THE Office of Fair Trading has come up with some genuine reasons to be worried about supermarkets. The most serious of these concerns, however, has nothing much to do with supermarkets. Rather, it is the regime that controls the granting of planning permission that is in the dock.

The OFT is concerned that the Big Four supermarkets own land in quantities that it says “could aggravate barriers to entry or otherwise harm consumers”. The OFT adds that it has found instances where sites are sold by supermarkets on the condition that the land is not used by a rival grocer. The OFT also suggests that competition may be being distorted because the big supermarkets have garnered overmighty buying power. Suppliers, in other words, may be suffering.

But the OFT’s first and most forcefully phrased worry focuses on planning. There is no “could” or “might” qualifier in the way the OFT expresses concerns about planning. The OFT couches its concerns about alleged malpractice among supermarkets in language that leaves plenty of wriggle-room. But on the planning point it is altogther more firm. The OFT says “the planning regime acts as a costly barrier to entry, making it difficult for new stores to open and compete with those already in the market”.

So the bad guys in all this are not the supermarkets, after all. Yes, they may have to bear some of the blame. But they are not the all-consuming agents of evil that the horror-story script might have us believe.

It is always going to be difficult to cast the supermarkets in the role of evil-doers. If grocers are guilty of acting against consumer interest you might think that the consumers would notice. Yet sales figures from supermarkets — especially Tesco — suggest supermarkets are becoming ever more popular.

Moreover, it is at least a possibility that complaints about supermarkets come in order to deflect attention away from the deficiencies of the complainants. Are small shops really being driven out of business by supermarkets? Or are the keepers of small shops less good at running their businesses?

They may always suffer a pricing disadvantage because they cannot hope to enjoy the same sort of economies of scale. But what about convenience or personal service? And if these do not attract custom, who exactly suffers from the closure of small shops? It is plainly not the consumer, in whose interest the competition authorities work.

There is a risk that suppliers will be pushed too hard and a risk that some products and services will be lost for ever. But one of the key strengths of open-market economics is that it can heal its own wounds.

Of course, there must be ground rules and the OFT and Competition Commission are right to ensure these are adhered to. But if Tesco, et al, abuse the consumer, those same consumers will deliver severe and effective punishment.

Hands off

BRITAIN’S obsessive hostility to successful UK businesses contrasts bleakly with the imperial ambitions that other big EU states nurture for their own companies. Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, has now joined the call for more European champions, a refrain more usually sung in Paris.

Like the French, however, the suspicion is that Frau Merkel is using the cloak of European champions to promote national interests. Not by chance were energy supplies and postal services the sectors quoted in her speech.

Deutsche Post is expanding in the UK, where competition is welcomed, but not in countries whose governments try to protect local state monopolies. Germany’s E.ON is trying to buy Spain’s top power utility over state-backed opposition.

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