Sir John Hayes

The right hon. Gentleman is right. That is why, when he and I were in Government together, we introduced the Groceries Code Adjudicator. He will remember that I worked closely with his colleague Vince Cable, then Secretary of State, and was involved in that decision. He is also right to focus on the producers. I have spoken so far about consumers, but I want to go on to talk, thirdly, about the distortion in respect of producers. I began my speech by speaking about how both producers and consumers need a multiplicity of places to buy and sell. In the model that I set out, the one that prevailed for aeons, people who made and grew food, primary and secondary producers, were able to sell to a variety of places. In our lifetimes—I might be overestimating the age of some hon. Members present, but certainly in many of our lifetimes—markets existed where farmers would take their produce to auction. Indeed, there was a livestock market in Spalding in the streets until the 1930s and a covered market until the 1990s, where livestock was brought to be traded and auctioned very openly. Producers have also been affected by this distortion. As the food chain breaks, it is not only consumers who struggle, able to go to only one or two places to get not just what they want, but what they need, because, as I said, foodstuffs are fundamental.