The Likely Implications For UK Competition Policy Of Andy Burnham’s Premiership

Former Manchester mayor Andy Burnham has taken the reins as Labour leader and the UK’s new Prime Minister, having only recently re-entered Parliament via a by-election. In this article, we consider the implications Burnham’s leadership may have for UK competition policy.

Changes to date since Labour took power

Following the 2024 UK General Election, we noted in our earlier article that there was little in Labour’s manifesto or published policy papers to suggest that it saw major changes to the system of competition enforcement as necessary.

Since then, however, UK competition policy has shifted significantly, beginning with a speech given by Sir Keir Starmer to global investors in October 2024, in which he suggested that the CMA was not taking economic growth seriously enough. Then, apparently dissatisfied with the CMA’s proposals to support the growth of the UK economy, CMA Chair Marcus Bokkerink was removed from post and replaced by former Amazon executive Doug Gurr. 

Around the same time, the CMA announced its “4Ps” framework – an initiative aimed at improving the pace, proportionality, predictability and process of CMA enforcement – and the Government issued a new Strategic Steer, emphasising the paramount importance of the CMA operating in a way that supports growth and investment, and directing it to work more collaboratively with business.

Since then, we have seen a number of concrete changes in the CMA’s approach – most notably in the field of merger control. The CMA amended its Phase 1 procedures, to shorten timelines and increase business engagement with decision-makers. It also reviewed its approach to merger remedies, signalling a greater openness to more complex remedies, beyond straightforward disposals, and placing more emphasis on ensuring remedies are proportionate. The CMA is now also consulting on new guidance addressing when merger benefits can offset or outweigh reductions in competition. 

In practical terms, CMA merger enforcement has become more targeted, reviewing fewer transactions (by approving more mergers informally, via the Briefing Paper process) and clearing some that might have been subject to remedies only a few years ago. The average end-to-end time taken for the CMA to clear a transaction at Phase 1 has also reduced materially.

Beyond merger control, the CMA has also been re-calibrating its approach to antitrust enforcement. Although 2025 was a record year in terms of the total size of the fines imposed by the CMA, relatively few investigations have been opened in the last 12 months, and so the pipeline of antitrust cases is declining. The CMA also appears to be more willing to close cases consensually, without a finding or admission of infringement. 

Additionally, the CMA has been more cautious than expected in deploying its new digital markets regulatory powers, which came into force at the start of 2025. It has opened fewer Strategic Market Status (SMS) investigations into Big Tech firms than it initially indicated it would, and in some of the cases it has opened, it agreed to informal commitments rather than imposing binding conduct requirements. It also failed to follow the recommendation of its own market investigation, which had called for the opening of an SMS investigation into the largest cloud infrastructure service providers.

In policy terms, the CMA has therefore become less interventionist in many areas. In parallel, a package of legislative changes is planned to increase CMA accountability to Government by abolishing the Panel of independent experts that currently take Phase 2 merger and market investigation decisions. In addition, the Government has been planning to make some adjustments to the mergers jurisdictional tests, to increase certainty around which transactions can be reviewed by the CMA, and to streamline the markets investigations regime by abolishing two-phase reviews. Finally, on the very same day Burnham became Labour leader, the Government launched a further consultation on changes to the competition investigation and collective action regimes, to make them “swifter and simpler”.

What has Burnham said about competition policy?

Burnham has not expressly touched upon competition policy per se. His statements on economic policy to date – both before his return to Parliament, and since he became Prime Minister-in-waiting following Sir Keir Starmer’s resignation – have focused on challenging current economic orthodoxy, deploying industrial strategy to support growth in certain regions/sectors, and the ownership and regulation of utilities and other public services. 

The latter subject in particular is competition-adjacent, and Burnham has voiced a deep scepticism of the prevailing model of privatisation combined with sectoral regulation. This cannot easily be read across into a position on competition policy, but some of his pronouncements on the economy, and the sentiment that underlies them, are likely to be relevant, including:

• the importance of economic growth in addressing the fall in living standards that has fuelled dissatisfaction among the UK population. Encouraging private investment has also been a key feature of the “Manchesterism” philosophy associated with the city’s economic growth under Burnham’s mayoralty;
• the need to tackle the high cost of essential goods and services. While the focus here has generally been on the prices charged by regulated utilities, corporate profit margins in unregulated sectors could also come under scrutiny; and
• concerns over the advantages Big Tech enjoys over smaller UK competitors, and the risk of the UK under-regulating Big Tech.

What is this likely to mean in practice?

Given the still pressing need for growth and investment, we are unlikely to see a wholesale reversal of the CMA’s recent merger control reforms (despite the fact that Rachel Reeves – generally understood to have been the key source of Government pressure on the CMA’s leadership – is expected to be replaced as Chancellor by Shabana Mahmood, whose economic policy stance is unclear). The CMA has also already been taking steps to address perceived price-gouging in some markets, and to investigate whether competition is working well in other areas of essential spending. We should expect such work to continue. 

The most obvious change implied by the above is, therefore, a possible (non-binding) direction to the CMA to use its digital markets powers more aggressively, and with more pace, than it has to date; particularly to impose measures that might level the playing field in favour of smaller businesses.

Alongside Burnham’s statements and policy positions, the recent appointment process for the current CMA Chair may be instructive. As covered in our previous article, the Business and Trade Committee (BTC), whilst confirming the appointment of Doug Gurr on a permanent basis, expressed some concerns about the CMA’s approach to enforcement. Of particular note were reservations about high levels of market concentration and mark-ups, low levels of intervention in mergers, and caution in deploying the new digital markets powers. The BTC therefore recommended several measures when confirming Gurr’s appointment, namely that ministers:

1. underline in the Strategic Steer that the CMA’s pursuit of growth must not risk market concentration that diminishes levels of competition or damages consumers;
2. reaffirm the need for the CMA’s operational independence in individual decisions;
3. make clear that the Government expects rigorous implementation of the CMA’s new powers under the DMCCA; and
4. consider requiring Gurr to recuse himself from any decision regarding designating Amazon with SMS.

Point 4 above was done voluntarily by Gurr, shortly after his confirmation (although the CMA declined to investigate Amazon in any event). As to whether the others could be taken forward, it should be noted that the BTC’s Chair is Liam Byrne – a close and longstanding ally of Burnham. A new Strategic Steer a little more than a year after the last would be unprecedented, but we are living in unprecedented times. And by updating the current Steer, including to incorporate points 1 to 3, a new Burnham Government could set out its expectations to the CMA as quickly and clearly as the Starmer Government did.

Finally, the letter issued by Culture, Media and Sport Secretary Lisa Nandy in relation to the Paramount-Warner Brothers transaction on 30 June offers further insight into how merger policy may evolve. Nandy is seen as a close ally and ideological bedfellow of Burnham’s. That she is indicating that she is minded to issue a public interest intervention notice in respect of the combination (despite the parties having relatively modest UK audience shares) points to a less hands-off approach to global transactions than the CMA has been pursuing recently.

Macfarlanes is a pre-eminent law firm advising a global client base across Private Capital, Private Wealth, M&A and Disputes.

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