Groceries Code Adjudicator Bill [Lords]

Debate between Huw Irranca-Davies and Philip Davies

Tuesday 26th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[Philip Davies]

I am afraid that the hon. Gentleman is highlighting the misconceptions. The Office of Fair Trading is already able to enforce a grocery code of practice. It is already in place. It is not being introduced by this Bill. The code of practice already exists under the auspices of the OFT. If the hon. Gentleman has any concerns about how supermarkets are operating with regard to their suppliers, he can take his complaint to the OFT and ask it to investigate it. The adjudicator is not supposed to introduce a new code of practice, although we fear that they might. The code of practice already exists. If the hon. Gentleman has evidence of supermarkets breaking the code of practice, I would be happy for him to come forward and tell me about it. If anybody has evidence of supermarkets breaking the code of practice, let us hear about it today and we can all decide what the best course of action is. However, there is no evidence that the code of practice is being breached.

[Huw Irranca-Davies (Ogmore) (Lab)]

With all due respect, the hon. Gentleman fails to understand one of the fundamental points that was made in Committee, which is that many of the examples of abuse in the supply chain concern primary producers who are literally afraid of coming forward. That is why the anonymity and protection of those producers is built into the Bill.

[Philip Davies]

I understand the point that the hon. Gentleman makes, but he is basically highlighting that he can give no examples of abuses of the groceries code of practice.

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[Philip Davies]

My hon. Friend makes his point. As it happens, I am a Conservative. I know it is an old-fashioned view these days in the Conservative party, but I believe in the free market. Companies such as Asda, Tesco, Morrisons and Sainsbury’s are big enough to look after themselves. They do not need a referee to look after a contract on their behalf against any supplier; big companies are more than capable of doing that themselves. My hon. Friend may take the point that it is the role of Parliament to intervene in every contract negotiation between two companies.

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Philip Davies]

I will in a second. I will deal with this intervention and then give way to the hon. Gentleman. My hon. Friend the Member for Sherwood may think that the role of this House is to intervene in all sorts of contract disputes. Why limit it to supermarkets? There are lots of industries where one big person negotiates deals with a smaller supplier; it does not just happen in the supermarket trade. It seems to me that my hon. Friend is arguing for a total business ombudsman looking at every negotiated contract. That is not the kind of country I want to live in; it is certainly not what I consider to be Conservative.

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way; he is being very generous. New clauses 1, 2 and 3 lay his cards on the table; essentially, they support the free market option. That is what they are about, regardless of the technicalities. Did he listen to Radio 4, as I did the other morning, when Billy Bragg was being interviewed? He made the comment that when we leave everything to the free market we end up with horsemeat.

[Philip Davies]

I have no doubt that the hon. Gentleman does not believe in the free market—that is why he sits on the Labour side of the House. I have no quibble with Opposition Members agreeing with this nonsensical Bill. He was elected to try and introduce this kind of interventionist nonsense. What I object to is Government Members believing in this kind of stuff. I have no quibble with him believing it.

[Philip Davies]

In a Westminster Hall debate I heard one of my hon. Friends, who is in favour of the Bill, make it abundantly clear that he thought the adjudicator would have nothing to do, and that it would, in effect, be a sinecure post. The adjudicator would just be there in case he was needed at some point. It is unnecessary, and I do not believe in creating unnecessary bureaucracies. They end up empire building. They start off small and targeted, but of course once they find out that they have nothing to do they find something to do, even when it is not necessary.

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

rose—

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[Huw Irranca-Davies]

I am pleased to speak in this debate and I welcome the speeches that have been made so far. I did not expect it to be as sparky as it has been, but I welcome that because it allows us to flush out the arguments about the amendments and new clauses, as well as the fundamental principles of what we are trying to achieve.

I did not intend to speak to new clauses 1, 2 and 3, but I wish to reiterate the comments made by the hon. Member for Sherwood (Mr Spencer), the right hon. Member for South East Cambridgeshire (Sir James Paice) and others. A great deal of discussion in Committee focused on the fact that the adjudicator’s office will intentionally be small, mean and lean. It will not be some behemoth, as the hon. Members who spoke to new clauses 1, 2 and 3 suggested it would be. It is supposed to be an intelligent organisation that does not go on fishing expeditions but responds to good intelligence. I suspect that if there are no cases to follow, the report will be very slim indeed. I suspect that the adjudicator will not respond to Procter & Gamble or anyone else if they are asked, “Please look at the power relationship within the supply chain and how we are being disgracefully abused.”

The hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) spoke to new clauses 1, 2 and 3 at great length. New clause 3 gives the reality to the mission, which is at a set moment in time to get rid of the adjudicator, which would fly in the face of the advice that has come down over years from the Competition Commission and others that there is a need for such an adjudicator. Lean and mean, yes, but the hon. Member for Shipley should have some faith in the adjudicator and, having advertised the position and given her the power and set up the office on a lean, mean basis, he should allow her to decide where to investigate to achieve a good, efficient supply chain.

[Philip Davies]

The hon. Gentleman seemed to be criticising me for moving my new clause at great length. Does he accept that I spoke at great length because I took such a large volume of interventions, not least from him?

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

I am in no way being critical of speaking at great length. I can extemporise for the nation myself on occasions. I do not criticise the length of time and I am glad that the hon. Gentleman has had the opportunity to expound his arguments. I have no doubt that he and colleagues who spoke in support of his new clauses believe firmly in what he was saying and believe that we should have much more of what he regards as a free market. I am not anti-free market. The hon. Gentleman may not realise it, but I spent six years working in the private sector running leisure centres, theatres and so on. I understand how the free market works. I have worked within it as a manager and as a business person. I am opposed to the approach that says that we can beggar our neighbour or have a race to the bottom.

The hon. Member for Shipley challenged Members to go and explain to their constituents why they would argue against the cheapest possible price. I will not argue that we should have the cheapest price for every product on a supermarket shelf if that means sacrificing much-needed employment protection such as the Gangmasters Licensing Authority or sacrificing the standards in British agriculture of which we are rightly proud, such as animal welfare standards and so on. His argument that we should provide the very cheapest by lowering standards on food safety, food provenance, nutrition or employment rights is the argument that has previously exposed to their detriment multinational companies when they have been caught out for exploitation or low standards. We have only to think back, in a wholly different sector, to some years ago and to Nike in the previous World Cup when the very footballs on the field were being produced in sweatshop conditions in developing countries. Was that to its benefit?

I want to speak to our amendments 34 and 35, which stand in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh South (Ian Murray) and myself. Another illustration, if the House wants a more recent case, is the issue of food provenance and safety. No hon. Member can seriously argue that the commercial pressures along a complex supply chain have had no bearing on the entry of significant levels of adulterated meat. That is where a pure free market ideology will take us, and that is why I stand out firmly against the spirit in which the new clauses were tabled.

Onshore Wind Energy

Debate between Huw Irranca-Davies and Philip Davies

Thursday 10th February 2011 Westminster Hall

[Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Walker. I apologise to you and to the Minister in advance, because I may not be able to stay for the whole debate. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for South Northamptonshire (Andrea Leadsom) not only on securing the debate, but on her fantastic speech. I hope that, if nothing else, this debate will show the Minister the strength of feeling on the issue.

I, too, approach the issue from a local interest, namely the proposed development of a wind farm in the village of Denholme, which is on the edge of my constituency. My constituents and I are wholly opposed to it, and it has made me look further into the benefit of wind farms. I want to talk about the bigger picture rather than focus on my particular area, because I think that wind farms are one of the biggest scandals in public policy. The more one looks into the issue, the more of a scandal it becomes. People might refer to my constituents and me as nimbys and use it as a term of abuse, but I would take it as a compliment—I am proud to be a nimby. By definition, nimbys are people who are concerned about their local area and community. We should not be disparaging about that; we should be proud of being nimbys.

I speak as one of the five MPs who voted against the Climate Change Act 2008 in the previous Parliament. It is a great irony that those environmentalists who are such zealots for things like wind farms are prepared to see such damage done to the local environment by wind farms being put up in the most inappropriate locations. We really need a change of tack.

It is surprising that no one has yet pointed out that one of the Government’s problems is that wind farms are a huge part of their attempts to deliver a renewables obligation that has been handed down to this country by the European Union. This Government therefore feel that they have no option but to go down that route, however desirable or undesirable it may be. I do not think, however, that that is a good enough reason to impose such a ridiculous policy on this country.

Many green activists may have us believe that wind farms are a painless panacea and that they are marvellous and very green, but that is nonsense. My constituents want to know how much this is going to cost them. How much will it add to their bills? To be fair, the Department of Energy and Climate Change has been open and honest about the issue. It has made it clear in parliamentary answers that there will be a rise in gas and electricity bills of 18% and 33% respectively for domestic consumers, and of 24% and 43% respectively for medium-sized businesses. That means that, by 2020, the average annual domestic electricity bill will have risen by £105, and that the average medium-sized non-domestic user will face rises of £246,000. That is an increase in their energy bill just in order to follow this particular policy.

It is a ludicrous situation. We are trying to encourage and help our manufacturing businesses—we have a crisis in this country with people relocating their manufacturing business elsewhere—but the Government are pursuing a policy to add a quarter of a million pounds to their energy bills, and we wonder why companies relocate to countries such as China, where they can churn out whatever they want because they do not really care about this. The Government need to do some joined-up thinking.

We seem to not want to upset the green zealots who send us postcards from Friends of the Earth, but why not be honest about what their policy actually means? It is easy to say, “Yes, I agree with your postcard about green energy,” but why not be honest? What they are actually saying is, “We want to add all this cost to your energy bill and to those of manufacturing businesses, and we want them to relocate abroad.”

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Philip Davies]

I hope that the shadow Minister will be honest about what he believes.

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[Huw Irranca-Davies]

That is why I am intervening. I am sure that the Minister will reiterate what I have to say. Would the hon. Gentleman care to comment in his passionate oration on the current comparative prices between ourselves and France and Germany, which are two of our nearest neighbours, and how we compare internationally as a place to do business in terms of electricity and energy generation prices?

[Philip Davies]

I am pleased that the shadow Minister has mentioned that, because I will mention some illuminating international comparators in a moment. As my hon. Friend the Member for Beverley and Holderness (Mr Stuart) has made clear, there is no evidence that our constituents are prepared to pay more for their electricity in order to pursue these polices. In fact, only 15% of people polled said that they were either “fairly” or “very willing” to pay higher electricity prices if the extra money funded renewable power sources such as wind.

[Philip Davies]

Perhaps we will be gracious enough to introduce those kinds of limits when we have about 80% of the world’s manufacturing in our country. Given that we are not in that position, I would like to think that my hon. Friend would like to help the manufacturing industry in this country.

The bottom line is that these policies will produce for Britain the most expensive electricity in the world if we carry on down this particular route. Is it morally or politically acceptable, particularly at a time of national austerity when families are struggling to pay their bills, for the Government to keep raising them just to meet an EU target? I do not think it is. It will hit the poorest people in our communities first.

I do not understand why the people who propose these green policies are so shy about it. Anyone can say that they are in favour of green energy. It is like asking someone, “Would you like a Rolls-Royce car?” Most people would say, “Yes,” but if one were to ask, “Would you like a Rolls-Royce car? You’ll have to spend the rest of your life living in a tent to pay for it?” they might say, “No.” If we ask people whether they are in favour of green energy, they say, “Of course we are—it sounds marvellous.” However, if the hon. Member for Ogmore (Huw Irranca-Davies) were to ask them whether they were prepared to pay astronomical bills in order to pursue that, I think that he might get a different answer.

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Philip Davies]

I have given way enough, and others want to speak. The point is that I find it nauseating to hear politicians for ever bleating on about how terrible fuel poverty is when those very same politicians advocate policies that entrench fuel poverty in this country and make it worse. They should be honest about what they are doing. They cannot in one breath say, “I want to see more wind power in this country; it will add this amount of money to people’s bills,” and in the next breath say, “Isn’t it terrible how bad fuel poverty is?” I find that nauseating.

At the moment, Britain is only obtaining a fraction of its electricity from renewable sources. That will have to be expanded massively to hit these targets. The wholesale price of that quantity of electricity is about £1 billion. However, on the renewable obligation, the complex subsidy paid to generators but drawn indirectly from bills adds a further £1.4 billion to those bills. That more than doubles the cost to the British consumer. If 30% of UK electricity is to be renewable in 2020, an ongoing annual subsidy of £6 billion a year or more is required. That is before all the hidden costs of major grid expansion and so on.