My Lords, I declare a past interest. We are still farmers, but we do not supply supermarkets any longer. In fact, we used to have a contract with Waitrose to supply pigs. I reiterate what the noble Lord, Lord Knight, said earlier: Waitrose offer a very good example and a steer to a lot of the other retailers that we are talking about.
I will comment on my noble friend Lord Howard of Rising’s point. I would be anxious if we went back down the route that he suggests. I also seek clarification from the Minister, or from himself, on how you classify what is “publically available”. Obviously, a lot of information is hearsay and is not publically available. I would be really quite concerned about that.
On the earlier comments about third parties being able to give evidence to the adjudicator, this morning I asked the National Farmers’ Union, which has sent a briefing to all of us—and of which I declare myself a member—whether it would only do that on behalf of its members. It seemed a logical question to ask. Otherwise, there may be many other people who would be affected if they were willing to take it up on everybody’s behalf. I think that the answer I got to that was that, generally, it would probably be instigated by a member, but that other evidence and considerations would obviously be taken into account. I am quite happy with what is in the Bill, and would be quite concerned if we started narrowing it back just to information provided by a supplier. We have been down that route before. That would identify the supplier to the supermarket very quickly, which the Bill is not trying to do. The acceptance that third parties can give evidence and bring things forward to the adjudicator is hugely important.
My noble friend Lord Howard of Rising is right that the balance lies where mischievousness creeps into it. Clearly, all Members of this Committee would
be horrified about that. My reading of the Bill is that I am reasonably comfortable with it, and am not particularly concerned about that. The detail in the Bill does not totally stop it happening, but it certainly discourages it. These instigations of investigations should only happen on good grounds.