Clause 11 - Super-complaints to the OFT
Enterprise Bill
9:30 am
Mr Tony McWalter (Hemel Hempstead, Labour/Co-operative)
I have not yet had a chance to say this, but I am pleased to serve under your chairmanship, Mr. Beard.
Clause 11 is obviously important, but a series of amendments have been tabled, including amendment No. 19, which would have the effect of, to use a dentistry analogy, drawing the teeth of the provision. I hope that my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary will resist many of the amendments, even though they are backed by, for example, the Finance and Leasing Association, an estimable body. However, it would not be in the interests of the consumer for such tooth-drawing to be allowed.
The general character of much of the Opposition's response to the Bill has been to consider the effects of an investigation on legitimate businesses. That is extraordinarily back-to-front thinking, because the provisions are designed to deal with businesses that are operating illegitimately or which prompt a prima facie case for thinking that. If no business ever worked illegitimately, there would be no need for the Bill. It is because uncompetitive or, as I have said before, nefarious practices occur that we need the Bill, and I find it absurd that the Opposition consistently harp on about the Bill's burden on business. If the bodies that are involved with the Competition Commission and the OFT carry out their duties reasonably respectably, the Bill's provisions will bear harshly on illegitimate businesses and lightly on those that are carrying out their competitive functions honestly and genuinely.