Groceries Code Adjudicator Bill [Lords]

Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick Excerpts

Tuesday 26th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

The hon. Gentleman has intrigued me. Let us say that a larger operator over the turnover steps forward to the adjudicator with evidence that does not affect it directly but affects a series of smaller suppliers right down the chain. Does he seriously suggest that the adjudicator should not be able to take action on that? I trust the adjudicator to follow the evidence and identify the power relationship if the supply chain is being abused. If the evidence comes from a larger operator, all to the good. I want the adjudicator to step in and take the right action.

[Ms Margaret Ritchie (South Down) (SDLP)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that there is a need to protect all within the food supply chain? I represent a constituency in Northern Ireland and I am conscious of the dysfunctionality in that chain in relation to food prices, but also now in relation to food provenance and labelling.

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

The hon. Lady is right. She speaks to the spirit and the letter of the amendments, to which I will now turn my attention. Amendments 34 and 35 are critical in view of what has passed before our eyes in the time since the Bill left Committee.

As hon. Members will know, last week Sodexho, one of the biggest catering firms in the UK and indeed in Europe, which supplies processed meat to schools, hospitals and our armed forces, withdrew all its frozen beef products after discovering adulteration with horsemeat. This is where the race to the bottom and the aim to be the cheapest of all lead us, when the cost of horsemeat going into mince is a quarter of that of good British beef, without appropriate regulation—and enforcement of that regulation.