Food Industry Competitiveness

I will try to be brief. I know that the hon. Member for Croydon, Central (Mr. Pelling) wants to speak, and I want to give him enough time to set out his stall as well. I want to focus on the proposals for a supermarket ombudsman. I am afraid that the debate so far on this issue has been familiarly depressing. Debates in this place seem to follow the same old routine. First, an outside body makes a recommendation about something. In this case, it was the Competition Commission, but it can be Select Committees or other bodies set up by the Government. Whatever happens, we seem to take the view in this place that, whenever such a body produces a report, we all have to stand up and say, "Wasn't that a marvellous report? We can't think of anything bad to say about any of the recommendations, and everyone's done a wonderful job." We build up a cosy consensus in this place based on the fact that no criticism can ever be made of any report done by anybody about anything. I do not share that view. Are we really saying that we are happy to give the Competition Commission a blank cheque, that we are going to agree with everything that it comes up with, and that it must be marvellous simply because the Competition Commission says so. That appears to be the nature of the debate that we have had on this matter so far. Everyone seems to have said, "This must be a good thing because the Competition Commission says so." Some of us have thoughts and experiences of our own, however. I am not sure how much experience of the supermarket industry other hon. Members have had. I am one of the few who has spent a number of years working in it, and I would like to use the short time available to expose a few of the myths that have grown up around this subject in the House. I do not know whether it is a particularly British disease, but we seem to have a need to knock every successful industry in this country. We try to knock down any industry that reaches a certain size and level. We should be incredibly proud of our supermarket industry. It employs hundreds of thousands of people. Indeed, it employs people in each hon. Member's constituency, although I am not entirely sure whether some have any great desire to see those people in work. Supermarkets also provide a very good service to tens of millions of customers each week.