My Lords, as I said in Committee, the reports that the adjudicator must publish at the end of each investigation are a vital part of his or her accountability, and an important way of keeping retailers, suppliers and consumers informed of his or her work. While I can understand the intention behind the amendment of my noble friend Lord Howard of Rising, I am not sure that it is necessary. If a retailer wishes to make a public comment on the report, it will be free to do so by issuing a press release or publishing a statement on its website. For this to be included as an annexe to
the report itself would appear somewhat unusual, particularly as there would—due to confidentiality—be less possibility of a similar statement from any suppliers.
Furthermore, we think it important that the report is clearly the adjudicator’s report and the adjudicator’s alone. The report should be fair and impartial and should not be coloured by commentary from a retailer with which the adjudicator may or may not agree. As I say, the retailer will be free to make its own statement, and similarly the adjudicator will have no right to have his or her comments on that statement included in it. I therefore ask the noble Lord not to press that amendment.
To move on to the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Browne, I said two weeks ago that this was interesting and reasonable—he repeated my words exactly—and upon further consideration I am happy to say that my opinion has not changed. It is eminently sensible to require the adjudicator’s investigation reports to contain the reasons for the decisions made, and I am therefore happy to accept that amendment.