I shall not detain the House for long, but I want to make some general comments about some of the amendments and new clauses.
I rise with an enormous amount of frustration, because in my opinion a number of Members seem not wholly to understand the role of the adjudicator and how they will fit in to the grocery supply chain in the United Kingdom. There has been an enormous amount of debate on new clauses 2 and 3, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies), which I would like to explore. I understand his motivation in trying to ensure that the adjudicator deals with smaller companies, but I think he misunderstands how the grocery supply chain works.
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I agree with my hon. Friend that large companies are big enough, ugly enough and strong enough to do their own negotiation. That is what will happen between those suppliers and supermarkets; the groceries code adjudicator will have no role in those deals or supply contracts. Even a small producer could agree, if they chose to do so, to supply a product at below the cost of production. If they were minded to do that, that would be entirely their decision. They could commit suicide in that way and the adjudicator would have no role to step in and get involved in the deal. The only point at which the adjudicator would get involved would be when the supermarket wanted to change the deal agreed by the supplier and the retailer. It seems simple to me: Unilever and other large corporations have the commercial muscle to negotiate a deal with which they and the retailer are happy. As long as that deal does not change, no one will get involved. That seems to me to be a system that will work well and that, through market forces, has worked well for generations.
My hon. Friend’s point about trying to restrict the remit of the Bill to companies with a very small turnover might be honourable, but it is not necessary. No case will come forward.