My Lords, I thank noble Lords for their amendments and welcome my noble friend Lord Eccles to our debate. I also thank the noble Lord, Lord O’Neill, for the points he has made about the construction industry. I think we will come on to talk about the construction industry more fully, because at the moment it is not really covered.
Some small businesses which raise complaints may indeed fear that this could affect their commercial negotiations negatively. That is the underlying point.
Noble Lords therefore rightly raised points about anonymity, confidentiality and fear of reprisal and shared with the Committee the experience of the Groceries Code Adjudicator. Indeed, I remember when I was regulated—by a regulator that no longer exists, so I can probably mention it—getting the confidential figures for another supermarket by mistake, and the pleasure with which I rang them back and said, “By the way, these aren’t ours—you’ve obviously got the schedules muddled up”. I am sure that these things do not happen nowadays, but that underlines the difficulties.
Small and larger businesses must have faith in the commissioner and their processes. For the commissioner to make sound recommendations, both parties also have to have meaningful input into the enquiry, which, in a sense, is the rub. We agree with Christine Tacon that it is crucial that the commissioner builds trust. I would like to develop our thinking on the Groceries Code Adjudicator a little more fully and perhaps will write to my noble friend Lord Eccles.
Amendment 16 provides for totally anonymous complaints. However, to consider a complaint properly the commissioner may need further information from the complainant. Without knowing who the complainant is and being able to contact them, the commissioner may be unable to address the complaint—that is the difficulty we are in. As regards the advice and information function, we expect, for example, to be able to afford some anonymity where an inquirer has a general query; that is relatively straightforward. We will ensure that our user-testing of the web portal, which I promised on Monday, informs the extent of anonymity that is possible within that context.
On Amendments 19 and 33, I agree with noble Lords that there must be safeguards against the commissioner identifying a complainant to third parties. That is why Clause 8, on confidentiality, restricts the commissioner’s scope to disclose information. However, for the reasons I have already explained, we believe it will generally be appropriate to identify the complainant to the respondent. It is right that a respondent should know who has complained so that they can respond fully. Amendment 33 would go further and require consent for the sharing of all information pertaining to a complaint, including to the respondent. This would be disproportionate.
I should add that in comparing notes with the Australian small business commissioner, we found that he had taken an approach to anonymity similar to the one we are proposing. I hope that I have been able to reassure the noble Lord, and that he is willing to withdraw his amendment.
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