§ Andrew GeorgeTo ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what recent assessment she has made of the existence of market dominance on the part of purchasers of perishable raw agricultural produce in the(a) dairy, (b) livestock meat, (c) arable, (d) poultry meat, (e) horticultural and (f) other sectors. [96954]
§ Miss Melanie JohnsonIssues of market dominance are for the competition authorities to analyse in the first instance. Dominance, and more particularly abuse of dominance by single firms is for the Office of Fair Trading to consider under the Competition Act 1998. Problems arising from collective dominance are more likely to be dealt with by reference to the Competition Commission (CC). Over the past four years, the CC has reported on three such references. On 10 October 2000, it reported on the supply of groceries from multiple stores. On its recommendation, the Government published a Code of Practice governing relations between the large supermarkets and their suppliers.
On 22 December 2000, the CC published a report on the supply of fresh processed milk to middle ground retailers in Scotland and on 6 July 1999, the CC published a report on the supply of raw cow's milk in Great Britain.