The government seemed to give a strong steer that it wanted the Competition and Markets Authority to do things differently when it ousted its chair, Marcus Bokkerink, last month. But what, precisely, does Jonathan Reynolds, the business secretary, wish to see?
His headline demand that the CMA should be “more agile” was meaningless – no politician, one suspects, has ever encouraged any regulator to be less nimble. Reynolds’ formal ministerial “strategic steer” was slightly better on specifics but not by much. It mostly rehearsed the government’s unconvincing but now-familiar refrain that there’s a role for regulators to play in encouraging growth and investment.
