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Mr. Dawson: Will the hon. Gentleman please take this comment from me with the seriousness with which I make it? It is galling and hugely irritating to sit across from him and hear a lecture about trivial issues. My experience of the city of Lancaster is that the Conservative Government wreaked absolute havoc. That is a situation from which we are desperately struggling to recover. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will address the serious issues rather than nonsense about sherry parties.
Mr. Gibb: The hon. Gentleman does me an injustice. I have said that this is not the simplistic debate that the Liberal spokesman tried to present it as. There are
competing concerns. Consumers want low prices and choice in supermarkets. Delivering that often means damage to the environment from the construction of out-of-town shopping centres. The competition provided by the supermarkets damages small retailers in the town centres. It is a question of balance. There is not a simple answer.
Mr. Caborn: Will the hon. Gentleman explain to the House why out-of-town food shopping increased by 50 per cent. in five years but we still have high prices in the supermarkets? The policy of the free market was given a fair wind. The market was let rip. Planning was ripped up. We allowed the supermarkets to do exactly what they wanted, yet we still had higher prices than on the continent when the Conservatives left office.
Mr. Gibb: It is worrying when Ministers have such a simplistic understanding. The Minister is confusing the comparison between prices in large out-of-town supermarkets in Europe and America and in Britain with the comparison between prices in out-of-town supermarkets and prices in town centres. If supermarkets had not been allowed to develop, there would not have been the huge falls in prices that have occurred in the past 20 to 25 years. That is a fact. [Hon. Members: "No."] Yes it is. Everyone knows that supermarkets have delivered lower prices and greater choice. That is their great attraction. That is why they make money and why they have displaced many of our independent smaller retailers in town centres. People do not go to out-of-town shopping centres to pay higher prices. The question is whether the falls in prices that the supermarkets have delivered are big enough. Have prices fallen sufficiently, compared to Europe and the United States? The Minister should understand that question.
Mr. Gray: Perhaps I can take my hon. Friend back to the famous sherry party at No. 10 Downing street. He will know that there are only two kinds of meeting in Government circles. One is an official meeting at which civil servants take minutes, and the other is a political meeting at which difficult political decisions are taken, no civil servants are present and there are no minutes. It might be interesting to know whether the meeting was political or non-political. If it was official, why can we not see a copy of the minutes?
Mr. Gibb: My hon. Friend makes a valid point. The problem is that we are prising from the Government the truth about the meeting on a piecemeal basis--a briefing to the press, a statement in a debate on a Liberal Opposition day. We need a categorical statement of precisely what happened. It would be better if it were delivered by the Prime Minister himself in this Chamber but, if we cannot have that, will the Minister say what precisely was discussed at the meeting and whether it was official and minutes were taken? If minutes were taken, can they be published?
Mr. Matthew Taylor: We will not disagree on the last point, but will the hon. Gentleman clarify whether he prefers maintenance of the town centres and the environment to developing competition? He said that it was a complex issue and that there was a balance to be struck. Asda, or at least someone in Asda, has argued that
it could cut prices if it were allowed to develop superstores in competition with local monopolies in the south. Is it Conservative policy to protect the town centre and the environment and say no, or to say that competition to reduce prices is the priority so such developments should be allowed?
Mr. Gibb: Our policy is clearly set out in planning policy guidance 6. It is to help small business. That was our policy, and it remains our policy. The Liberal Democrats try to resolve the policy dilemma that I set out in their time-honoured fashion by saying one thing to one constituency and the opposite to another. They tell consumer groups that they want more competition to reduce prices, and the rural lobby that they want fewer supermarkets and less competition. They tell environmentalists that they oppose new supermarket developments, but to consumers in Yeovil the right hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr. Ashdown) will say nothing against a new supermarket development. That is Liberal policy in a nutshell.
Mr. McNulty: Can the hon. Gentleman say whether that will remain his policy? I ask only because he said of another policy:
- "We believe that we are right in our view, but we may not be. We are not arrogant, and if we are proved to be categorically wrong, we shall change our policy. It is irrelevant whether one person in society believes that we are wrong. What matters is whether we are wrong."--[Official Report, Standing Committee B, 17 June 1999; c. 659.]
Mr. Gibb: We are not an arrogant party. We have a firm view about the euro, if I may digress. Our position at the next general election is that we will not take Britain into the single currency. Our policy for the general election after that will be decided nearer the time. That is a sensible, pragmatic approach to policy.
Mr. Eric Martlew (Carlisle): I have been a critic of supermarkets for 10 years. On 9 December, I laid out my reasons in a poorly attended Adjournment debate. The hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (Mr. Gibb) confused me because he seemed to say that
we should not refer the problem of price rigging in supermarkets to what is now called the Competition Commission because that would interfere with the free market. However, we have a cartel of the four biggest supermarkets and his Government were to blame for that situation. One of the heads of the cartel is a Conservative Member, so we can understand why the Conservatives do not want the supermarkets to be examined by the Competition Commission. If I am wrong, he can intervene.
The growth in the power of the supermarkets has come at the expense of everyone else. We have heard the argument about small shops, which is difficult. My constituency had the sense to ensure that its centre was in a good state of repair before the out-of-town supermarkets came on the scene, so we still have a thriving city centre. That did not happen in some cities.
The British public love the supermarket--let us not kid ourselves about that; that is why I asked the hon. Member for Truro and St. Austell (Mr. Taylor) whether the Liberals were in favour of supermarkets. One has only to go round supermarkets to see that people look on going to supermarkets as a day out. That is not my view, although I do go to supermarkets. Indeed, on Sunday, I shall be opening the celebrations for the 100th anniversary of Morrisons at my local store in Carlisle--unless of course the staff read this speech. The reality is that the British public like supermarkets and politicians have to accept that. The Government's planning policies are strong enough to preserve what is left of our city centres, although devastation has taken place, as my hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster and Wyre (Mr. Dawson) pointed out.
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