Former CMA chair claims watchdog needs updated powers

Tyrie said the opportunity to "rip off ordinary people" at online marketplaces fostered by the likes of Amazon, Facebook and Google was growing, but the regulator had no means to keep up.

In a report published by the Policy Institute at King’s College London and the Centre for Policy Studies thinktank, Tyrie argued that the current competition policy tools were ill-equipped to deal with the fallout from the digital revolution.

CMA's lack of visibility among consumers was one of the biggest issues for many consumers and businesses who had "never heard of it".

This "relative invisibility" affected its power to deter uncompetitive and unfair trading and consumers were “paying the price”, he reportedly told the Guardian.

“The CMA needs to be an organisation we can rely upon to protect ourselves,” he told the Guardian. “We need to know how to approach it and to see it acting on our behalf and which firms know will bear down on poor conduct and act as a deterrent.”