The Queen’s Speech has set out the Government’s plans to introduce new legislation to improve Britain’s competitiveness via a Better Markets Bill.

The purpose of the Bill is to open up markets, boost competition, give consumers more power and choice and make economic regulators work better.

The main benefits of the Bill would be:

• Giving consumers more power and choice through faster switching, supporting the manifesto commitment to help keep bills as low as possible and more protection when things go wrong.
• Simplifying the way economic regulators operate to make things more straightforward for business and cut red tape.
• Speeding up decisions from the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) in  competition investigations to the benefit of both businesses and consumers.

According to the Government , the new legislation will help deliver its manifesto commitment to increase competition and consumer choice in the energy market. It will also give the competition authorities more powers to take on anti-competitive behaviour and to improve the landscape for economic regulation.

On open markets, the Government said the Bill would enable it to take steps to ensure open and competitive markets which keep costs low and deliver for bill payers. This includes delivering the manifesto commitment to act quickly on the Competition and Market Authority’s final recommendations to promote competition in the energy market.

Other measures in the speech include a proposal to establish the independent National Infrastructure Commission on a new statutory basis via a new Neighbourhood Planning and Infrastructure Bill. The Commission would provide the government with expert, independent advice on infrastructure issues by setting out a clear, strategic vision on the future infrastructure that is needed to ensure the UK economy is fit for 2050.

The Commission would be charged with unlocking economic potential across the UK and ensuring that growth and opportunities are distributed across the country, boosting productivity and competitiveness through high-quality infrastructure.

A new Local Growth and Jobs Bill will include measures enabling combined authority mayors to levy a supplement on business rates bills to fund new infrastructure projects, provided they have the support of the business community through the Local Enterprise Partnership - similar to the decision of local businesses in London to make a contribution towards Crossrail 1.

The Government also plan the creation of a power to introduce a new Broadband Universal Service Obligation via a new Digital Economy Bill. – giving all citizens and businesses the legal right to have a fast broadband connection installed, with the expectation of a minimum speed of at least 10Mbps initially.

Commenting on the inclusion of the National Infrastructure Commission in the Queen’s speech (Neighbourhood Planning and Infrastructure Bill), Sir John Armitt, Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE) President and member of the National Infrastructure Commission, said:

“Setting the Commission on a statutory footing formalises and upholds its role and purpose, this is an important milestone."

“The mood in the Commission is very positive, as we work towards developing proposals on the deployment of 5G and the Cambridge-Milton Keynes-Oxford corridor. Critical work to identify the UK’s longer term infrastructure needs is also progressing, and the independent ICE led ‘national needs assessment’ - which will be provided to the Commission in the autumn to support its own needs analysis - is currently being produced following a period of extensive evidence gathering across the UK.”