Monopolies and Mergers Commission (Hansard, 18 July 1989)

§ The Secretary of State for Trade and Industry (Lord Young of Graffham)
My Lords, none.

§ Lord Williams of Elvel
My Lords, I am grateful to the Secretary of State. I understand that he is on the point of taking Trappist vows for various reasons beyond his power. Can I coax him into a further answer? When he finally throws in the towel, which we understand will be fairly soon, will he accept that problems will be left to his successor? Does he accept that there is a problem as to the credibility of the Monopolies and Mergers Commission after the beer report? That report took two years to complete and has been effectively cast aside by the noble Lord. Is that not rather a sad descent from the concept of the original monopolies commission as set up by my noble friend Lord Wilson of Rievaulx in 1948?

§ Lord Young of Graffham
My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Williams of Elvel, on the robustness of his views. There is a director general of an organisation known as the TUC, which I suspect is known to the noble Lord. Of course it must be known to him as it is the paymaster of his party. The director general of that organisation wrote to me expressing views which seemed to me to be slightly different from those of the noble Lord, as he asked me to ignore the vast proportion of the MMC's report. There is also another organisation known as the Transport and General Workers' Union whose representatives came to see me. They also asked me to ignore the report entirely and I referred them to the noble Lord. Obviously they have not yet contacted him.

§ Lord Williams of Elvel
My Lords, will the noble Lord be kind enough to tell the House the name of the director general of the TUC?

§ Lord Young of Graffham
My Lords, he has obviously been demoted. He is the general secretary.

§ Lord Stoddart of Swindon
My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that the rules of the TUC specifically preclude it from making contributions to political parties?

§ Lord Young of Graffham
My Lords, of course in talking of the TUC, I was referring collectively to all unions. I accept that.

§ Lord Orr-Ewing
My Lords, is my noble friend aware that since the MMC was set up some 40 years ago, there have been 254 separate reports? Some of those were good and were enacted; some were partially enacted; and others were rejected by the government of the day. Is it not ridiculous to suppose that any government should accept verbatim a 501 page report costing £2 million, taking two years to complete by five people, four of whom have very little knowledge of the beer or brewing industry at all and one of whom put in a minority report? Surely that is typical of some of the work of the MMC and after 40 years perhaps we should look to see whether we have the best people serving on it.

§ Lord Young of Graffham
My Lords, I totally reject everything that my noble friend has said in this particular instance and I accept in full the conclusions which the MMC found in regard to the supply of beer. To look again and have consultations is the correct way to remedy defects of the market place. I believe time will show that what we have done is a very subtle way of ensuring that the market works. I remind all in your Lordships' House that the Director General of the Office of Fair Trading will look again at this matter in three years' time, together with my right honourable friend the Secretary of State at the Home Office and indeed the Lord President of the Council. They will be looking at ways in which licences are granted. I can accept that at times the noble Lord, Lord Williams, has to scrape to the very bottom of the barrel, albeit a beer barrel, to find ways to criticise the Government, and that is always understood in these difficult circumstances.

§ Lord Peston
My Lords, bearing in mind the Secretary of State's answer to his noble friend, with which I am much in sympathy, will he confirm that this is a superb report by the Monopolies and Mergers Commission? Will he also confirm that in the past a report of this quality has never been criticised in the way just suggested? Will he also take an early opportunity—perhaps at this very moment—to issue a statement of support for the excellent work of the commission in the hope that it will continue to do such excellent work even though occasionally it embarrasses others who may be quite friendly to the Secretary of State?

§ Lord Young of Graffham
My Lords, I do not believe that I have to say anything about the work of the Monopolies and Mergers Commission. I have followed all its decisions on merger cases, unlike someone—Roy Hattersley by name—who was the 697 Secretary of State for Prices and Consumer Protection. That brings back memories, does it not? He overturned a decision of the Monopolies and Mergers Commission in February 1977, which is something I have yet to do.

§ Lord Harmar-Nicholls
My Lords, following the great compliment paid by the noble Lord, Lord Peston, a moment ago, although it was right for my noble friend to say that he has no plans for winding up the commission now, I hope that he will not close his mind to the fact that it may well need to be amended and improved in many ways in the future in the light of modern circumstances.

§ Lord Young of Graffham
My Lords, I think that I should make one thing quite clear. The fact that the economy of the United Kingdom has come round so much during the past 10 years is because it is competitive. The guardian of that sense of competitiveness is the Monopolies and Mergers Commission. Let us never forget that.