Groceries Code Adjudicator

The ombudsman, as envisaged, would apply to all suppliers, so even those that are more powerful than the supermarkets would benefit. It would be a boon to big multinational businesses at the expense of the consumer and the supermarkets. In reality, it would do very little to help small suppliers. I come back to the point that this is a solution looking for a problem. We already have a supermarket code of practice that prohibits any retrospective changes to agreements, which is one of the big beefs that people had. It imposes a prohibition on charging suppliers for shrinkage, which is another cost that supermarkets have to factor into their prices. It has an overarching fair-dealing provision, which the Competition Commission believes balances the need to curtail unreasonable behaviour and to allow some commercial flexibility. I must stress that the code already makes it clear that a retailer may only delist a supplier for genuine commercial reasons, and expressly not for exercising its rights under the code. If any supplier at the moment wants to make a complaint to the OFT, which oversees the supermarket code of practice, it can do so without any penalty. It does not need to have anonymity, and I object to the principle of anonymity. If somebody were accused of an offence in court, but they had no idea who was accusing them or what they were being accused of, it would be completely unfair.