The government has intervened in BT Group’s acquisition of TalkTalk, with Lisa Nandy, the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, today issuing a Public Interest Intervention Notice and telling the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) to report back to her by 19 October 2026.
The notice, issued under section 42 of the Enterprise Act 2002, will allow the secretary of state to consider the wider public interest once the CMA has reported on competition concerns, the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) said.
DCMS said the action was taken amid concerns that any collapse of TalkTalk could cause sudden disruption to phone and broadband services, putting lives, public services and vulnerable customers at risk.
BT announced earlier today that it had acquired TalkTalk Telecommunications and PlatformX Communications out of the administration of TalkTalk Group on a debt-free basis. BT estimated the total cash impact in its 2027 financial year at about £400m, including a trading loss of about £60m and the non-receipt of about £100m otherwise due to its Openreach division.
TalkTalk’s customers do not need to take any action, DCMS said. Services should continue as normal while the acquisition process is taken forward, and customers will be contacted directly if there are any changes they need to know about.
DCMS said TalkTalk’s networks support critical infrastructure and services that people and public bodies rely on every day, including calls to emergency services, ambulance and hospital communications and medical alarms. A sudden disruption would also affect businesses across the country that depend on reliable telecoms networks, the department said.
Nandy said: “Phone and broadband services are vital national infrastructure. 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. That is why I am acting with urgency to ensure that impacts on public health, critical national infrastructure and supply to vulnerable customers are fully considered as part of this process.”
TalkTalk had been seeking a buyer for its consumer and wholesale businesses following a period of financial difficulty, DCMS said. After an open commercial bidding process, a number of potential buyers were unable to reach an agreement on a sale of the whole business, according to the department, which said it had been closely monitoring the situation.
The company avoided a debt default in August 2024 when founder Sir Charles Dunstone and other shareholders injected £65m, and four months later set out plans to cut hundreds of jobs and £120m of costs.
BT said the acquired business has 1.5m retail customers and 1m wholesale customers, including vulnerable households and connections that support critical national infrastructure providers across health, emergency services, defence, education, transport, banking and government.
TalkTalk reported revenues of about £1.2bn over the past 12 months and was loss-making, according to BT.
Allison Kirkby, chief executive of BT Group, said: “This is a genuinely unprecedented situation, where millions of citizens and businesses were at risk if TalkTalk had collapsed.”
She added that “BT acquiring TalkTalk is now the only viable option to keep millions of customers connected and supported”.
BT said it expects a regulatory review of the transaction to take place over the coming weeks, pending which TalkTalk and BT will operate separately and continue to compete. Clive Selley will lead the stabilisation and integration planning with immediate effect, the company said.
TalkTalk is among the retail providers that sell broadband over Openreach’s lines. Last week Ofcom ordered Openreach to withdraw a full-fibre discount of up to £9.50 per customer per month that it had offered to internet service providers.
