It is strange that an hour has been allocated for this debate when it is obvious that it will take only a few moments. Given that the Agricultural Wages Board has been abolished by the unelected House of Lords and this House was not able to have a debate on that, the timetable today is a bit disappointing.
For my sins, I have often said in Delegated Legislation Committees in the past few weeks that I agree with the Minister, and this is another demonstration of the fact
that when the Government do the right thing, we will agree with them. In this case, the Minister is certainly doing the right thing.
It is worth returning to the introduction of this Bill. It was a fairly ordinary Bill to start with, but it was strengthened substantially in the other place with the addition that trade associations and third parties could seek redress from the adjudicator. Importantly, on Second Reading in this House, we had a robust debate on whether fines should be included in the Bill. We disagreed on that point, and the Minister vehemently and robustly defended their omission. We are delighted that provisions on fines were added in Committee, which made the Bill all the better.
The amendment we are considering is significant because it shows the power of this House. The Select Committee has had a pre-appointment hearing for the adjudicator, and we congratulate her on her appointment. She will be a very good adjudicator and we look forward to her getting stuck into some of the important work that has to be done on this issue. We have also had a lot of cross-party consensus on the Bill on the Floor of the House and in Committee. It is a testament to the power of the Select Committees and the Committee system—not to mention the other place—that we started with a fairly weak Bill, but it will leave this House today much stronger.
Many people deserve credit for that improvement. As well as the Minister, they include the hon. Member for St Ives (Andrew George) who is in his place, my hon. Friend the Member for Ynys Môn (Albert Owen) who I do not see in his place, and my hon. Friend the Member for Ogmore (Huw Irranca-Davies), who was my wing person in Committee.
We do not disagree with the Lords and will be agreeing with the Minister in this particular case, but I will just make this point. We had arguments in Committee about ensuring that the Select Committee on Business, Innovation and Skills and the Select Committee on Environment, Food and Rural Affairs in particular had time to look at these issues, and the Minister defended robustly the other Committees of this House. Now that provisions on fines are in the Bill, and the Secretary of State will be putting forward an order to determine their amount, it is right that that statutory instrument should be before the House for affirmative resolution. We can then debate it to ensure that it is in the interests not just of the suppliers covered by the groceries code adjudicator, but businesses and supermarkets too.