Groceries Code Adjudicator Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness Byford and Lord Howard of Rising

Thursday 28th June 2012 Grand Committee

[Baroness Byford]

My Lords, I am grateful for this amendment. It gives me a chance to seek clarification yet again. My understanding from the noble Lord, Lord Borrie, was that the adjudicator would go choose between (a), (b) and (c). I did not think that it would be (a) or nothing, (b) or nothing, or (c) or nothing. I hope that as it stands it will be able to look at different ways of coming back to it.

I go back to an earlier contribution that I did not come in on. It keeps being said that there is little evidence. It is not surprising that there has not been much evidence in the past; that is why the Bill is necessary. In the past an individual supplier was the only person who could bring evidence. That individual supplier was known and future trading was very difficult.

Only this morning, I was in conversation with a vegetable supplier whom I happened to meet informally. She was telling me that one of the retailers she supplies had agreed a contract which had gone through, but, because the retailer thought that the circumstances were different, it had asked for a rebate on the contract that had been agreed. Surely that is extremely unacceptable. I hope that the Bill will deal with that. The reason that we have not had evidence is that people would not have come forward as the Bill will enable them to do.

[Lord Howard of Rising]

That is precisely what happened to me. I just said, “That’s fine. We won’t supply you any more”, and they said, “Fine, we will pay the full amount”. It is a commercial transaction between two commercial bodies.

[Baroness Byford]

I accept that, and in some instances it is possible, but sometimes with perishables it is not. If you take the contract away, what do you do with the goods? They are already lost. Although I accept my noble friend’s interjection, I do not agree with it because certain things have no shelf life; they are there or they are gone.

[Lord Howard of Rising]

My instance was strawberries, and I assure my noble friend that they have a very short shelf life.

[Baroness Byford]

Yes, but perhaps my noble friend was in a better position than that supplier; there was clearly a problem there.

I welcome the amendment and am glad that we have a chance to debate it. I hope that when we come to later amendments concerning fines, we will be able to strengthen the provisions. I do not know whether that will make this amendment unnecessary—I seek clarification on that, because I do not know the Minister’s point of view. If we fail later to strengthen the whole section on fines, the amendment will be extremely important.