Clause 201 - Consumers
Enterprise Bill
8:15 pm
Miss Melanie Johnson (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Department of Trade and Industry; Welwyn Hatfield, Labour)
I shall need to check exactly what the OFT said about petrol retailing, but it has been decided that there are no competition issues. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman accepts that to try to intervene in the relationships between businesses would be to enter into a massive domain, and trading standards are not resourced to deal with business problems. Over successive years, Governments have taken the attitude that they ought not to be involved, and to do so would be fairly intrusive. Many members of the Committee would have criticised me if I had made such a proposal—for reasons that I would entirely understand. That is why I did not do so.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 201 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Schedule 13 agreed to.