Clause 10

Grocery Market Ombudsman Bill – in a Public Bill Committee at 4:45 pm on 30 March 2010.

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Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill. 

Briefly, may I highlight the point made by the hon. Member for Ynys Môn that there should be a positive side to the Bill? I see the potential for it in clause 10(1)(c) on the annual ombudsman’s report. It has always been my view that if supermarkets have nothing to hide, they have nothing to fear from an ombudsman. They should welcome the opportunity to open themselves up to any investigation. They might embrace this initiative when the annual report comes out and gives them the clean bill of health that they presumably anticipate. 

I would go further and suggest that the annual report might stray further and identify examples of good practice, or at least the non-identification of bad practice. Ultimately, the supermarkets may use the ombudsman’s reports in their marketing if they have been found to engage in fair practices with their suppliers or have been  identified for good or exemplary practice. I see this measure not as something for supermarkets to fear, but as something for them to embrace. 

I hope that when we go out from this place and explain the purpose of the measure, people will identify it as a positive contribution and a reassurance to the consumer. It should be a report not purely for the trade press and those in the supply chain, but for the consumer because it came about to counter concerns about the impact on the consumer. Having such information in the public domain might reassure shoppers that they can feel comfortable with their favoured supermarket or grocer because it has been shown objectively by the ombudsman to engage in fair dealing. 

Supermarkets do plenty of good things. We have not come here to bash supermarkets by any stretch of the imagination. I am sure we all get involved in the distribution of computers by Tesco and the collection of Sainsbury’s vouchers for sports equipment for schools. Booths, a regional supermarket in the north-west of England that has stores in my constituency, does an enormous amount to support local farming initiatives and community projects. We know that supermarkets do a lot of good, but we are embarking on this procedure because of the imbalance in the market that has been pointed out. 

I do not think it is right to put in the Bill how the publications ought to be made. However, I hope that we start to think about the cost-effectiveness of publishing such reports. We all remember when the Government used to introduce annual reports—the famous Tony Blair reports—that nobody read. They were distributed to supermarkets, put on shelves and that is where they stayed until they were returned to goodness knows where to be pulped ready for the next year’s editions. Even the Prime Minister himself decided at some stage to stop the farce of those annual reports. It may well be that streamlining and cost effectiveness mean that these reports will be published on the internet, rather than physically published. It would therefore be easy for everybody to not only look at them, but cross reference them on the internet. 

The hon. Member for St. Ives was talking about all the good things that supermarkets do, and the hon. Member for Ynys Môn said that shaming the supermarkets should be sufficient for them to follow the code that they say they wish to follow. If a particular supermarket chain or, indeed, a particular store—if it has sufficient clout and it is a single store that has been complained about in one area—has been found guilty of a breach of conduct, it might be appropriate for a poster to be displayed in the store, so that people can see what the supermarket has done and what action the supermarket has then taken to ensure that it has corrected the breach. All of those things could be considered in relation to ensuring that the information is got out to the public, so that the shaming aspect that the hon. Gentleman mentioned is a sufficient deterrent for them not to breach the code in the first place. 

I am grateful to have the opportunity to respond to those points. First, on the comments of the hon. Member for St. Ives, it has always been my  intention—and it is certainly that of the Bill—to be positive. I think he is right: clause 10(1)(b), which talks about the annual report, could be used positively. To link with what the hon. Member for Ribble Valley said, I am sure that supermarkets that have had the least complaints or no complaints at all will boast about that and, in a competitive manner, encourage others to come through their doors. The hon. Gentleman is also right to say that we have all got good links with supermarkets. Just last weekend, the First Minister of the Welsh Assembly and I went to a new Waitrose in my constituency —the first in north Wales. 

Very posh. 

Indeed. Waitrose is very posh. I did not buy anything. I just walked around and smiled, because it is that time in the electoral cycle. The serious point is that that supermarket engages with Members of Parliament and Members of the Assembly. Waitrose was one of the more positive supermarkets about the establishment of the ombudsman, and I think that others will follow suit. Yes, we can turn the measure into a positive for the supermarkets. On Second Reading, we all said that we are not anti-supermarket; we are pro-supermarket, pro-consumer and pro-supplier. 

I draw the hon. Gentleman’s attention to subsection (2), which states: 

“For the purposes of the law of defamation, the publication of any report or other matter by the Ombudsman under this Act shall be absolutely privileged.” 

I am sure that there are several lawyers in the House who can look at the measure in greater detail. The only complaints that will not be examined in greater detail will be those that are before the courts. A court’s decision will be in the public domain and we could consider that. However, the hon. Gentleman is right: that matter needs closer examination in future. 

Question put and agreed to. 

Clause 10 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill. 

Clause 11 ordered to stand part of the Bill.