Groceries Code Adjudicator Bill [HL]
Debate between Lord Borrie and Lord Cameron of Dillington
Lord Borrie
My Lords, I support my Front-Bench spokesman who has just introduced this amendment. I hope I am right in thinking—the Minister will no doubt correct me if I am wrong—that the Bill currently going through the other place requires that the head of the proposed Competition and Markets Authority should be appointed by a Minister with the approval of the appropriate departmental committee. If that is so, and I am glad to think that it will be so, it emphasises the point that the Minister made in relation to the last amendment—namely the need to firmly establish the competition authorities’ independence of Ministers. She kindly said that this followed the Enterprise Act of the previous Government in their efforts to emphasise the independence of the competition authorities. It seems to me unduly subtle to say that the head of the Competition and Markets Authority, which is to be created shortly, is of a higher calibre of significance and importance than the groceries adjudicator. It is true that the groceries adjudicator’s role is narrower than that of the Competition and Markets Authority but, none the less, it is significant in its field. Indeed, the Government’s whole introduction of the Groceries Code Adjudicator Bill is based on the notion that, in a certain area of significance to the consuming public—supermarkets—the independence to be achieved by the appointment of this adjudicator is of some importance. I therefore hope that the Minister will agree with my noble friend who has introduced this amendment.
Lord Cameron of Dillington
My Lords, I am not so certain about this amendment—in fact, I think that I oppose it. If your Lordships have ever been involved in the appointment of a public post you will know that the criteria are very strict and there are many hurdles to be jumped, with independent assessors sticking strictly to the criteria and two or three interviews. I therefore think that this extra hurdle is an unnecessary piece of red tape. I know that it is common practice in the United States, for instance, to throw candidates for this sort of posts to the wolves before they have even got their feet under the table—the wolves, by the way, are the Select Committee—but I think that this is unnecessary. We want someone who is rational, methodical and good at making judgments in a legal or semi-legal context. We do not necessarily want someone who is used to the hurly-burly of political life and who might have to understand that when an MP is being rude to him he does not mean it. He is either showing off or trying to make a name for himself and just getting carried away.
I am opposed to the amendment. Perhaps that is simply because I do not have a particularly high opinion of MPs’ ability to take the right sort of decisions in this instance. It is better to leave it up to the usual channels to appoint a valid candidate who will really be able to do a good job.
Lord Cameron of Dillington
My Lords, I put my name to Amendment 15 because I am very much in favour of the immediate application of financial penalties where, after due process, a clear breach of the code has emerged. I do not believe that merely naming and shaming will have any effect at all. Supermarkets know that, in the short term, their customers shop with them largely because they are local. Why would the supermarkets still be chasing a further 44,000,000 square feet of retail space in a recession if they did not believe that? They need more retail space nearer to more customers.
Shoppers stick to their habitual supermarkets either because they are local, as I said, or because they get to know where things are on the shelves and find it much easier to shop that way. It seems that very few supermarket customers actually make shopping decisions based on ethical or moral grounds. There are one or two but they are very few. I suspect that some supermarket staff believe that any publicity is good publicity, so I do not believe that naming and shaming will work. Supermarkets have to feel the effects of their misbehaviour in their pockets, or at least to know that they could.
Clause 9(1) seems to be merely a delaying tactic, which will put off the much-needed effects of this Bill for yet another year or so—maybe three, as the noble Lord, Lord Knight, said—until the Secretary of State grips the issue. I believe we should try to grip the issue now and that the introduction of an effective adjudicator has been delayed long enough. Frankly, there is no point in having an adjudicator unless he or she has the powers to be effective. Of course, we all hope that if they have such effective powers, those will in itself be enough to make it unnecessary for them to be used. However, the powers must be effective, and I do not believe that they will be without the ability to fine.
Lord Borrie
My Lords, I am delighted to follow the noble Lord, Lord Cameron. He has made a clear case and, of course, my noble friend on the Front Bench, Lord Knight of Weymouth, made a very powerful case, for a power to fine from day one—in other words, under the Bill itself—without having to wait for some subsequent statutory instrument which may come into force some year or so later. My noble friend Lord Knight made the powerful point that the Government’s commitment to this is lukewarm. Yes, we have the Bill—that is something and it is important; the Government have indicated that it is important—but then they draw back. They draw back from the possibility, among other weapons to be used by the adjudicator, of a fine.
Who might be subject to a fine? We are talking about powerful businesses. Not any supermarket, but only the 10 most powerful supermarkets in the country could possibly be subject to the Bill. Will they be frightened off doing what some of them have done up to now—which is why we have the Bill in the first place—by the other powers that are mentioned; naming and shaming and so on? I do not think so. Mind you, they may not, because of their power, be terribly put out by a substantial fine, but fines can be very effective as a deterrent and, after all, that is what we are mainly concerned about: not the actual imposition of a fine, two fines, or whatever, but the deterrent value of a fine. To have that deterrent value from now, from the moment when the Bill becomes law, rather than at some distant point in the future, is what makes a real difference, it seems to me. I trust that we may succeed in getting the Government to agree to this change.
Public Bodies Bill [HL]
Debate between Lord Borrie and Lord Cameron of Dillington(13 years, 8 months ago)
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Lord Borrie
My Lords, I have been very happy to put my name to all the amendments standing in the names of the noble Earl, Lord Sandwich, and the right reverend Prelate. I should declare that I was the director-general of the Office of Fair Trading for 16 years, but that was some time ago. There is a certain shadow over the Office of Fair Trading at the moment through other parts of the Bill.
Leaving that aside, for some years there has been concern about the growing power of major retailers, especially supermarkets, in relation to their suppliers. It is worth providing a bit of balance. Supermarkets have done a great deal for consumers over the lifetime of noble Lords in the Chamber. They have made available to consumers a wide range of groceries and other goods with the emphasis on good value, quality and a pleasant shopping experience. Yet this has often been at the expense of small retailers who cannot match the lower price of supermarkets. As these small retailers have gone out of business, other businesses in the high street suffer the erosion and reduction of the number of visits paid by shoppers. People have gone instead to the supermarkets, usually on the outskirts of town, with their substantial car-parking space.
The rise of supermarket power has also been, as the right reverend Prelate emphasised, at the expense of suppliers, particularly farmers, who lack the clout to ensure that they can secure a fair price for their products. Supermarkets can play off one supplier against another. The Office of Fair Trading and the Competition Commission have wrestled with this problem in a number of references and studies in recent years. In 2009, the Competition Commission first proposed the appointment of a groceries ombudsman to assist fair dealing between farmers, suppliers and supermarkets.
Both the Labour Government and the present coalition Government have broadly accepted the need for such an appointment. Consultation concluded on 30 April last year; Members of the Committee will appreciate the significance of that date, because the matter was clearly left for the coalition Government coming into office in May to determine. They determined—it is in the coalition agreement—that there should be a groceries ombudsman within the Office of Fair Trading to enforce the groceries code of practice, of which the earlier speakers have spoken, and to curb the abuses of power that undermine farmers and are against the long-term interests of consumers.
In response to the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Wakefield, on 7 February, the noble Lord, Lord Henley, whom I am delighted to see in his place on the government Front Bench and who has already been quoted in part, said:
“It is important that large retailers cannot abuse power by transferring excessive risks or unexpected costs onto their suppliers. We therefore propose to establish a groceries code adjudicator to monitor and enforce the groceries supply code of practice”.—[Official Report, 7/2/11; col. 1.]
That was the noble Lord a month ago. These amendments seek to put the Government’s own propositions into legislative form. The Government may of course have plans that have not yet borne fruit for some other legislative vehicle to carry forward these proposals. The suggestion of those putting forward the amendment is that the Government might find it convenient to use the Bill before us now as a convenient vehicle already available to them. The amendments are here for the Government to run with as they wish.
Lord Cameron of Dillington
My Lords, I support this series of amendments. It is a pleasure to be speaking on this Bill in the early hours of the evening rather than in the early hours of the morning.
All three political parties have committed themselves to putting in place a groceries code adjudicator, and this seems to be a golden opportunity to do so. It would make the Government popular with farmers, consumers and at least three of the supermarkets, which have agreed the appointment of such a person or body if it was to apply across the board. Some of the free marketeers among you might question why an ombudsman figure is necessary in an open and free marketplace. You might say: surely in a free market where there is more than one buyer, the seller can go elsewhere. However, that equal balance of interest implied in the phrase “willing buyer, willing seller” simply does not exist where the buyers are so big and the sellers are so small.
More importantly, that balance of interest does not exist when the seller and supplier has to plan his cropping as much as 18 months in advance, within probably a five-year rotation, and organise the acreage, and buy the seed, the fertiliser and the spray, often with the seed variety and the treatment being specified in detail by the particular buyer. The farmer has to have his whole farm often audited and inspected by the particular buyer. Without this audited inspection he cannot sell his crop, or the buyer will not buy it. Furthermore, each buyer or supermarket has a different auditing system in place, so the farmer cannot easily change the buyer; certainly not without a long notice period. The farmer also may have to invest in specified capital and machinery. All this takes place 18 months to a year before the crop is sold and before a price is agreed.
Unfortunately there is ample room for the big boy to manipulate the sale to his advantage when the little man has nowhere else to go when the buyer’s terms or the buyer’s price turn against him. If the farming venture has involved borrowing the large sums of capital for irrigation, cold stores processing and the like, the smallholder farmer probably has nowhere else to go for the next year either.
The supermarkets may claim that an adjudicator is not necessary. In that case, there is no danger to them or to the consumer if one is put in place. In my view, it will be a great insurance policy for the farmer—and for the consumer—if one is put in place. Therefore, I urge all three parties to use this opportunity to fulfil their election promises. It is crucial for the future of UK agriculture and the fair balance that we need to achieve.