July 10, 2025 • 20 mins
Earlier this year, the UK government directed its antitrust watchdog, the Competition and Markets Authority, to be "less risk averse" and to align more closely with its pro-growth agenda. We invited the CMA's interim chair Doug Gurr to update us on that mission and to explain what the group is doing to support the government's pledge to make it easier for businesses and the economy to grow.
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
Welcome to in the City. Each week we unpack a
story that's crucial to the world's financial capitals.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
I'm Francin Laqua and I'm Alecrastraton.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Now we've just passed the one year anniversary of Labor's
massive election win. And remember at the time of pre
election Labor we're talking growth and actually there was a
lot of hope on what the UK could become.
Speaker 1 (00:36):
Right, and the then Shadow Chancellor, Rachel Reeves was having
lots and lots of breakfast meetings with top figures in
the city called the smoked Salmon and scrambled Eggs Circuit,
and she was giving speeches on how, if elected, the
Labor government would, among other things, loosen regulations to make
it easier for businesses to grow and for mergers to happen.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
But a year in there's so many questions about whether
we have had any meaningful success in that area. Now
government ministers did actually oust the previous chair of the
Competition and Markets Authority the CMA in January for failing
to display a good enough plant for growth. And so
we thought that we'd check in with the CMA to
see what kind of progress they've made so far.
Speaker 3 (01:14):
Welcome to the City of London, the City of the
City of London. Then please mind the gap between the
and the financial heart of the country.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
The city, the city.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
Welcome to in the city, clear of the downs.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
So to give us an overview of the regulatory landscape
in the UK right now and also an outlook on
UK growth, we're joined by the interim Chair of the CMA,
Doug Doug was appointed as the interim chair in January.
He was previously a partner at McKinsey, a founder and
CEO of internet startup Blueheath, and he also sat on
the board of Asda Walmut for five years. And actually
(02:01):
that's just the start of it. There's lots and lots
of other things he's done. Doug, thank you so much
for joining us. We often speak to individuals who have
quite kind of straightforward backgrounds, but yours is it's not
on straightforward. But you have done great number of things
in your career, including right now. Just let me for
the listeners, let me just rattle through things you have
done and then let's get on to what you are
(02:21):
doing right now. So you have been chairman of the
British Heart Foundation University maths and computing teacher, a civil servant.
I didn't know that bit.
Speaker 3 (02:29):
Which department was the demand for transport many years ago? Wow?
Speaker 1 (02:32):
Okay? And now as well as being the interim chair
of the CMA, you are also still the director of
the Natural History Museum.
Speaker 3 (02:40):
Absolutely yes. How do you do it all? Well, it's
like it's like anybody. If you're passionate about what you
do and you have amazing teams, you can hopefully try
and drive things forward. Love the work we do at
the Naturalist Museum, but absolutely thrilled to be indicted to
take on this role at the CMA.
Speaker 2 (02:56):
Is it the same skill sets for all of them
to leaderanizations or do you really have to adapt to
who you work for.
Speaker 3 (03:04):
Look, I've been very, very fortunate of my career to
have the opportunity to work for lots of different organizations.
I've worked here, I've worked in China, And you know,
when you really come down to it, people are people.
You know, the organizations the motivations are pretty similar, so
you know, you'll tend to find that different organizations are
different characteristics. I think much organizations tend to be the
best at getting stuff done. But actually when you look
(03:25):
at some of the nonprofit or the charity sector, they're
much better at thinking through complex environments and multiple objectives.
So hopefully if you can bring a little bit of
all of those worlds together, you know, it's well, so far,
so good, let's say, but you'll probably tell me later.
Speaker 1 (03:41):
At the Competition and Markets Authority, just tell us you
were given quite an explicit remit by a government that
came in and was very clear that it needed to
reduce regulation to get economic growth.
Speaker 3 (03:53):
Yeah, I'm really pleased you picked up on that word
growth because if we take it back to growth, as
we all know, it's quite in time. Right now, the
tax burden is very high. We do want to invest
in our public services, and we absolutely want to deliver
prosperity for our citizens, and by far the best and
probably the only way through that is economic growth. So
that has been the imperative. If we can deliver growth,
(04:14):
then we can improve citizens' lives, we can invest in
public services, and those are the two things we have
to do. So when I got the call to say
could you come in and look at this, in some
ways it was it was a very simple call because
you know, if you take growth as the imperative, and
personally I'm delighted that the government's focusing on growth, then
as you know, many things contribute to that, but one
of the most important is business investment, and again that's
(04:35):
an area where the UK has struggled for the past
few years. Our investment levels have been bottom of the
G seven for quite a long time now, and that's
both domestic investment, it's large multinationals and it's also the
venture money. How do we reassure that this is the
best place to invest. So in a sense, the remit
was very simple. If I can go back to my
maths days, it's what we used to call a constrained
optimization problem, you know, in other words, how do you
(04:57):
maximize the environment for business investments, but do it in
a way where you don't let go of the importance
of a belief in strong competition and a belief in
consumer protection. So that was effectively the brief But it.
Speaker 2 (05:09):
Can have been easy because you get the call and
you're replacing someone who was outed. So I guess intronally
there are many questions about who are we, how do
you change? How do you get over the scandal?
Speaker 1 (05:19):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (05:20):
So look, it's always a privilege to be invited to
serve and I do think if you come back to
that business investment and growth, I do think an organization
at the CMA has a really important role to play.
And in a sense, what therefore, who you've been doing.
We've been focusing on three things. I mean, first, we
have listened really carefully to that feedback and just challenged
ourselves to say, how can we actually transform the operation
(05:42):
of the CMA. So we started with mergers, but by
the end of this month, which will be six months in,
we will have gone through every aspect of the CMA's operation.
So that's the thing. One I think thing too, and
it's likely goes back to your earlier question about different areas,
is you know, really trying to ramp up the level
of engagement and that's both massively increasing the level of
list So we've launched a Growth in Investment Council. It's
met four times since January. We're going to do business breakfast,
(06:05):
so so it's listening but also doing a little bit
about what we're doing today. We're just getting out and
just setting out the stall and just selling the story
about why Britain is the best place and should be
the best place to invest. And then finally you just
have to get on with the day job. What you
can't do is go into a stage and let's slow down.
We've launched two investigations under the New Digital Markets Act.
We've continued to do interventions to the pro consumer and
(06:28):
vets and baby formula, and we've continued to ask ourselves
what can we do to support growth? So you've seen,
for example, we just launched a market investigation into civil engineering.
If we really want to invest infrastructure and get going,
then you know, are the frictions are the things that
slowing down growth? So that's really it, you know, just
hold up the mirror, listen to the feedback, challenge ourselves
to transform the organization massively, step up the engagement and
(06:51):
crack on.
Speaker 1 (06:52):
I mean, just to pick up on that last interesting example,
can you give us a few more dug around what
do you think will end up being the leavers that
you can pull in order to stimulate more growth? And
I suppose a secondary question is is any of this
going to be quick?
Speaker 3 (07:06):
So I think it can be both. And I think
if you look at some of the examples that have
worked well, very often they are about how do you
actually stimulate innovation, investment growth. So open banking is an
obvious example where you know, if you go back to
why does the UK have such a vibrant fintech sector,
A lot of it's just saying, well, let's open it
up and let innovation flourish. So there are many or
many other examples of looking at whereby we may be
(07:28):
able to improve access to data sets, sometimes public data sets,
sometimes private, that can really stimulate those industries. And when
you link that back to the focus areas of the
industrial strategy, you know eight big sectors, that's where you
can see a lot of the growth coming. So I
think there's direction deventions like that. And can it be fast?
I absolutely think it can because the one thing you
can move the needle on surprisingly quickly is back to
(07:50):
that question of business investment. Remember, large organizations have lots
of opportunities to choose about where they invest. Do they
come to the UK, do they go to constant to Europe,
do they go to somewhere else. We just want to
give that confidence and reassurance that you've got a stable
regulator and framework, a good level of debate, and then
that will move it quite quickly.
Speaker 2 (08:07):
But Doug, I mean there's, you know, a philosophical question
about regulation because regulation is also risk, So how much
appetite you have for risk? And that kind of goes
to the heart of some of the criticism that the
CMA has had on being too interventionist, the fact that
actually as a regulator easier or you measure success by
what you say no to instead of innovate. I have
(08:30):
a lot of sympathy actually for regulators because it's a
difficult balance to get right, Like how do you view
risk and regulation?
Speaker 3 (08:37):
I always bring it back to the north star, and
if you like, what is the north star? It's about
how do we create an environment where you can create
the maximum possible business investment whilst at the same time,
and that's your point about risk, making sure you still
keep strong competition and you still keep consumer protection in
some ways, I think a legitimate, you know, piece of
(08:58):
feedback was saying, look, it's not the necesscessarily the CMA
makes bad decisions or decisions anybody disagrees with, but it
makes them very slowly, and that partly plays to that
risk culture. If you like, if you're concerned to make
sure you've done everything perfectly in a good way. That
can take time, but that's a very real cost to
that because every day that goes by costs businesses money,
creates uncertainty, DeLay's investment. So that's why I think the
(09:21):
team have actually come up with a really powerful framework
they called the four piece, which is what we've now
by the end of this month will have run through
every aspect of the operation, which is, how do we
get that same quality of decision making, but do it faster.
Let's get some pace into this. How are we more proportional,
how do we actually take a view on you know what, pace, proportionality,
predictability is crucial, and then process and that's a lot
(09:43):
about the engagement. So those are the four piece and
I have to say I think that's working really well.
You may have seen we made an about an investigation
into house building. I think we've got a good outcome there.
That's going to involve some conduct commitments together with one
hundred million pounds to build a thousand affordable houses. I
think that's terrific. But most importantly for me, from the
organization's point of view, we probably would have got there
(10:05):
anyway five years ago, but we got them much quicker
and that's what I hope you'll see and that benefits everybody.
Speaker 2 (10:10):
How do you measure success in this? Because again, you
can have great principles, but then it's the execution that
really makes it different.
Speaker 3 (10:16):
Yeah, I've grown up in many organizations that are pretty
passionate about how do you measure things? And you know,
how do you really put energy into this?
Speaker 1 (10:22):
Love measuring here?
Speaker 3 (10:23):
We love measuring. We all love measure because we should.
And you know, the test we've sort of set for ourselves, well,
has the business's confidence in the UK is a place
to invest improved? What's happened to their perceptions of the CEBA?
Have we actually moved these things faster? How does that
benchmark globally? These are the kind of metrics and you'll see,
you know, we've sort of challenged ourselves to say the look,
when we start to publish the report looking backwards a
(10:44):
year on, we want to be able to really concrete,
quantifiable terms say that's what we've done, that's why it's
moved forward. And by the way, if there's a message
to working of business listeners out there, that's why you
should come and invest in the UK. We are a
great investment destination right now France.
Speaker 1 (10:58):
Just ask about one possible which is with risk. Another
is economic growth versus or is it versus prices for people?
I mean, the sort of famous example is the number
of mobile phone companies in Europe VERSUS America, and there's
lots and lots and lots, but the prices are different.
So just wondering if you could reflect on that. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (11:15):
No, Look, one of the things you'll hear a lot
is the narrative of saying, look, are you're trying to
trade off economic growth versus effectively consumer protection? I mean, personally,
I don't see it like that, you know, I think
there are some really strong examples whereby strong consumer protection
is actually good for growth. So if you take, for example,
the work we did recently on fake and misleading reviews,
(11:35):
Now that's a consumer protection point because consumers have to
be able to buy with confidence. But if you give
them that confidence, they actually spend more. That helps growth.
But actually, interesting, that's also an example of something which
is really good for a lot of the small businesses
who are users of these marketplaces. Because we spend a
lot of time talking to small business and they said,
you know, I really don't want to feel that I'm
launching my business and some some bad actor can put
(11:57):
fake reviews, et cetera. So it's good consumer it's good
for the small businesses, and I would actually argue it's
actually good for the marketplaces. They want to be trustworthy
places that people can come. So really, if you think
about consumer protection, about giving consumers confidence to spend and
invest and do this, that should be driving growth.
Speaker 2 (12:17):
But it's fair to say that regulators in general just
have a bad reputation. And when you speak to a
lot of US investors, you know they always say as
a joke, but only have hardenedly it's US innovates, China duplicates,
and the EU regulates.
Speaker 3 (12:32):
I've led businesses, and I think one of the one
of the reasons we're ramping up so much on the
engagement is I think it's quite important to be able
if you sit in the regulators, to be almost put
yourselves in the shoes of your stakeholders. And that's why
I think the most important thing if you want to
improve and A, you've got to engage, and we are
engaging with a lot of US businesses. As you came
(12:53):
back to the moment, But b I think you do
have to come back and challenge yourself to self imagine
what it feels like from the other side.
Speaker 1 (12:59):
And to build on France question, You've got America potentially
deregulating hugely in the foreseeable future. Do you think it's
reasonable to see a unique role for the United Kingdom
as as that kind of you know, Goldilocks in the
middle not not regulated but not but not the wild West.
Speaker 3 (13:18):
Either, loving the Goldilocks. That's right. Yeah, Look, I think
the short answer is yes. I'll give it a specific
example on that. I mean as Lucien under the New
Digital Markets regime we launched in January and investigation into
Google and the questions of search and search advertising. Now
at the same time, there is pending litigation in the
(13:38):
United States from the FTC. There's all sorts of interesting
stuff going on in constantity Europe. I actually think this
is a great example where it's almost and again apologies
for that four piece jargon, but this is almost the
four piece in practice, because I think it's a really
well crafted piece of regulation. It's not trying to guess
what the future is going to be. It's very proportional
(14:00):
you know, it only applies to organizations that have a
global turnover twenty five billion pounds a UK turnover of
a billion, so you can immediately say to the vast
majority of organizations you really don't have to worry about this.
But the point of that is it's not trying to
sit here and guess, how's the future of search or
are going to evolve. It's saying, look, we've identified that
you're a significant player, and there's a good evidence base
for that. We've done it very quickly, We've worked incredibly
(14:23):
closely with in that case, you know, the company to
engage and we're going to sit here and try and
say it's not it's not in any sense. Designation is
not saying there is any evidence of harm here. But
these are the issues of the bubble up. Let's work
collectively to try and come up some solutions. And then
it's crucially it's outcome based, so let's try something. If
it works, brilliant. If it doesn't work and the concerns
are stall there, we can try something else. A very
(14:44):
different approach to either just trying to sit here do
a sort of whack a mole of change something and
I have to say, I think it's working really well.
Great engagement with the business, good process, We're moving at pace.
And again, look it's for the company to decide, but
if I are in their shoes, it operates that. As
you said, Golderlock's opportunities. Say, well, if we can craft
a solution in the UK, working collaboratively with a regulator
(15:08):
that's able to engage and talk to us, then perhaps
we can craft something that we can take back to
other jurisdictions, which might include the US or Europe. So
I think it's a really good model for me.
Speaker 2 (15:17):
Do you worry that regulation is more and more politicized? So,
you know the Trump administration and we heard this, and
again everything can change. There's still negotiations with the EU.
They're now saying before it was regulation on one high end,
and then you had trade and terms on the other.
And now you hear from you know, President Trump that
he's frustrated because of some regulation on the US tech
(15:37):
companies and therefore will impact how we do trade. I mean,
it's kind of muddling everything. But it must mean more
political pressure for you.
Speaker 3 (15:44):
Yeah, so look, at the risk of being boringly p ish,
you know, predictability, I mean you imagine you sit there
in a business, you're making investments that might have a
five or ten or fifteen or twenty year environment. The
last thing you want is uncertainty and do the rules
change or whatever. So predictability really matters. And if you
look at the way in which people tend to operate
(16:05):
operate regulatory systems around the world, you sort of have
three choices. You can have politicians making the ultimate decisions,
you can have the courts making the ultimation decisions. Or
you can argue for a regime where you effectively have
independent regulators taking if you like a more technocratic view.
I have to say every single business I talk to
all around the world says we'd much prefer strong independent
(16:27):
regulation because that's precisely what creates more confidence in the predictability.
And so, look, we live in a parliamentary democracy. I
actually think things are working very well. It's absolutely right
that the government provides a what's known as a strategic steer.
We would like the regulators to really help thinking about
growth as a priority. That's the statutory requirement of our
government to say what the steer is. But having done that,
(16:48):
you get out of the way.
Speaker 1 (16:49):
This week at Bloomberg. Our reporters, big team of reporters
ran quite a long piece about how a year on,
business is quite unhappy with labor. They feel that Starmer
said he'd take business into government with him and that
that hasn't happened. I mean, you're in a difficult position.
But what's your observations of why business is quite so
(17:11):
grumpy right now?
Speaker 3 (17:12):
Yeah? Look, I think absolutely not for me to comment
on government policy or approach, but I can tell you
what I hear, which is a lot of support for
some really good long term commitments. It's a lot of
support for addressing questions about the planning system and can
that actually take some frictions out of way? A lot
of support for frankly challenging regulators to say, how can
(17:32):
you reduce the burden and how can you be more
pacing proportionate. I think a lot of support for actually
reaching out and trying to build some bridges with international
trading partners, whether that's India or the ot SO. I
think actually a lot of genuinely really good stuff, and perhaps,
as somebody said to me the other day, a few
concerns about some short term stuff that maybe hasn't landed
as well. But I think again, if you come back
(17:53):
to what's at the heart of some of the things
that businesses and frankly consumers are concerned about. You know,
I just bring it back to that question of growth.
You know, if we had if we have stronger economic growth,
everything gets easier.
Speaker 2 (18:04):
It's a little bit like butter. Everything's better with a
bit of butter. Everything's better with a little bit of growth.
Speaker 3 (18:09):
Like a lot of growth is good.
Speaker 1 (18:10):
You know, a lot of growth is good.
Speaker 2 (18:12):
I mean a lot of butter is even better.
Speaker 3 (18:15):
About but something like that, This is where I've been
going wrong.
Speaker 2 (18:21):
How do you get that gross? Again? For me, it
maybe goes back to you know, seed investments, risk taking.
There's a number of forms also with pensions on how
much is you know, is there a culture of growth
and risk taking in companies that can really rival some
of the things that we that we see in Silicon
Valley or is it just the pool of capital is
(18:42):
bigger in the US.
Speaker 3 (18:43):
It is almost the fundamental question that how do we
get gross and so so come back to this. There
are factors. Of course, there's access to labor. Of course,
there's access to markets, most domestically and trading markets. That's
white's great. They wouldn't gotia with that. But if you
come right back to it, one of the most important
drivers is that business investment. That's what product of it too,
that's what clients growth. Yeah. Absolutely, and that investment is
(19:04):
both large multinational organizations choosing the UK as a place
to actually do. I was thrilled for its genuine Please
to see that, for example, a couple of weeks ago,
my old shop Amazon invest you know, committing forty billion
pounds of investment in the UK in the next three years.
We should welcome them. That's good news. I also think
it's it's terrific to see domestic businesses. Delloyd's obviously did
their survey I think last week saying they now see
(19:26):
the UK as their number one investment destination. That's great.
But then to your point about how do we really
get that venture money, that innovation, that startup capital. We
have brilliant examples of startup businesses in the UK. We
talked about fintech earlier on, but the stuff going on
in the biological sciences there's amazing AI stuff, but it
needs investment. It needs capital, and that capital comes when
(19:48):
we create that stable regulator environment and we give reassurances
that this I know it's a slightly sort of phrase
it's used a lot, but genuinely persuade venture money that
this is the best place to start and grow business. Dog.
Thank you so much, absolute pleasure.
Speaker 2 (20:09):
Thanks for listening to this week's In the City from Bloomberg.
This episode was hosted by me Francin Laqua and Alegra Stratton.
It was produced by Somersaudi Moses Andam and Tala Maddi.
Special thanks to Doug Ger and Dubania Trivetti. Please subscribe, rate,
and review wherever you listen to podcasts.
Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
Welcome to in the City. Each week we unpack a
story that's crucial to the world's financial capitals.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
I'm Francin Laqua and I'm Alecrastraton.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Now we've just passed the one year anniversary of Labor's
massive election win. And remember at the time of pre
election Labor we're talking growth and actually there was a
lot of hope on what the UK could become.
Speaker 1 (00:36):
Right, and the then Shadow Chancellor, Rachel Reeves was having
lots and lots of breakfast meetings with top figures in
the city called the smoked Salmon and scrambled Eggs Circuit,
and she was giving speeches on how, if elected, the
Labor government would, among other things, loosen regulations to make
it easier for businesses to grow and for mergers to happen.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
But a year in there's so many questions about whether
we have had any meaningful success in that area. Now
government ministers did actually oust the previous chair of the
Competition and Markets Authority the CMA in January for failing
to display a good enough plant for growth. And so
we thought that we'd check in with the CMA to
see what kind of progress they've made so far.
Speaker 3 (01:14):
Welcome to the City of London, the City of the
City of London. Then please mind the gap between the
and the financial heart of the country.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
The city, the city.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
Welcome to in the city, clear of the downs.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
So to give us an overview of the regulatory landscape
in the UK right now and also an outlook on
UK growth, we're joined by the interim Chair of the CMA,
Doug Doug was appointed as the interim chair in January.
He was previously a partner at McKinsey, a founder and
CEO of internet startup Blueheath, and he also sat on
the board of Asda Walmut for five years. And actually
(02:01):
that's just the start of it. There's lots and lots
of other things he's done. Doug, thank you so much
for joining us. We often speak to individuals who have
quite kind of straightforward backgrounds, but yours is it's not
on straightforward. But you have done great number of things
in your career, including right now. Just let me for
the listeners, let me just rattle through things you have
done and then let's get on to what you are
(02:21):
doing right now. So you have been chairman of the
British Heart Foundation University maths and computing teacher, a civil servant.
I didn't know that bit.
Speaker 3 (02:29):
Which department was the demand for transport many years ago? Wow?
Speaker 1 (02:32):
Okay? And now as well as being the interim chair
of the CMA, you are also still the director of
the Natural History Museum.
Speaker 3 (02:40):
Absolutely yes. How do you do it all? Well, it's
like it's like anybody. If you're passionate about what you
do and you have amazing teams, you can hopefully try
and drive things forward. Love the work we do at
the Naturalist Museum, but absolutely thrilled to be indicted to
take on this role at the CMA.
Speaker 2 (02:56):
Is it the same skill sets for all of them
to leaderanizations or do you really have to adapt to
who you work for.
Speaker 3 (03:04):
Look, I've been very, very fortunate of my career to
have the opportunity to work for lots of different organizations.
I've worked here, I've worked in China, And you know,
when you really come down to it, people are people.
You know, the organizations the motivations are pretty similar, so
you know, you'll tend to find that different organizations are
different characteristics. I think much organizations tend to be the
best at getting stuff done. But actually when you look
(03:25):
at some of the nonprofit or the charity sector, they're
much better at thinking through complex environments and multiple objectives.
So hopefully if you can bring a little bit of
all of those worlds together, you know, it's well, so far,
so good, let's say, but you'll probably tell me later.
Speaker 1 (03:41):
At the Competition and Markets Authority, just tell us you
were given quite an explicit remit by a government that
came in and was very clear that it needed to
reduce regulation to get economic growth.
Speaker 3 (03:53):
Yeah, I'm really pleased you picked up on that word
growth because if we take it back to growth, as
we all know, it's quite in time. Right now, the
tax burden is very high. We do want to invest
in our public services, and we absolutely want to deliver
prosperity for our citizens, and by far the best and
probably the only way through that is economic growth. So
that has been the imperative. If we can deliver growth,
(04:14):
then we can improve citizens' lives, we can invest in
public services, and those are the two things we have
to do. So when I got the call to say
could you come in and look at this, in some
ways it was it was a very simple call because
you know, if you take growth as the imperative, and
personally I'm delighted that the government's focusing on growth, then
as you know, many things contribute to that, but one
of the most important is business investment, and again that's
(04:35):
an area where the UK has struggled for the past
few years. Our investment levels have been bottom of the
G seven for quite a long time now, and that's
both domestic investment, it's large multinationals and it's also the
venture money. How do we reassure that this is the
best place to invest. So in a sense, the remit
was very simple. If I can go back to my
maths days, it's what we used to call a constrained
optimization problem, you know, in other words, how do you
(04:57):
maximize the environment for business investments, but do it in
a way where you don't let go of the importance
of a belief in strong competition and a belief in
consumer protection. So that was effectively the brief But it.
Speaker 2 (05:09):
Can have been easy because you get the call and
you're replacing someone who was outed. So I guess intronally
there are many questions about who are we, how do
you change? How do you get over the scandal?
Speaker 1 (05:19):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (05:20):
So look, it's always a privilege to be invited to
serve and I do think if you come back to
that business investment and growth, I do think an organization
at the CMA has a really important role to play.
And in a sense, what therefore, who you've been doing.
We've been focusing on three things. I mean, first, we
have listened really carefully to that feedback and just challenged
ourselves to say, how can we actually transform the operation
(05:42):
of the CMA. So we started with mergers, but by
the end of this month, which will be six months in,
we will have gone through every aspect of the CMA's operation.
So that's the thing. One I think thing too, and
it's likely goes back to your earlier question about different areas,
is you know, really trying to ramp up the level
of engagement and that's both massively increasing the level of
list So we've launched a Growth in Investment Council. It's
met four times since January. We're going to do business breakfast,
(06:05):
so so it's listening but also doing a little bit
about what we're doing today. We're just getting out and
just setting out the stall and just selling the story
about why Britain is the best place and should be
the best place to invest. And then finally you just
have to get on with the day job. What you
can't do is go into a stage and let's slow down.
We've launched two investigations under the New Digital Markets Act.
We've continued to do interventions to the pro consumer and
(06:28):
vets and baby formula, and we've continued to ask ourselves
what can we do to support growth? So you've seen,
for example, we just launched a market investigation into civil engineering.
If we really want to invest infrastructure and get going,
then you know, are the frictions are the things that
slowing down growth? So that's really it, you know, just
hold up the mirror, listen to the feedback, challenge ourselves
to transform the organization massively, step up the engagement and
(06:51):
crack on.
Speaker 1 (06:52):
I mean, just to pick up on that last interesting example,
can you give us a few more dug around what
do you think will end up being the leavers that
you can pull in order to stimulate more growth? And
I suppose a secondary question is is any of this
going to be quick?
Speaker 3 (07:06):
So I think it can be both. And I think
if you look at some of the examples that have
worked well, very often they are about how do you
actually stimulate innovation, investment growth. So open banking is an
obvious example where you know, if you go back to
why does the UK have such a vibrant fintech sector,
A lot of it's just saying, well, let's open it
up and let innovation flourish. So there are many or
many other examples of looking at whereby we may be
(07:28):
able to improve access to data sets, sometimes public data sets,
sometimes private, that can really stimulate those industries. And when
you link that back to the focus areas of the
industrial strategy, you know eight big sectors, that's where you
can see a lot of the growth coming. So I
think there's direction deventions like that. And can it be fast?
I absolutely think it can because the one thing you
can move the needle on surprisingly quickly is back to
(07:50):
that question of business investment. Remember, large organizations have lots
of opportunities to choose about where they invest. Do they
come to the UK, do they go to constant to Europe,
do they go to somewhere else. We just want to
give that confidence and reassurance that you've got a stable
regulator and framework, a good level of debate, and then
that will move it quite quickly.
Speaker 2 (08:07):
But Doug, I mean there's, you know, a philosophical question
about regulation because regulation is also risk, So how much
appetite you have for risk? And that kind of goes
to the heart of some of the criticism that the
CMA has had on being too interventionist, the fact that
actually as a regulator easier or you measure success by
what you say no to instead of innovate. I have
(08:30):
a lot of sympathy actually for regulators because it's a
difficult balance to get right, Like how do you view
risk and regulation?
Speaker 3 (08:37):
I always bring it back to the north star, and
if you like, what is the north star? It's about
how do we create an environment where you can create
the maximum possible business investment whilst at the same time,
and that's your point about risk, making sure you still
keep strong competition and you still keep consumer protection in
some ways, I think a legitimate, you know, piece of
(08:58):
feedback was saying, look, it's not the necesscessarily the CMA
makes bad decisions or decisions anybody disagrees with, but it
makes them very slowly, and that partly plays to that
risk culture. If you like, if you're concerned to make
sure you've done everything perfectly in a good way. That
can take time, but that's a very real cost to
that because every day that goes by costs businesses money,
creates uncertainty, DeLay's investment. So that's why I think the
(09:21):
team have actually come up with a really powerful framework
they called the four piece, which is what we've now
by the end of this month will have run through
every aspect of the operation, which is, how do we
get that same quality of decision making, but do it faster.
Let's get some pace into this. How are we more proportional,
how do we actually take a view on you know what, pace, proportionality,
predictability is crucial, and then process and that's a lot
(09:43):
about the engagement. So those are the four piece and
I have to say I think that's working really well.
You may have seen we made an about an investigation
into house building. I think we've got a good outcome there.
That's going to involve some conduct commitments together with one
hundred million pounds to build a thousand affordable houses. I
think that's terrific. But most importantly for me, from the
organization's point of view, we probably would have got there
(10:05):
anyway five years ago, but we got them much quicker
and that's what I hope you'll see and that benefits everybody.
Speaker 2 (10:10):
How do you measure success in this? Because again, you
can have great principles, but then it's the execution that
really makes it different.
Speaker 3 (10:16):
Yeah, I've grown up in many organizations that are pretty
passionate about how do you measure things? And you know,
how do you really put energy into this?
Speaker 1 (10:22):
Love measuring here?
Speaker 3 (10:23):
We love measuring. We all love measure because we should.
And you know, the test we've sort of set for ourselves, well,
has the business's confidence in the UK is a place
to invest improved? What's happened to their perceptions of the CEBA?
Have we actually moved these things faster? How does that
benchmark globally? These are the kind of metrics and you'll see,
you know, we've sort of challenged ourselves to say the look,
when we start to publish the report looking backwards a
(10:44):
year on, we want to be able to really concrete,
quantifiable terms say that's what we've done, that's why it's
moved forward. And by the way, if there's a message
to working of business listeners out there, that's why you
should come and invest in the UK. We are a
great investment destination right now France.
Speaker 1 (10:58):
Just ask about one possible which is with risk. Another
is economic growth versus or is it versus prices for people?
I mean, the sort of famous example is the number
of mobile phone companies in Europe VERSUS America, and there's
lots and lots and lots, but the prices are different.
So just wondering if you could reflect on that. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (11:15):
No, Look, one of the things you'll hear a lot
is the narrative of saying, look, are you're trying to
trade off economic growth versus effectively consumer protection? I mean, personally,
I don't see it like that, you know, I think
there are some really strong examples whereby strong consumer protection
is actually good for growth. So if you take, for example,
the work we did recently on fake and misleading reviews,
(11:35):
Now that's a consumer protection point because consumers have to
be able to buy with confidence. But if you give
them that confidence, they actually spend more. That helps growth.
But actually, interesting, that's also an example of something which
is really good for a lot of the small businesses
who are users of these marketplaces. Because we spend a
lot of time talking to small business and they said,
you know, I really don't want to feel that I'm
launching my business and some some bad actor can put
(11:57):
fake reviews, et cetera. So it's good consumer it's good
for the small businesses, and I would actually argue it's
actually good for the marketplaces. They want to be trustworthy
places that people can come. So really, if you think
about consumer protection, about giving consumers confidence to spend and
invest and do this, that should be driving growth.
Speaker 2 (12:17):
But it's fair to say that regulators in general just
have a bad reputation. And when you speak to a
lot of US investors, you know they always say as
a joke, but only have hardenedly it's US innovates, China duplicates,
and the EU regulates.
Speaker 3 (12:32):
I've led businesses, and I think one of the one
of the reasons we're ramping up so much on the
engagement is I think it's quite important to be able
if you sit in the regulators, to be almost put
yourselves in the shoes of your stakeholders. And that's why
I think the most important thing if you want to
improve and A, you've got to engage, and we are
engaging with a lot of US businesses. As you came
(12:53):
back to the moment, But b I think you do
have to come back and challenge yourself to self imagine
what it feels like from the other side.
Speaker 1 (12:59):
And to build on France question, You've got America potentially
deregulating hugely in the foreseeable future. Do you think it's
reasonable to see a unique role for the United Kingdom
as as that kind of you know, Goldilocks in the
middle not not regulated but not but not the wild West.
Speaker 3 (13:18):
Either, loving the Goldilocks. That's right. Yeah, Look, I think
the short answer is yes. I'll give it a specific
example on that. I mean as Lucien under the New
Digital Markets regime we launched in January and investigation into
Google and the questions of search and search advertising. Now
at the same time, there is pending litigation in the
(13:38):
United States from the FTC. There's all sorts of interesting
stuff going on in constantity Europe. I actually think this
is a great example where it's almost and again apologies
for that four piece jargon, but this is almost the
four piece in practice, because I think it's a really
well crafted piece of regulation. It's not trying to guess
what the future is going to be. It's very proportional
(14:00):
you know, it only applies to organizations that have a
global turnover twenty five billion pounds a UK turnover of
a billion, so you can immediately say to the vast
majority of organizations you really don't have to worry about this.
But the point of that is it's not trying to
sit here and guess, how's the future of search or
are going to evolve. It's saying, look, we've identified that
you're a significant player, and there's a good evidence base
for that. We've done it very quickly, We've worked incredibly
(14:23):
closely with in that case, you know, the company to
engage and we're going to sit here and try and
say it's not it's not in any sense. Designation is
not saying there is any evidence of harm here. But
these are the issues of the bubble up. Let's work
collectively to try and come up some solutions. And then
it's crucially it's outcome based, so let's try something. If
it works, brilliant. If it doesn't work and the concerns
are stall there, we can try something else. A very
(14:44):
different approach to either just trying to sit here do
a sort of whack a mole of change something and
I have to say, I think it's working really well.
Great engagement with the business, good process, We're moving at pace.
And again, look it's for the company to decide, but
if I are in their shoes, it operates that. As
you said, Golderlock's opportunities. Say, well, if we can craft
a solution in the UK, working collaboratively with a regulator
(15:08):
that's able to engage and talk to us, then perhaps
we can craft something that we can take back to
other jurisdictions, which might include the US or Europe. So
I think it's a really good model for me.
Speaker 2 (15:17):
Do you worry that regulation is more and more politicized? So,
you know the Trump administration and we heard this, and
again everything can change. There's still negotiations with the EU.
They're now saying before it was regulation on one high end,
and then you had trade and terms on the other.
And now you hear from you know, President Trump that
he's frustrated because of some regulation on the US tech
(15:37):
companies and therefore will impact how we do trade. I mean,
it's kind of muddling everything. But it must mean more
political pressure for you.
Speaker 3 (15:44):
Yeah, so look, at the risk of being boringly p ish,
you know, predictability, I mean you imagine you sit there
in a business, you're making investments that might have a
five or ten or fifteen or twenty year environment. The
last thing you want is uncertainty and do the rules
change or whatever. So predictability really matters. And if you
look at the way in which people tend to operate
(16:05):
operate regulatory systems around the world, you sort of have
three choices. You can have politicians making the ultimate decisions,
you can have the courts making the ultimation decisions. Or
you can argue for a regime where you effectively have
independent regulators taking if you like a more technocratic view.
I have to say every single business I talk to
all around the world says we'd much prefer strong independent
(16:27):
regulation because that's precisely what creates more confidence in the predictability.
And so, look, we live in a parliamentary democracy. I
actually think things are working very well. It's absolutely right
that the government provides a what's known as a strategic steer.
We would like the regulators to really help thinking about
growth as a priority. That's the statutory requirement of our
government to say what the steer is. But having done that,
(16:48):
you get out of the way.
Speaker 1 (16:49):
This week at Bloomberg. Our reporters, big team of reporters
ran quite a long piece about how a year on,
business is quite unhappy with labor. They feel that Starmer
said he'd take business into government with him and that
that hasn't happened. I mean, you're in a difficult position.
But what's your observations of why business is quite so
(17:11):
grumpy right now?
Speaker 3 (17:12):
Yeah? Look, I think absolutely not for me to comment
on government policy or approach, but I can tell you
what I hear, which is a lot of support for
some really good long term commitments. It's a lot of
support for addressing questions about the planning system and can
that actually take some frictions out of way? A lot
of support for frankly challenging regulators to say, how can
(17:32):
you reduce the burden and how can you be more
pacing proportionate. I think a lot of support for actually
reaching out and trying to build some bridges with international
trading partners, whether that's India or the ot SO. I
think actually a lot of genuinely really good stuff, and perhaps,
as somebody said to me the other day, a few
concerns about some short term stuff that maybe hasn't landed
as well. But I think again, if you come back
(17:53):
to what's at the heart of some of the things
that businesses and frankly consumers are concerned about. You know,
I just bring it back to that question of growth.
You know, if we had if we have stronger economic growth,
everything gets easier.
Speaker 2 (18:04):
It's a little bit like butter. Everything's better with a
bit of butter. Everything's better with a little bit of growth.
Speaker 3 (18:09):
Like a lot of growth is good.
Speaker 1 (18:10):
You know, a lot of growth is good.
Speaker 2 (18:12):
I mean a lot of butter is even better.
Speaker 3 (18:15):
About but something like that, This is where I've been
going wrong.
Speaker 2 (18:21):
How do you get that gross? Again? For me, it
maybe goes back to you know, seed investments, risk taking.
There's a number of forms also with pensions on how
much is you know, is there a culture of growth
and risk taking in companies that can really rival some
of the things that we that we see in Silicon
Valley or is it just the pool of capital is
(18:42):
bigger in the US.
Speaker 3 (18:43):
It is almost the fundamental question that how do we
get gross and so so come back to this. There
are factors. Of course, there's access to labor. Of course,
there's access to markets, most domestically and trading markets. That's
white's great. They wouldn't gotia with that. But if you
come right back to it, one of the most important
drivers is that business investment. That's what product of it too,
that's what clients growth. Yeah. Absolutely, and that investment is
(19:04):
both large multinational organizations choosing the UK as a place
to actually do. I was thrilled for its genuine Please
to see that, for example, a couple of weeks ago,
my old shop Amazon invest you know, committing forty billion
pounds of investment in the UK in the next three years.
We should welcome them. That's good news. I also think
it's it's terrific to see domestic businesses. Delloyd's obviously did
their survey I think last week saying they now see
(19:26):
the UK as their number one investment destination. That's great.
But then to your point about how do we really
get that venture money, that innovation, that startup capital. We
have brilliant examples of startup businesses in the UK. We
talked about fintech earlier on, but the stuff going on
in the biological sciences there's amazing AI stuff, but it
needs investment. It needs capital, and that capital comes when
(19:48):
we create that stable regulator environment and we give reassurances
that this I know it's a slightly sort of phrase
it's used a lot, but genuinely persuade venture money that
this is the best place to start and grow business. Dog.
Thank you so much, absolute pleasure.
Speaker 2 (20:09):
Thanks for listening to this week's In the City from Bloomberg.
This episode was hosted by me Francin Laqua and Alegra Stratton.
It was produced by Somersaudi Moses Andam and Tala Maddi.
Special thanks to Doug Ger and Dubania Trivetti. Please subscribe, rate,
and review wherever you listen to podcasts.
Host
Francine Lacqua
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