Ms Christine Tacon:

The Deputy's first question was about the EU unfair trading practices directive. I am happy to share what I consider the crucial differences between the EU plans and the approach we have adopted in the UK. The UK code came through two Competition Commission investigations which were looking for consumer harm. It very much aims to protect the consumer, whereas the EU directive has come from the perspective of protecting the farmer. The key difference is that in the EU directive one must prove some sort of market imbalance between the first person and the people to whom that person sells and subsequent buyers. There is also a cap involved whereby any company earning over €350 million is not covered. I have found it very useful that everybody is covered by the UK code, as one does not have to question whether or not it has been triggered. I have also learned quite a lot from the large suppliers and multinational businesses which are very quick to pick up that a request that they have had could be in breach of the code. They are well trained. They are supported by good lawyers and they raise things with me which I am sometimes able to stop. I hear first from very large suppliers, and I feel that having such large suppliers covered has been an advantage. The second difference is that the EU code applies to the whole supply chain, from the retailer right through to the producer. The Competition Commission only every investigated the relationship between retailers and their direct suppliers, which means that from the beginning I only had ten retailers to work with. It is now 13, but I have been able to work with them very closely. If I suddenly had to look after the whole supply chain, I could not work like that or get into anything like the same level of detail.

The Deputy also asked about lessons learned from implementing the code. I alluded to this in my opening statement but I cannot reinforce enough how difficult it is to get suppliers to tell me what is going on. One really has to work at it. I speak at numerous trade events and I always arrange time for people to have private one-to-one conversations with me. If a supplier asks me to visit, I always agree to do so and I think I have visited ten of them in the past six years. Suppliers do not invite me very often. The survey has been hugely important, not only for getting feedback from suppliers but also because retailers can see its validity. They do not dispute the outcome and therefore work on those things. The first lesson was on the difficulty in getting information and proving to people that I had a duty of confidentiality and could be trusted. That has been really hard. Second, I learned that the code compliance officers who work for the retailers are my allies. They are trying to make sure that the retailers do not break the code. They are not allowed to be in the buying chain of command and so they tend to be from the audit, legal or finance departments of their companies. They are trying to protect their businesses from being investigated and fined. They generally do not know what is going on, so if I hear about something I first explain it to them. I then leave them to go back into their businesses, do some research and come back and tell me what they have done about it. These code compliance officers have been hugely important in driving the changes within the retailers.

I also have a very good lawyer who slowed me down and told me I could not sort everything out at once. She told me that, rather than finding a problem with everything, I should focus.

I only tended to work on five issues at a time so that they had time to respond and do it properly, and then I would formerly discharge an issue and bring a new one forward.

My office is funded by a levy on the retailers, and under the Act I have the ability to vary the levy. If a retailer is brought in arbitration to me, I have had a case study against them or I have had to investigate them, I charge them a higher percentage of the levy. If I am looking at issues like consumer complaints, if a retailer does not charge for consumer complaints, then they get charged less. I had a mechanism, which I agreed with them, of using the levy in terms of how much they pay towards my office as an incentive as well.