Calls for a grocery industry ombudsman to be brought in as soon as possible have been debated by MPs in the House of Commons.
Following food price rises of more than four per cent in the past year, shadow environment secretary Mary Creagh said she was “dismayed” at delays to bring in the Groceries Code Adjudicator.
She said: “This government’s delays and procrastination mean the adjudicator will probably not be up and running until 2014-15.”
Bringing forward its implementation would help ensure fairness across the supply chain, Creagh said. She urged the House to put pressure on government to work more closely with the retail sector to provide more responsible, transparent promotions and clearer unit prices.
Rising food prices are forcing increasing numbers of people across the UK to visit food banks to survive and the grocery ombudsman would create a "fair and competitive" relationship between suppliers and supermarkets, Creagh said.
"It is an utter disgrace that we are the seventh richest country in the world and yet we are seeing thousands of people going hungry to bed at night, many of them children," she told MPs.
But environment secretary Caroline Spelman said food prices are the product of many complicated and inter-related factors, many of which are globally driven and are not ministers' fault.
"Contrary to the rather Dickensian impression created, food prices are not a direct result of the government's composition," Spelman said before launching an attack on Creagh.
"Despite 13 years spent doing nothing about it, you feel this is a credible basis on which to criticise us for not having completed this process in just over 18 months.”
Conservative Anne McIntosh, who chairs the environment committee said small-scale farmers and growers had "virtually no protection" from supermarkets and should be able to make anonymous complaints to the adjudicator.
There was a call for the grocery adjudicator to have the power to fine supermarkets from Liberal Democrat MP Andrew George but he noted that the Competition Commission’s original report had been published in 2000 and in 2008 there was a warning over major retailers' practices but Labour Government had not acted.
Conservative David Nuttall said ministers should not interfere with food retailers. He said competition between the major multiples had created "a huge choice of food that previous generations could only dream of", and prices had been cut "to the benefit of all consumers".
MPs rejected Labour's motion by 70 votes.
