BT Rescues TalkTalk and the Government Intervenes Within Hours
BT has agreed to buy TalkTalk, which had been close to administration over its debts and carries 1.5 million retail and a million wholesale customers. Within hours Lisa Nandy issued a public interest intervention notice under the Enterprise Act, on public health grounds and on new grounds covering continuity of telecoms supply. The competition authority must report to her by 19 October. Customers need do nothing; services continue as normal.
The intervention is unusual in both speed and reasoning. “Phone and broadband services are vital national infrastructure,” the Culture Secretary said. “If TalkTalk services fail, there is a genuine risk to life and public services — including to hospitals, schools and emergency care. These are unprecedented circumstances that require action now.” The grounds she is using for continuity of supply do not yet exist in law: she says she will “as a matter of urgency” lay an order before Parliament amending the Enterprise Act to add them, which means the legal basis is being built after the notice rather than before it. That is a measure of how close the company was to failing, and of what runs over those two and a half million connections — among them the lines behind emergency calls, ambulance and hospital communications, and medical alarms in vulnerable households. Alison Kirkby, BT’s chief executive, called the deal “a safety net for the households and businesses who rely on TalkTalk”. No price has been disclosed, and the obvious competition question — one company taking a larger share of a market it already dominates at the wholesale level — is precisely what the regulator now has a fortnight to examine. Watch the 19 October report, and whether Parliament waves through a retrospective widening of ministers’ powers to intervene.