Lord Leong (Lab)

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Wirral, for his contribution and for his support for the regulations. He is absolutely right that changing the main threshold to £25 million while maintaining the existing thresholds ensured a proportionate approach to scrutinising these subsidies. He is also right that, in 2023-24, there were 68 SSoPI referrals. Had the threshold been increased to £25 million, 19 subsidies would not have been referred to the CMA, meaning a saving of some 20%. That saved time and allowed the CMA to look at the other referrals. The CMA referral process was designed to foster good policy-making by public authorities across the UK and ensure an appropriate level of scrutiny for subsidies that are most likely to cause harm to competition—as mentioned by the noble Lord—trade or investment. These regulations will reverse the threshold for mandatory CMA scrutiny in a balanced and proportionate manner, reducing the administrative process while preserving robust oversight where it is most needed.