Town & Country Planning, April 2009
In the weeks after the Competition Commission finally delivered up its long-awaited ‘emerging thinking’ on supermarkets 18 months ago, I remember sitting around discussing whether we should resort to the law.
People like me don’t have that sort of discussion very often, and it carried with it a heady sense of risk. But there was a feeling among the least well-funded groups involved in their tortuous inquiry that the Commission was failing to implement the Enterprise Act.
The law suggests they should look at what consumers need, not just now but in the future. Had the Commission done this? Or had they just assumed consumers were somehow one amorphous, undifferentiated mass?
I don’t know, so that particular battle remains in the future.
In the meantime, it was the best-funded side which went to court in the end and, sure enough, Tesco has won. They have blown a hole in the proposal for a competition test which planners could have used to halt the monocultural ‘Tesco-towns’ that are emerging around the UK.
This is a serious problem. Not only are consumers in Bicester, for example (six Tescos stores) seriously inconvenienced, if they happen to want to shop somewhere else – and why shouldn’t they? – but the Tesco-towns are that much dependent on decisions made by one all-powerful retailer. The very opposite of economic localism and self-determination.
When I read news reports of Tesco’s victory earlier this month, my first thought was to feel a little sorry for the Competition Commission, surrounded – as they are – by wealthy and litigious organisations, with far more resources than they have.
Their other recommendation – a supermarket ombudsman to oversee the interests of the poor suppliers – has still not translated itself into reality either.
My second thought was irritation. Given that double failure, you have to wonder if their two-year investigation was worth it, either for them or for all those who took part and spent time and money putting in evidence. Why do we have a Competition Commission if they can’t tackle monopoly?
The whole affair has made me wonder about the phenomenon of regulators and inspectors, which are in the confusing position of either being the enablers of local innovation or the agents of centralised power, depending on who you speak to.
When Edwin Chadwick sent his inspectors out in their post-chaises to gather figures in the 1830s, they were undoubtedly a centralising force. Postcomm seems to have undermined the economic position of the Royal Mail, and allowed the post office network to wither, so they have been too.
On the other hand, a good system of inspectors, able to recognise quality without resort to tickbox questionnaires – I’m not sure Ofsted qualifies – can be a genuine buttress for local freedom and innovation.
The problem is that so few of our various regulating institutions seem to be capable of doing that. The Competition Commission seems unable to put its findings into action. Certainly Ofcom is regularly taken to court by the telecom companies, possibly in turn, to show who is boss.
We all know about the flaws in financial regulation. The FSA has spent years tying entrepreneurs in knots if they even hint that they might want to get into banking, without apparently noticing that the existing banks were about to implode.
Other forms of regulation seem equally disastrous. Child protection services spend enormous energy putting ordinary parents under suspicion, aided and abetted by central government – buttressed by the illusion of safety brought by the equally exhausting police check system – but they still fail to prevent scandals like Baby P.
Many of these failings are the result of the centre dealing with details which really ought to be determined locally. The Post Office should have been allowed to operate in the market as it saw fit. The FSA should have kept its eyes on the big picture.
Child protection would also be a good deal more effective if, thanks to government posturing, every family – not to mention everybody who wants to volunteer – did not come under suspicion. Local officials know who is at risk far better than Ed Balls.
As for whether local planners ought to have to take account of the need for local competition, local enterprise and a thriving local economy, it seems to be self-evident that they should. How can they plan properly otherwise?
I hope the next government (only a year or so now) will legislate quickly to enshrine their right to do so in law.
Even a radically decentralised Britain is going to need regulators of some kind, to guarantee minimum standards – though these would be defined much more broadly in the new localist utopia.
But if regulators are only allowed to regulate in favour of the most powerful players, we might as well not pay their salaries.