INDEPENDENT PETROL FORECOURT OPERATORS

Motion Text

That this House calls on the Government to recognise and investigate the grossly unfair contractual conditions imposed on independent petrol forecourt retailers resulting in the closure of 2,500 sites in the past two years plus the loss of hundreds, possibly thousands, of small businesses in the sector of service stations owned by an oil company, despite numerous written complaints received by the Director General of Fair Trading and the fact that the review of the petrol undertakings begun in May 1998 remains unfinished; and calls upon the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry to take action to investigate the onerous terms of the agreements in use and the reasons why individuals have frequently lost substantial sums of invested capital and so prevent further enforced decline of the SMEs in the independent fuels sector.