My Lords, this is a useful amendment for my noble friend Lord Whitty to move at the outset because it is broad and makes important points. I also thought that the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, brought an interesting matter before us. I do not think that it is necessary to make that amendment to the Bill because I have little doubt that the Bill as it stands gives the new amalgamated body, the Competition and Markets Authority, all the powers it needs to investigate the problems of which he has spoken.
With regard to my noble friend Lord Whitty’s amendment, it is useful for monopsonies to be included because it makes it clear that there can be a monopoly on the buyer’s side as well as the supplier’s side. Leaving aside a statute dealing with particular matters of Queen Elizabeth I, in Britain the first statute dealing with monopolies was in 1948. Under that Act, together with the legislation of the European Community, which came in when we joined the then Common Market, it was the abuse of monopoly that was regarded as undesirable and something that should be attacked.
Monopoly as such is not necessarily a bad thing. I do not see that it is any different now, in 2012, from what it was in 1948. You can have monopolies that justify themselves and prove themselves for various reasons; for example, it may be feasible to have only one supplier in a local or national area, and as long as the power is not abused, competition authorities do not need to worry about it. My only query to my noble friend Lord Whitty is that the wording of the amendment suggests that he wants action,
“to reduce cartels, monopolies and monopsonies”.
To investigate or inquire into whether the power is misused is one thing, but I very much doubt whether this should be inserted after the very proper requirement of promoting competition.