricing approaches taken by businesses help to explain some differences?

The particular methodology of the report does not allow us to say with certainty that it is bound up with the specific pricing practices that are driving those trends and mark-ups; we can only observe that data more generally. If we are talking about the specifics of dynamic pricing and the focus of this Committee’s inquiry, we certainly see that firms with a position of existing market power using dynamic pricing practices might be able to use that to sustain that market power and prevent fiercer competition from flourishing.

How should that be tackled so that it is not just dominated by one group of people, company or organisation?

Ultimately, through the work of the CMA we want to see the combination of robust consumer protection, to make sure that consumers are taking the choices that are right for them, not influenced by misleading or aggressive sales practices, alongside our broader toolkit, particularly our competition function, to make sure that the conditions are right for businesses to be able to grow, expand and invest in the UK. We are also using our markets toolkit to look at things that might act as barriers to that aim. Indeed, we are actively looking through our engagements on our annual plan to seek views on the areas where the CMA should best target that work, and areas where there may be things that are stopping competition from flourishing and businesses from being able to grow and expand in the UK.

Minister, larger firms providing products and services to customers will undoubtedly have more sophisticated technology, data and influence algorithms to get consumers to change or leverage their behaviour to buy. Do you think the balance of power in markets, especially the digital ones, has now been tipped too far towards those big companies?

That is something we are currently looking at in terms of the call for evidence. There are, as we have already discussed, a number of different techniques or methodologies that are used to persuade people to buy products. We have to go back to first principles, which are: is this operating in a fair and transparent way that actually encourages consumer choice and competition? We will have to keep an ongoing eye on this because technology is clearly evolving and new techniques are coming out all the time. This is why this inquiry is so welcome. We need to deal with where we are now but also have one eye on where the world is going to go next.

George, you just mentioned things that hamper competition; do you not think that a major events organiser in the UK being part of the same business as the UK’s biggest ticket sellers reduces choice and competition?

I feel well placed to comment specifically only on the framework through which we are looking at this, which is the compliance with consumer protection. The investigation is not looking at those broader issues of vertical integration. Obviously, wearing my other hat and looking at the CMA markets toolkit, we do look at the impact that vertical integration market concentration can have, the barriers that that might create and how that may lead to adverse effects for competition and consumers. Of course I recognise that as a broader principle.

Minister, what are your views on Live Nation and Ticketmaster being together? Do you feel that actually they should not be?

It would be useful to hear from Live Nation themselves as there were an awful lot of questions that were probably begging more questions from the witness earlier on. I do not know whether that is something you want to do.

That suggestion is noted, Minister, thank you very much indeed.

All right.

Mr Lusty, is it not true that in a range of sectors in our economy market concentration has grown over the last 10 to 15 years?

As your colleague on the Committee mentioned earlier, we have looked at it recently, particularly through looking at trends in terms of mark-ups. We think that is quite a helpful way to look at the state of market power more generally, but I do accept that in certain sectors we have seen increasing concentration. Sometimes that comes with benefits and, indeed, it must be noted that vertical integration can often come with benefits in terms of the innovation and access to broader products and services that that brings. We are looking at similar issues through our veterinary services market study at the moment, for instance, and looking at what has happened through the increase in the number of large veterinary groups. In many areas that has driven an increase in really excellent diagnostic practices, but it had impacts in other areas that we are looking at as well through that investigation.

Is it fair to say the answer is, yes?

I do not feel well-placed to comment across the economy generally, particularly because the function that I lead is looking particularly at compliance with consumer protection in particular circumstances. When the CMA uses its markets tools it is looking at a particular sector of the economy and whether there are features of that market that need to be addressed directly by the CMA rather than looking at the landscape as a whole. However, the “State of UK Competition” report that we issued does give you that broader sense of how competitive the UK economy is as a whole.

The conclusion is that it is not good and that market concentration is leading to more and more consumers being ripped-off, including by some of the biggest firms in the country. When you look at the mark-ups that our largest companies are getting away with, is it not the case that those mark-ups are much higher than in other countries?

We accept that there has been a reduction in market dynamism through the different indicators that are covered in that report.

Okay, so what has the CMA been doing all this time?

It is really important to note that we are also on the cusp of the CMA’s toolkit, particularly on the consumer protection side, and our ability to tackle rip-offs and problems facing the public is being massively upgraded. That is really welcome—we have been calling for it since 2017—and we are really pleased to be on the cusp of being able to access those new powers and drive that positive impact. It is fair to say that we are not seeing the standards of compliance with the consumer law that we would like to see, and we think that has partly been down to the enforcement regime not being as strong as it needed to be to deal with those issues.

So you would dissuade us from concluding that the CMA was asleep at the wheel, and you would prefer us to conclude that the CMA did not have the powers to do the job?

The CMA has been very actively calling for those powers and has been working really constructively with the Government to push them through. We are standing ready to enforce under those new powers.

Minister, we have just heard about some those powers. Can we still expect that the enforcement ability under parts 3 and 4 of the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act is going to come into force? That includes the ability to levy fines on businesses of 10% of global turnover. Can you tell us more about that?

Yes, that is all due to come into force in April and, as we have heard very clearly from the evidence, this is something that is recognised across all parties and by the CMA itself as something that has been long overdue. The challenge is then for the CMA to be able to deliver on that. There are going to be some new rules coming in on drip pricing and subscription traps as well. We are consulting on the precise detail of that, so it will probably be next year before that actually comes into force. But we are very clear that we want consumers to be empowered in this country. We absolutely understand the need for them to have the ability to have fairness when they are dealing with business.

What is the tone you want to set, and what is it that you would like to achieve, therefore, with this new legislation?

To sum it up in one word, it would probably be fairness: people understanding when they are buying something what they are going to be paying for; that there are no hidden costs; that there is transparency about what this all means; people being able to buy something without anything being added on later; and that there is an ability to get out of contracts if they have been signed up to things inadvertently. Where there are market abuses, the CMA has the tools to really act on it, and that is what we want to see. We absolutely want to put more money in people’s pockets, which means clamping down on rip-off companies.

The key change when it comes to the Act, as compared with the law as it stands right now, is in relation to drip pricing. There is now going to be a much more specific and explicit requirement to include all unavoidable elements of a price up front, and that is no longer subject to a test that it has to have changed someone’s purchasing decision. More generally, looking at broader issues about dynamic and variable pricing, the legislation is largely as was, but what is changing is the enforcement framework around it, and in particular the much stronger powers for the CMA, with the upgrade to the existing civil court-based framework. That means the key test is whether the presentation of the price was fair in the sense that it avoided misleading acts and omissions, that the trader acted with professional diligence in how it operated the sales process, and that there was no element of undue influence or aggressive sales practices in the process. Those are the tests that we would apply to determine whether variable or dynamic pricing is compliant with the law.

Pricing has been a huge issue for the CMA. We have looked at it through various lenses, whether that has been loyalty pricing in supermarkets, unit pricing legislation, accurate pricing or reference pricing, where we have recently taken court action. What we would like to see is that traders operate clear, fair pricing practices that people can understand from the get-go, and that people do not get caught out and do not get pricing combined with other types of choice architecture, such as misleading online sales techniques that put them under pressure. We also acknowledge that that is what most businesses want to do because they want their customers to have a really good experience of dealing with them and to come back. That consumer trust and confidence is absolutely essential to the growth of the economy as well, and we recognise that.

It is a highly bespoke regime that applies to digital markets—both the process of designating a particular firm with SMS and then, in the light of that designation, considering what the appropriate conduct requirements are. It is possible that elements of one of those designated firms’ pricing practices could play into that, but it is also important to remember that all those businesses are still subject to the general law too, which means they are subject to the risks of enforcement action if their pricing practices do not comply with competition or consumer law.

Let me turn to the new subscription contracts regime, in respect of trying to cancel a contract and the near impossibility of doing that as a human being. Royal Assent was received last May, your consultation ends next Monday, and there is no date set for implementation, but it is next spring. What is going on for a year, from the consultation closing to this actually being implemented? It just feels like more time for us all to be ripped-off.

There is a consultation process, as you have mentioned.

Which finishes next Monday, yes.

It was a cross-party agreement in the last Parliament, as the Bill went through. The main consideration was the fact that it is quite a big operational change for the businesses affected, and the consensus was that a slightly longer lead-in time for commencement was necessary.

Do you have a clear date?

We have said spring.

As we know in Whitehall, spring is a pretty elastic concept.

What about getting radical and saying 1 February?

Spring would only mean April, so we will either commence in April or October. But we have finished the consultation, we will review the evidence and then we will be able to announce a precise date.

Spring means 1 April, in that case?

It will either be April or October.

October is not spring, is it?

No, but we have said by spring. It really depends on what we have heard from the consultation. It finishes next week and then we will set out a date after that.

Right. We will exchange some correspondence on that point.

On the poverty premium, we all know that poorer households and areas face higher costs for purchasing the same goods and services, including paying higher prices for groceries when they need to purchase them at convenience stores rather than out-of-town supermarkets or larger supermarkets, due to their lack of mobility or access to cheaper alternatives. Minister, is the Department concerned about the evidence showing how the costs of price variability may fall unevenly on poorer households? If so, what are we doing about it? Colleagues at the CMA, what evidence has the CMA observed in this area?

Obviously we are always keeping an eye on these things and clearly, in particular sectors such as energy, telecoms and financial services, there are measures that those sectors have brought in to make sure that those on low incomes are not prejudiced by particular products being put at a different or a higher price. Obviously a good example of that is social tariffs. In terms of supermarket pricings, I think there was some research done on it not so long ago, but I am not up to speed on it. That is probably something the CMA may be better placed to answer on.

That is right, and we completely recognise what you have described in terms of that discrepancy for those who cannot access larger stores, who do not have access to as many big retailers around them or cannot shop online, and that for them there is a different experience. Our recent work in groceries has looked at a number of aspects of how price competition is working, and has concluded that, in general terms, there is very healthy retail price competition in the UK grocery sector. In particular, we have looked at consumer law compliance as part of that, and ways that unit pricing rules could be changed so that people can easily identify what is the best value for money across a product range. We have looked how loyalty price promotions work, recognising that in some respects those can be exclusionary, if people under a certain age or who are digitally excluded cannot access those promotions, and we recommended that retailers take steps to close that gap. Fundamentally, we have looked at the nuts and bolts of correct and accurate pricing. The CMA has been out and about in store inspections alongside our Trading Standards counterparts across the UK to make sure the rules are being followed. More broadly, we have been trying to understand what is going on with the core drivers of grocery price inflation, and have reported in three subsequent reports. As I say, we have mostly concluded that those markets are healthy, but there is a warning sign in relation to baby formula in particular, leading the CMA to undertake an in-depth market study that will be reporting very soon.

I am looking forward to the results of that report.

On that point, Mr Lusty, do you think it is reasonable that the elderly, the less mobile and younger students who do not have access to a vehicle have to pay a price premium for the same brand store in a town as opposed to an out-of-town store?

We recognise that we would like to see as many people as possible benefit from the vibrant competition that they get when they have many retailers around them. But we recognise that for those who are in remote communities, who do not have access to transport, who cannot shop online or who cannot access loyalty price discounts because of their eligibility criteria, not everyone is able to access the benefits of that more vibrant retail price competition. Of course we want to see as much done to close that gap as possible so that more people can benefit.

In the last three years I have done a basket comparison of goods between an out-of-town and an in-town retailer, and the difference is about 20% between the two Tesco stores. Have you done analysis of that in the last three years?

Yes, we have looked at that.

What have you done as a result?

In particular we have made a number of recommendations to Government about areas where the law could change. We have taken action where we have seen inaccurate prices, to make sure that those are being addressed. We have looked at the dynamics of loyalty price promotions and made recommendations to retailers about more that they need to do. It is also an area where the CMA has previously used its enforcement powers where it has needed to, to tackle misleading pricing practices. More generally, what we see in the UK groceries market is a really vibrant market where there is a healthy state of retail price competition. I do not think we should be afraid to say that. There are certainly excluded groups, and the gap needs to be narrowed there. If you look across to other jurisdictions where there is much less competition in the grocery sector and very limited numbers of stores, you see evidence of poor practice and misleading and unfair commercial practices. The healthy state of competition in our grocery sector is driving good behaviour.

To go back to the specifics about online and the dynamic pricing we have been talking about, a lot of consumers are very upset in the sense that retailers and providers are using data that they are collecting—cookies, browsing histories and so on—to establish disadvantageous pricing for that particular consumer. Have you collected any evidence on that?

We have looked at that in certain specific investigations.

Do you have evidence of it?

We have looked at the loyalty price promotions in particular and the way in which data is used, and how the use of that data is explained by groceries retailers. That has not revealed a concern to us about the use of data—that the use of data in that context is inappropriate—or that any misleading statements are being made. It must also be recognised that often that data is being used to personalise discounts and offers that people are able to access.

What about airline companies and so on? We have heard a lot about groceries, and you seem to be quite strong on and feel comfortable talking about groceries, but what about airlines?

It is important that whatever use of personal data is being made is very clearly understood. That can bear down in a number of ways. The CMA has been active in travel sectors looking at the role that commission plays, for instance, when people book hotel rooms, and looking at the pricing practices of car hire firms as well. If people’s data is used in ways that they would not expect or, indeed, used against them in a way that they would not expect to take advantage of data that is inappropriate to use, which might include from an equalities consideration as well, then that would be a very real cause for concern.

How would you know that?

Ultimately, we would need to look at it in the context of a particular sector. The CMA has the investigative powers that it needs to find out what is going on, and to understand exactly what is being used and how that is being explained to the public.

Minister, are you concerned that consumers’ data may be used by companies to exploit consumers?

Yes, I am, and I have actually asked the Department to look into this issue again. I understand that they did some research a few years ago that indicated that the use of personalised data was quite limited in terms of online sales, and where it was in place it tended to increase prices by only about 0.5%. Instinctively that felt like something we needed to challenge, so we have asked the Department to go back and look at it again, because it feels like it is something that is probably happening more. Of course, as consumers we can never be sure of exactly what is going on.

In terms of policy work, what are you doing to try to establish more transparent pricing?

It was mainly picking up that research. The initial finding was that price personalisation was fairly limited, which you heard from the panel earlier as well. It feels a little counterintuitive, hence we are rerunning the research. We will do primary research later this year and test a panel of consumers and their journey through websites to see whether prices are personalised. The thing we are trying to do here—the public policy challenge—is to distinguish personalisation that leads to consumer detriment, and distinguish it from personalisation that can be beneficial through cheaper prices. We need to establish that and establish our understanding of the problem before intervening.

Minister, you will be aware that the Treasury has set up a new Financial Inclusion Committee. It is going to be looking at a variety of things, but one of them is buy now, pay later. How involved is the business Department in that conversation?

We obviously are very supportive of that work. One of the members of the Committee is the chief executive of Citizens Advice, who we fund through the Department. We are also pleased to note that the Money and Mental Health Policy Institute is part of that Committee. It is early days in terms of what it is going to come up with, but certainly, as the Department responsible for consumers, we will be following it very closely.

Should the business Department and the CMA not be intimately involved in that committee?

Buy now, pay later is quite an active area of Treasury policy development, so the membership looks right to us now, but we stand ready to respond to recommendations and so on. As the Minister mentioned, we support some of the members directly as well.

Thank you very much. This has almost been the opening of a conversation about our work together to try to bring consumer prices down, and to ensure that competition is fair. We have heard a lot of recognising problems and wishing problems would change, but not a lot of fixing problems, so we are really looking forward to hearing from the new chair of the CMA when we conduct those confirmation hearings. Minister, it has been really useful to hear your perspective on this. Thank you so much for sitting through the session; that was really appreciated. On a final point, I would be grateful for your advice on any other things that it would be helpful for us as a Committee to look at when it comes to consumer protection, and other areas of research that we could reflect on.

At the moment I am thinking quite broadly about the whole consumer landscape. It seems pretty fragmented in terms of how individuals enforce their rights. Obviously, we are hoping that the CMA’s new powers are going to go a long way in terms of delivering that. I know you have picked up the issue with trading standards, which is something that is certainly on our radar as well. We are beginning to think about how we get a more joined-up and effective consumer enforcement role for everyone in this country which, to be honest, is something that has been neglected for far too long.

Hear, hear. Thank you very much indeed. That concludes this panel and this sitting.