My Lords, my Amendment 31 is in this group. I apologise to the Minister and the House that I was only a passive presence at Second Reading, and even more passive in Committee, despite my long-standing interest in the subject. I wish the Bill well and I am glad that the Government brought it forward.
I will resist the temptation to give my Second Reading speech now. I will say two things. First, as my noble friend Lord Grantchester said, it is 10 years since I started grappling with this issue and urging the noble Baroness’s predecessors, the competition authorities, to take this seriously. We have had the code since then and this begins to give it serious teeth.
Since I left office as a Minister I have also been a consumer champion. Occasionally I was leant on to say that it was not in the interests of consumers to have a go at the supermarkets by means of the groceries code. Supermarkets have made a very impressive contribution to consumer benefit, in terms of choice, price and convenience. However, it is not in the interests of consumers, even in the medium term, for part of the supply chain to be wiped out, or for supply at the retail end to be restricted in terms of competition if that is done by a large-scale operator. Consumers have benefited from supermarket activity, but they would not benefit from the supermarkets overstretching their ability to control the market.
It is also true, in defence of supermarkets, that it is not only they who could abuse their power in the supply chain and engage in the kind of activity that they are accused of, and which my noble friend and others referred to earlier in our debates on the Bill. As we know with the current situation of milk production, there is a question mark over the behaviour not only of supermarkets but also of large milk processors. My amendment does not seek immediately to broaden the scope of the code but it suggests that, were Amendments 2 and 26 adopted—in other words, were there to be a review—it may well be that it is not just the large retailers that should be included within the code’s provisions. In those circumstances the Minister would not have to wait another 10 years for primary legislation to extend the code and the adjudicator’s powers but, in the light of the reviews required by the other two amendments in this group, would be able by order to extend the provisions of the code to other large operators within the supply chain. That would be beneficial to the small suppliers; it would also give some clarity and restraint to those who were tempted to overuse their monopsonistic or oligopsonistic powers within the food chain. It would be an improvement to this Bill if the possibility of so doing were included in the primary legislation at this stage, rather than have to come back to it in a few years’ time.