Recommendation 13

The EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA) includes a provision to establish a separate agreement on competition enforcement cooperation (including the 28 Q 52, 29 Q 52, C&AG’s Report, para 2.17 30 Q 57–58 31 Q 56 32 Q 65 33 Q 54 34 Q 52 35 Qq 57–58 36 REE0002 12 Regulating after EU Exit sharing of confidential data). CMA told us this agreement has not yet been agreed, and progress on this would be welcome as it would remove a significant barrier to effective competition enforcement.37 The TCA also includes broad commitments to facilitate the exchange of non-confidential information on chemicals between the EU and UK, but it does not extend to full data sharing arrangements.38 HSE told us that while overall trade policy between the UK and the EU settles down, there is tight control from the centre of government over when and how they talk to co-regulators in the EU. In due course, it expects information exchange between it and EU regulators to become more straightforward.39 We questioned FSA on whether, in the future, there is scope for better information sharing with the EU on food safety incidents and it told us that it does not feel optimistic about it at the moment because it had recently been asked to leave the Heads of Food Safety Agencies, an informal European network for encouraging cooperation and sharing good practice.40 Regulatory divergence