§ 13. Mr. AdleyTo ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster how many reports produced by the Monopolies and Mergers Commission in the last five years have been prompted by him; and how many have been initiated by the Monopolies and Mergers Commission itself.
§ Mr. MaudeThe Monopolies and Mergers Commission has no power to initiate investigations. It can investigate and report only on matters referred to it by Ministers, the Director General of Fair Trading, Director General of Telecommunications, Director General of Gas Supply, or the Civil Aviation Authority. In the last five years some 78 reports by the commission have been published. Of those my right hon. and noble Friend and his predecessors were responsible for initiating 54.
§ Mr. AdleyDoes my hon. Friend agree that there should be manifest evidence of widespread discontent before the Monopolies and Mergers Commission decides to investigate matters that are at the heart of our national life? Can my hon. Friend say whether his postbag or his constituency surgeries are bulging with letters or with discontented pub-goers, because mine are not? Is the commission short of work, or is Government policy perhaps dictated by liberal interventionism, as evidenced by my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Industry and Consumer Affairs?
§ Mr. MaudeAs I told my hon. Friend in my original reply, the MMC does not initiate investigations. The inquiry to which my hon. Friend makes oblique reference was referred to it by the Director General of Fair Trading in the belief that certain matters required investigation. The report that the commission produced bears that out. As to the contents of my postbag, I can tell my hon. Friend that I received at least as many representations in favour of implementing the MMC's report as I did against. We are weighing those representations very carefully to arrive at the right answer. When a report containing trenchant findings, as that report did, is produced it is clearly not an option for the Government to do nothing.
§ Mr. HoltWill my hon. Friend say out of the long list of people that he gave, which of them is the lunatic who referred the merger between William Hill and Mecca to the Monopolies and Mergers Commission? Whatever the outcome may be, the fact remains that William Hill, for which I had the pleasure of working for six years, no longer exists in its previous form. Its directors have either retired or resigned, and anything that the MMC does is now a complete waste of time and money.
§ Mr. MaudeNo doubt my hon. Friend will make his observations, in whatever form he feels is appropriate, to the Monopolies and Mergers Commission, which is carrying out that investigation. The reference was made on the very firm advice of the Director General of Fair Trading.