Baroness Walmsley
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Supermarkets: Voluntary Price Caps
Baroness Walmsley Excerpts(2 months, 1 week ago)
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Captain of the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen-at-Arms and Chief Whip (Lord Kennedy of Southwark) (Lab Co-op)
It is the turn of the Conservative Benches next, and then of the Liberal Democrat Benches.
Lord Livermore (Lab)
That may be subject to UK internal market and single market regulations. I am happy to check and confirm that to the noble Lord. As I have said, this is not about price caps, as some speculation has suggested, and we would never advocate for that.
Baroness Walmsley (LD)
My Lords, does the Minister agree that any deal that the Government might do with the supermarkets to cut prices in exchange for delaying regulations on healthy food would be short-sighted, against public health and damaging to the NHS?
Lord Livermore (Lab)
I absolutely understand the importance of the regulations that the noble Baroness is talking about. As her noble friend said, this is about what we as a Government can do, such as easing existing regulations on supermarkets, which would then enable them to keep costs down for consumers.