Chi Onwurah – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Chi Onwurah on 2016-03-11.

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, if he will make an assessment of the potential effect on the UK tourism sector of the French ban on parity clauses for online travel agents.

Nick Boles

My Department has no plans to make such an assessment.

Any assessment of the impact of parity clauses on competition and consumers falls within the remit of the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), which is the UK’s primary competition and consumer authority.

One of the CMA’s predecessors, the Office of Fair Trading, launched an investigation into alleged resale price maintenance in arrangements between a hotel group and two online travel agents, though this ultimately led to no action being taken. The CMA keeps these issues under review and is working closely with other national competition authorities and the European Commission to do this.