Farmers, growers and the supermarket supply chain

That this House recognises that farmers and growers, in the UK and overseas, require fair dealing in the grocery supply chain in order to survive and thrive; welcomes the 2008 Competition Commission Inquiry which found that larger retailers and supermarkets often abused their power by transferring excessive risk and unexpected cost to suppliers and then created the Grocery Supply Code of Practice (GSCOP) in 2009 and then the Grocery Code Adjudicator (GCA) in 2013, which established the beginnings of a framework on which to build fairer trading relationships in the grocery supply chain; welcomes some outward positive trends, including that GSCOP fair trade breaches reduced from 79% to 36% between 2014 and 2023; recognises that farmers and overseas exporters, who are not directly covered under the scope of the GSCOP, are subjected to unfair trading practices by large UK corporate buyers as risks and costs are passed along the supply chain where many unfair and abusive behaviours remain masked by a climate of fear or remain unchecked; notes that the petition entitled Reform the Grocery Supply Code of Practice to better protect farmers has over 113,000 signatories; believes the creation of two separate regulators, the GCA and the Agricultural Supply Chain Adjudicator (ASCA), risks fragmenting and weakening regulatory effort; and calls on the Government to bring both regulators together under the GCA, strengthen its powers and resource base, and ensure it is empowered to apply the Principle of Fair Dealing, particularly in respect of production, delivery and payment issues