Groceries Code Adjudicator Bill [Lords]

Ian Paisley Excerpts

Monday 19th November 2012 Commons Chamber

[Jo Swinson]

Consultation is taking place on that measure. My hon. Friend the Minister of State who is summing up the debate as the Minister with responsibility for farming will, I am sure, be able to enlighten the House further on that point.

What will the adjudicator do? The adjudicator’s role is to investigate large retailers and hold them to account if they have broken the groceries code. He or she will also be able to act as an arbitrator to resolve private disputes between suppliers and large supermarkets, as the groceries supply order envisages. Aside from these main roles, the adjudicator will have a number of other functions. These are to publish guidance on when and how investigations will proceed and how enforcement powers will be used, to advise large retailers and suppliers on the groceries code, to recommend changes to the groceries code to the Office of Fair Trading, to arbitrate individual disputes between large retailers and the direct suppliers, as mentioned, or to appoint another person to do so, and to report annually on his or her work, which will be laid before Parliament.

[Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (DUP)]

The Minister knows that the adjudicator cannot do any of those things until they have published the guidance under clause 12. The adjudicator can take up to six months before publishing the guidance. Have the Government any intention of bringing that date forward so that the adjudicator can get down to this important business as soon as possible?

[Jo Swinson]

The hon. Gentleman expresses an understandable desire to make sure that the role of adjudicator can be up and running as soon as possible. We all share that desire. I am sure, however, that he would not want the publication of the guidance to be rushed. Although I would be happy if the adjudicator, once in place, decides that the full six months is not needed and the guidance can be published earlier, it would not be wise to force a faster timetable if that was not felt to be possible.

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[Ian Murray]

I know that my hon. Friend has worked on the Gangmasters Licensing Authority, and we will take that debate forward to Committee. The Gangmasters Licensing Authority has been downgraded under this Government—indeed, the Beecroft review recommended that it be scrapped. We must be vigilant and ensure that the great work done by that authority in saving lives and stopping exploitation continues, and we can debate that in Committee. If I look towards the Whips, perhaps my hon. Friend will join us on that Committee to make those points—his name is being jotted down as we speak.

I was talking about the huge impact and value that supermarkets bring to our economy. The groceries market was worth nearly £157 billion in 2011, and it provides significant choice and good value for customers, which is vital. A number of supermarkets in my constituency do a tremendous job through investment in our high streets, job creation, and supporting community projects, and I am grateful to them for that positive role. I also place on record my thanks to Sainsbury’s at Cameron Toll in my constituency for its continued support for my schools Christmas card competition. Likewise, farmers and small suppliers play a critical part in achieving economic growth. It is an incredibly difficult time to be a farmer or small supplier in the UK—there have been increases in feed prices, not to mention the difficulties that many small and medium-sized enterprises have experienced in accessing finance. We should set retailer abuses against that backdrop.

We should acknowledge that retailers have done much to clean up their supply chains, but we know that abuses by retailers against suppliers still occur, and that evidence supports the need for a groceries code adjudicator more than ever. FoodDrinkEurope, the European federation, surveyed businesses from around Europe anonymously. It asked whether businesses had been confronted by various situations, and the survey gives us a picture of the situation in the UK. Seventy-seven per cent. of businesses said they had experienced non-respective contractual terms; 75% said they had experienced de-listing threats to obtain unjustified advantages; and 60% said they had experienced unilateral deductions to invoices. Only a very small number of the businesses interviewed—3%—said that they had done something other than discuss the situation with their customers. When asked why, more than half said they did not believe in the effectiveness of the remedies by public or legal authorities, and 44% said they were afraid of commercial sanctions. In one case of which I am aware, the supplier—a salad grower based in Yorkshire—said:

“The retailer has reneged on a commitment to cover the costs of packaging should they terminate dealings with me at short notice—despite this being confirmed”

on numerous occasions in e-mails.

[Ian Paisley]

Given those statistics, does the hon. Gentleman believe that food producers will feel emboldened to come forward and make their complaints if no financial penalty is front and centre in the Bill?

[Ian Murray]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. We need proper sanctions—we need to take the carrot-and-stick approach. Without proper fines in the Bill, the adjudicator could, as the Minister said, be a toothless dog or tiger. I will come to that shortly.

There are times when a market needs intervention to make competition work well, particularly if players in that market become too powerful. Roughly 3.6 million people are employed in food production in this country, and making competition in that market function more fairly through the introduction of the adjudicator is ultimately good for growth and for those jobs. It will undoubtedly also be good for consumers in the long term. Because the choice of products is supported, small suppliers and products will not be driven from the market by anti-competitive practices, which hon. Members have mentioned. The choice of retailers will also be supported, because small retailers will not be driven from the market by the disparity in buying terms, which can be exacerbated by anti-competitive practices. Suppliers will be better able to plan their businesses, yielding efficiencies. Critically, they will be able to invest in innovation, new products and product quality. Finally, more competition will hopefully bring down prices.

The benefits of a strong adjudicator are clear, but fundamentally the Opposition’s major concern is that the adjudicator will be toothless. The adjudicator must have teeth to tackle the breaches of which all hon. Members are aware.

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[Miss Anne McIntosh (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Edinburgh South (Ian Murray). I should like to congratulate the Under-Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, my hon. Friend the Member for East Dunbartonshire (Jo Swinson), on starting this Second Reading debate so eloquently. I want to make some comments as the representative of growers and farmers in Thirsk, Malton and Filey, and I want to share with the House the evidence that the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Select Committee has heard on these matters.

I welcome the Bill’s Second Reading. I have some common ground with the hon. Member for Edinburgh South on these issues, but probably more with my hon. Friend the Minister. I also have common ground and differences with the hon. Member for West Bromwich West (Mr Bailey), who chairs the Business, Innovation and Skills Select Committee.

We should perhaps pause for a moment to consider the marketplace in which some of the growers we hope will benefit from the Bill are operating. They tend to be very small producers of each vegetable or form of produce, and they are often small in number. There is absolutely no comparison with the size, volume and financial weight of supermarkets.

I welcome the fact that we have reached Second Reading and I welcome the useful amendments made in the other place, but there has been a long gestation period from the Competition Commission report of 2008. I would like to record the thanks of the DEFRA Committee to those who gave written evidence and, more specifically, oral evidence in the context of our brief inquiry. We shared our conclusions with the Business, Innovation and Skills Committee. Some of the points we made have been adopted, but it is worth repeating them today.

We welcome the fact that an adjudicator is going to be established, and we believe that the adjudicator should have the power to accept complaints from indirect as well as direct suppliers. Will the Minister confirm that suppliers will have the ability to make anonymous complaints, which we believe will be fundamental to the success of the groceries code adjudicator?

In a limited market—in Lincolnshire, for example, and other parts of the country—where there are very few leek growers, if one of them wished to make a complaint against a particular supermarket, it would be too easy for the supermarket to identify that particular grower. It is therefore vital that the grower has the safety of knowing that an anonymous complaint can be made to the adjudicator—either directly or, as forcefully expressed by our Committee, through an indirect route via the National Farmers Union, the Country Land and Business Association or the Tenant Farmers Association. They are membership organisations that will represent the individual grower, who will then be able to make a case, safe from persecution and safe from the possibility of having the contract terminated at an early stage.

[Ian Paisley]

The hon. Lady makes a vital point. If a potato processor or person producing potatoes in Northern Ireland were to make that sort of complaint, it would in effect be one of three people, so a middle way of getting the complaint through must be found.

[Miss McIntosh]

The hon. Gentleman reaffirms my point very eloquently. He would probably share my view—and I hope that Ministers and shadow Ministers will grasp it—that the security of tenure of some of these growers is absolutely shocking. That is in stark contrast to—albeit another woeful situation—what happens in the dairy industry. A cheese producer in my area contacted me to say that some of the milk supplies for cheese production—a liquid production that we are so good at in this country—are being threatened. The growers that I believe will benefit more directly and more specifically than dairy farmers and others sometimes have only three months’ security of tenure or certainty of contract—not even a year. I do not know—perhaps the Minister can help me—whether the Bill will address this disparity between producers of, for example, milk and potatoes, and others. With the groceries code adjudicator, will these producers and growers gain greater security of contract than the three months or less than a year that they have at present?

Let me explain what I believe to be the sticking point. I hope I heard the hon. Member for Edinburgh South correctly as I think he said he would favour the power to have proactive investigations. I believe that that is vital. I should declare my interest—I know that what I say here will not go further than this Chamber, but I also know that if someone wants to tell a secret, this is the best place in which to share it. I served for six months—in 1978, I am afraid to say—in what is now called DG Competition but was then the Directorate General for Competition, dealing with investigations of complaints brought directly to the European Commission. I understand that the Competition Commission is based on the same philosophy, as it were, as DG Competition.

I should like to know what good reason the Government could have for not introducing a power for the groceries code adjudicator to launch a proactive investigation. It could be based on evidence received by word of mouth, or on material in trade journals. Journalists working in the specialist press often hear things at conferences to which others are not privy.

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[Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (DUP)]

The production of food is our most important industry. Let us pause and think about that for one moment. The production of food is our most important industry, not just for what it earns for our economy and what it achieves, but because of what it says about us as a nation and what we are prepared to promote to our people to eat.

Consumers are becoming more and more aware of food traceability and of the importance of our nation’s ability to produce good quality, tasty, traceable food with as little intervention as possible of chemicals, and a clear process chain for the production of that food so that we understand food stability, food security, and what real agricultural sustainability is all about. The Bill before the House is so important because it is about understanding the mechanisms and the balances that make up our most important industry.

I do not fear to predict that the production of food over the next few years will become the most important topic in our nation during this century. I say that because of the threat posed by huge cartels and their interests to the production of good quality, tasty food. Handling and protecting our most important industry and doing all we can to ensure that we continue to produce the best quality, tasty, traceable food that our people have come to enjoy and expect should be a key priority not just for the Government, but for everyone in the House.

When I made my maiden speech, the hon. Member for Ynys Môn (Albert Owen) spoke to me afterwards because I had focused on agriculture and the subject of creating a food ombudsman. I was delighted to learn from the hon. Gentleman about the pioneering work that he had tried to do under the previous Government, and it is a huge tribute to him that we have got so far that the House is on the verge of legislating on something so critical to our food security and our food interests. I congratulate him.

I say all this in the knowledge that if we introduce a food ombudsman or a supermarkets adjudicator, there will be certain consequences. One is that we as a nation must educate our people that food can no longer be regarded as a cheap commodity. If we want good quality, traceable, digestible, beneficial food produced in a sustainable way that continues to employ people on a living wage, that will not be done cheaply. We must therefore ensure that the food chain is transparent and that people understand why a certain price must be paid.

Those who would undermine that by marketeering cheap food to our people and bringing cheap food in vast quantities from overseas undermine our ability to produce quality food, ruin the industry and hasten the day when we will have limited choice as a nation and be forced to pay the highest of high prices for food. That is why we must protect the primary and key producers of food in our nation.

The Bill is a good Bill but, as the Opposition Front-Bench spokesman, the hon. Member for Edinburgh South (Ian Murray) said, some improvements could be made to make it a brilliant Bill, and we should strive to do that. The Bill is not intended, for example, to deal with commercial issues such as the producer price differential which exists between Northern Ireland and Great Britain. That is particularly important for me in Northern Ireland because of two things. The first is water —17 miles of it between my island and your island, which adds to the price of food and food production, and the demands put on a primary producer in my country when he wishes to supply one of the 10 great supermarkets here on the mainland. The second is climate and the fact that it is considerably colder where I come from, which has a detrimental effect. I see that the hon. Member for Midlothian (Mr Hamilton) seems to think that it is colder where he comes from. Well, he can keep that cold, as far as I am concerned.

We could improve the Bill if we address those issues through the powers of the adjudicator. We should also deal with some of the practices of processors and other intermediaries in the processing of food. That is another critical area left out of the Bill, but it is an area that we should at least try to address. The inability to impose fines at the outset is another flaw that needs to be addressed. I was brought up in a political school which said, “If you want to deter someone, let that person know that if they get into a fight with you, you’re going to kick them where it hurts. That usually deters a person from having a fight with you, but if that person is so unfortunate that they still want to have a fight with you, then kick them where it hurts and they probably won’t fight with you again.” That just happens to be the school of political brawl I was brought up in. It usually works, and with some effect.

The president of the Ulster Farmers Union, Mr Harry Sinclair, wrote to all Northern Ireland MPs at the weekend, stating that

“we firmly believe that the ‘teeth’ necessary to secure compliance needs to be much stronger”

and that fining should therefore be set out in the Bill. I believe that the Government should listen to those words and deter the supermarkets.

I agree with a huge amount of what the Minister said, especially when she said that the supermarkets like to spend a lot of money on advertising. I was once told that 50% of all money spent on advertising works and 50% is completely wasted. The problem for the supermarkets is that they do not know which 50% is which, so they would spend less if they knew what advertising actually works. I believe that some of the supermarkets would not necessarily wear the publicity they got as a badge of shame, but they might feel honoured to wear it. We really need to move away from the nonsensical idea that bad publicity in itself will be sufficient deterrent for the supermarkets, because it will not be enough. We must let the supermarkets know that if they price-fix, because they are a cartel, they will be kicked where it hurts, and that will have an effect.

We must also ensure that we bring about a new relationship that rebalances the primary producers’ impact on the market with that of the supermarkets. The only way to do that is by ensuring that we reward the farmer for the sweat and toil that he or she puts into the land to make the best quality, most traceable and tastiest food we can get. I believe that the only way we can do that is by establishing a new relationship, not one in which the farmer is king, but one in which he is at least treated equally and feels that his sweat will be rewarded with a fair price. He should be able to encourage his children to aspire to be farmers, rather than having to tell them, “Go somewhere else, because there is no reward in this and you won’t be able to make a living, raise a family or spend money on the things you want.”

Therefore, we must establish a new relationship that at least treats farmers as equals and allows them to be regarded as such. Otherwise, over the next 20 years our agricultural sector will continue to be dashed and to fall and we will find ourselves held in the grip of outside interests beyond the shores of this nation that will sell us what they want, which will not necessarily be good, clean, traceable or tasty, and they will sell it at their price. Therefore, we have to get this right and get it right now, because, as I said at the beginning of my comments, it is our most important industry. It is about what we tell our people they should eat and what is good for them.

Although the adjudicator is an important part of the process of getting to that stage, I believe that it is only one part of a cocktail of necessary measures. We must have price transparency—having the adjudicator is, of course, one way of providing price transparency—so that the consumer knows why they have paid a certain amount for steak, poultry, pork or other products, what it has cost the farmer to produce, what it has cost the processor to process and make good for them and what it has cost the supermarket to retail. They must know each cost along the supply chain, because otherwise they are being robbed of a vital thing: knowledge about what they are being shown they should eat.

We should also have clear food labelling and ensure that we know whether a product has been made in the United Kingdom or was brought in from elsewhere. In many instances there is nothing wrong with food brought in from elsewhere, but we should at least have clear labelling so that we know where it is from. We should also ensure not only that we encourage our products to be sold here in the United Kingdom, through good procurement policies in our schools and hospitals, but that it is marketed abroad. All these issues can ensure that those involved in the most important industry in our land are encouraged to continue to produce the best, cleanest, tastiest and most traceable food possible.