Member

I almost get a sort of PTSD when I think about this from my telecoms days, because we used to spend hours arguing with Ofcom and DCMS about merits-based appeal versus judicial review. The risks of merits-based appeal is that, when you have big tech with completely unlimited legal budgets fighting against minnows, a merits-based appeal can really slow down the work of a regulator. We do not have that in this case, as I sincerely hope that GBR is not going to have enormous legal budgets funded by the taxpayer to fight competition cases, and the independent retailers we are talking about are not of the scale of the tech titans. I therefore do not think that merits-based appeal is dangerous, and my experience from telecoms is that, in the beginning of a new regime, merits-based appeal can make the difference between the small independents surviving and them being killed while they win the argument in the courts. With that, I know I have used every second of my time. I promise I will sit down after moving my amendment. I beg to move.