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Supermarket Regulator

May I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Leicester, East (Keith Vaz) on securing parliamentary time—probably more than he anticipated—for this important debate. I am glad to have an opportunity to discuss the issues that he raised. As he acknowledged, the Under-Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, my hon. Friend the Member for Bradford, South (Mr. Sutcliffe), who has ministerial responsibility for these matters, has duties in Brussels, so I have been asked to respond to the debate. My hon. Friend apologises for the fact that he cannot be here, but he discussed these matters with my hon. Friend the Member for Leicester, East this morning, and I am sure that he will look at the record very carefully to see what the hon. Gentleman and other hon. Members have said. The UK competition framework established the Office of Fair Trading and the Competition Commission as independent statutory bodies. The Government wished to remove politics from competition decisions, allowing expert independent competition bodies to make decisions on mergers and markets. Hon. Members on both sides of the House will recognise the benefits of that revised structure. The supermarket code of practice is part of the statutory undertakings given to the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry under section 88(2) of the Fair Trading Act 1973 after a Competition Commission report on the matter was published in October 2000. The monitoring and enforcement of the code is the responsibility of the OFT. In addition to the code of practice, supermarkets are subject to other regulations monitored and enforced by, among others, the Health and Safety Executive, the Food Standards Agency, Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs and local authorities. Any anti-competitive practices fall under the remit of the OFT.