My Lords, I am driven to get to my feet by the wise words of the noble Lord, Lord O’Neill—he may be embarrassed by this. They lead me to believe that this is a very interesting and important amendment simply because it reminds the Government, at a crucial point, of their responsibility to the marketplace, where we are of necessity intervening in order to give it a sense of time. After all, what we are really saying is that these decisions are made not just for today and tomorrow; they have to be made, given the problems, over a very much longer period. That is why we are intervening in the market-driven mechanism. However, we have to think about some of the fundamentals of the market as well.
I agree with the noble Lord, Lord O’Neill, when he points to the oligopoly in which Britain is. He is right to say that other countries are in a worse position, but that does not mean that we should not try to improve our own position. One of the odd things about oligopolies and, indeed, large businesses in general is their lack of enterprise. The bigger a company becomes, the less
likely it is to produce intelligent and quick-footed answers. What worries me is that we also take for granted that bigness is better. I have seen no evidence whatever that that is true; indeed, I see a good deal of evidence that it is the opposite. Bigness is convenient, and that is a wholly different concept. I think that the noble Lord, Lord O’Neill, pointed to that when he showed how, over the years, people have taken on companies which would otherwise, in competition, be embarrassing, inconvenient and difficult, and have forced them to think differently—all the things that one needs to ensure happens in a market.
3.15 pm
I just want to say to my noble friend that there are many people who come from an essentially free-market base who do not think that the market automatically remains free—in other words, we are concerned about regulation and intervention not because we like regulation or intervention but because, if we do not have them, we end up with a market which is not free. The market does not operate because the people in it have established for themselves a quasi-monopolistic position, which is what they would like to have. I thought that this was an opportunity to say to my noble friend that the whole point about capitalism is that every capitalist wants to be a monopolist. That is the nature of life. I admit to it in myself and in my attitude towards my own businesses. I should like to be the only person providing those services across the board. I am of course the best person providing them—that goes without saying—but I should like to be the only person because I think that the price structure might change rather radically in those circumstances.
The point that I really want to make is that we have a very difficult moment here regarding the relationship between government and industry. We have an industry where, whatever one says, the amount of competition is limited and, although I am sure that no cartel-type activities take place, the nature of a market in which there are six large and powerful members is that it tends to move in one direction. There is little to ruffle the positions taken up by those major businesses. I very much hope that the Minister will be able to convince us that the Government really do have this right at the forefront of their mind while they are putting through this legislation. It is not contrary to the concept of thinking far ahead and of having a structure that encourages investment in renewables and so on. I think that it is a necessary part of that, otherwise we will not get the proper restrictions that a lively, exciting and embarrassing market brings to enterprise.