Enterprise Bill [HL]
Debate between Lord Mendelsohn and Lord Faulkner of Worcester
Lord Mendelsohn
My Lords, that was not entirely the response I had hoped for, but one I could have expected. There are a couple of elements here. First, we were asked about whether we had much to learn from the Groceries Code Adjudicator that is relevant to this. Indeed, we have learned a huge amount from that adjudicator that is entirely relevant to the Small Business Commissioner.
In the past couple of weeks, five years into its existence and two years into the current person responsible for it, the adjudicator has been shocked by suppliers’ ignorance of the code and all aspects of it compared and contrasted to the knowledge that larger businesses have of what they can do and how they can get round it. We are dealing with a very small number of companies who are the target of the code, but still, suppliers in any survey, in massive numbers, talk about these problems. The largest and most recent survey may well have been on Tesco. Somewhere in the region of 30% to 40% of suppliers said that Tesco was failing more often than not to live up to its obligations under the code, when, by dint of what the Groceries Code Adjudicator said, it had had extensive department education on what it should be doing, but it still failed to comply. Indeed, we have the issue we will come to later about the fears of retribution. We continually have extensive surveys by the Groceries Code Adjudicator about the number of suppliers feeling mistreated. I think that that has reduced, in the entirety of its existence, by only 9%.
We took some of that into account and that is why the Small Business Commissioner should have a much more extensive role and this should be much clearer. If we hope for everyone to be happy, resourceful and feel comfortable, we need something with some teeth.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Faulkner of Worcester) (Lab)
My Lords, there is a Division in the House.