LibLink: leading Roger Williams to horticuture, and making us think

Our place to talk – an independent website for supporters of the Liberal Democrat party in the UK.

The most-read independent website by and for Lib Dem supporters. Not paid for by trade unions or millionaires.

Advert

LibLink: leading Roger Williams to horticuture, and making us think

By NewsHound | Wed 17th March 2010 - 11:45 am

Roger Williams, Lib Dem shadow secretary of state for Food and Rural Affairs, is the subject of an interview in the Voice’s favourite read, Horticulture Week. He gives his views on Defra, the party’s call for a supermarket ombudsman, soft landscaping and school visits to rural industries. Here’s an excerpt:

An issue on which the Lib Dems have long been vocal is the creation of a supermarkets ombudsman, as Williams is keen to point out. He explains: “The Liberal Democrats have led the call for an ombudsman. The way in which horticultural producers and top fruit producers have been treated by the supermarkets has been absolutely appalling.

“The key thing now though is: are we going to get an ombudsman with teeth? It is in the supermarkets’ interest to have viable producers in this country because there is huge demand for British products, and if people can buy British they will. But it can only take place if there is fair trade throughout the food chain and the ombudsman or regulator is key to that.”

He would like a proactive regulator that can initiate investigations to stop supermarkets from “putting impositions on producers”. And, unlike others in the debate, Williams would like to see the regulator’s powers extended to include “non-edible things like flowers”.

You can read the interview with Roger here in full.

Read more by NewsHound .
This entry was posted in LibLink.

Advert

One Comment

Liberal Eye 17th Mar '10 - 3:46pm

The trouble is that an ombudsman is an administrative solution that ultimately will not work as I argue in this post.

http://liberaleye.wordpress.com/2010/01/19/economies-of-bullying/

Post a Comment

Lib Dem Voice welcomes comments from everyone but we ask you to be polite, to be on topic and to be who you say you are. You can read our comments policy in full here. Please respect it and all readers of the site.

To have your photo next to your comment please signup your email address with Gravatar.

Your email is never published. Required fields are marked *

Name *

Email *

Website

Comment

Please complete the name of this site, Liberal Democrat ...?

Most Read

Op-eds

Defining our future in Burnham Britain (Gareth McAleer)
Andy Burnham – new messiah or naughty boy? (Mark Hunter)
“Palestine should be run by Palestinians” so why won’t Britain reckon with what it did? (Alex Cole-Hamilton)
You can’t defend your way to a World Cup… or No. 10 (Tom Reeve)
The financing timebomb in Sub-Saharan Africa: What Britain should do — and isn’t (Rupinder Singh)

Advert

Recent Comments

Howard Sykes
Mark is spot on with his assessment, as some one who also had meetings with him as Mayor with Mark on behalf of all the LD Cllrs in GM. I am more circumspect a...
Alex B
Er. Has Andy mentioned his approach to the EU at all? Or doesn't that go down well in the Brexit Reform voting subworld? Hope we get a good minister handling ne...
Peter Chambers
A short article on the Today programme this week said that in the UK employers were tending to use the GPT-LLM technology to lower costs, for example by sacking...
Robin Stafford
Those ‘fortresses’ in the South look more like a Maginot line, heavily reliant on a soft Tory tactical vote. Most of the country gets ignored whilst Greens ...
John Kelly
Very good article Alex. Sorry to see @simonmcgrath downplaying the appalling behaviour of the British during 1936-9. This is well captured in the Award winn...