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Category: Environment

  • Ben Lake – 2022 Speech on the National Food Strategy and Food Security

    Ben Lake – 2022 Speech on the National Food Strategy and Food Security

    The speech made by Ben Lake, the Plaid Cymru MP for Ceredigion, in the House of Commons on 27 October 2022.

    It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for The Cotswolds (Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown). I agreed with a great deal of what he said, and I should like to elaborate on some of the themes of his speech, particularly his exhortation for us to grow more of our own food in the United Kingdom. That is not only good for UK farmers and growers, but good for the health of people across these islands. It will also help us to reduce our climate footprint when we lessen our dependence on imports and global supply chains.

    I do not want to labour the point, but this will be the focus of my speech. I believe that self-sufficiency plays an important part in food security, and we need to concentrate on that. A DEFRA report on food security published in 2021 stated that the UK was about 75% self- sufficient in foodstuffs that could be produced domestically. The actual consumption of UK-produced food was about 54%, which means that we were importing some 46% of the food that we consumed. When I first came across that statistic, I was interested and, indeed, shocked by the discrepancy between the two figures, but it makes much more sense when we recognise that there is a considerable variance in the level of self-sufficiency in different types of food. For example, we are 100% self-sufficient in oats and barley and lamb. That is an important statistic for me, as a proud Member for a Welsh constituency. It then goes up to 90% self-sufficiency in wheat—we heard from the hon. Member for Hendon (Dr Offord) about the real contribution that wheat growers on these islands have made in the past year—and 80% in oilseed. However, the figure stands at only 54% for fresh vegetables and 16% for fresh fruit. In discussing food security, we need to consider the foodstuffs—fruit and vegetables in this particular example—of which we clearly need to grow more.

    The dependence on global supply chains for so many of our imports means that, as the hon. Member for The Cotswolds (Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown) explained, we are vulnerable and exposed to shocks—be they geopolitical, climate, production or logistical—that are completely beyond our control. This Parliament has perhaps experienced a few unprecedented global shocks, the first being the covid pandemic, which wrought havoc on a lot of our food production and imports, and then, more recently, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which has had a significant impact not only on grains, wheat and sunflower oil, but on many of the import costs for domestic production—I will talk more about that.

    When we look to the future of our food security, increasing climate change poses a significant risk. I mentioned that we are self-sufficient to the tune of only 16% of the fruit that we consume. DEFRA’s food security report notes that:

    “There are concerns about water availability for fruit and vegetable production in many of the countries on which the UK currently depends”,

    particularly on the equator, but also in the Mediterranean region.

    When we discuss food security, we need to think about growing more of our own. Other Members have mentioned the shocking impact that food inflation is having on families across the country. I do not wish to labour that point further, but for a number of foodstuffs, the problem could be alleviated to some extent if we had greater self-sufficiency in the categories that they relate to.

    The hon. Member for The Cotswolds, who I hope will forgive me for referring to him so often—I thought he made an excellent speech—mentioned the Groceries Code Adjudicator and the power of the supermarkets. It is not right for them to balance their books, or indeed to profit, on the backs of the nation’s poorest families. We know that some of their increasing costs are not being fed back to the primary producers. As we have discussed this afternoon, rising import costs—particularly for fertiliser and feedstock—and high fuel and energy costs are having an impact on primary producers, who are not getting higher prices for their goods from the supermarkets and their suppliers. The Government need to look again at how they can make the system fairer.

    Personally, I think there is much to be said for moving away from the more globalised food system to a more local one. In that regard, I recognise that a great deal of work needs to be done to reinvest in the processing facilities that were once very local but have now been lost, such as mills, abattoirs and the like. They were once a feature of every village in rural areas; now, they are seldom found.

    The rising costs on farmers are being fed through the system and, in turn, into shopping bills, but are not being recompensed by the major supplier and supermarkets. That is a serious issue that could be addressed by greater self-sufficiency. The food strategy is an opportunity to consider a holistic way of ensuring that more of the food that we consume is produced on these islands.

    Jo Gideon

    Does the hon. Gentleman agree that consumers also need to be re-educated on the fact that strawberries do not grow for 12 months of the year, for example, and supermarkets will inevitably have different offers of our own produce at different times of the year?

    Ben Lake

    I entirely agree. We should set an ambition not only to be self-sufficient in the food that we produce, but to move down to a more local and seasonal food system. One of my peeves is that it is still possible to buy fresh strawberries on Christmas Eve—consider the environmental cost, if nothing else. We as a society are sadly ignorant to that, and we need to learn it again.

    I am conscious that I am running out of time, so I will finish with a warning to the Government: in our move—I hope—to becoming more self-sufficient in our food production, we must remember that we need producers to do the work on the land and, as the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) said, in our seas. I am afraid that in a recent survey, NFU Cymru found that of the 700 farmers it spoke to, 71% intended to reduce production in the next year, and a significant number of them were also questioning whether to continue farming in the years to come, as a result partly of higher costs, yes, but also of the cumulative impact of many years of not getting a fair deal from some of the larger supermarkets for the price of the goods that they grow and rear.

    Finally, I am very concerned—I think the Government can return to this—about the need for proper land-use planning and consideration. I know that the administrative burden would cross the four nations of the United Kingdom, but we know exactly the types of land that we have, down to the field level. At the moment, I fear that when it comes to certain carbon-offsetting schemes, prime agricultural land is being sold, often to corporations that intend to greenwash their own emissions rather than contributing to the nationwide effort to reduce our carbon footprint.

    Even the Green Finance Observatory has expressed concerns about the current UK emissions trading scheme system. It states:

    “The elephant in the room is that offsets are fundamentally not about mitigating climate change, or even about removing past emissions, but about enabling future emissions, about protecting economic growth and corporate profits.”

    Too often—and, I am afraid to say, in Ceredigion—too many farms that were prime agricultural productive land have been bought by such corporations not to reduce their emissions, but to greenwash them so that they can continue business as usual. In so doing, they reduce our own productive capacity.

  • Geoffrey Clifton-Brown – 2022 Speech on the National Food Strategy and Food Security

    Geoffrey Clifton-Brown – 2022 Speech on the National Food Strategy and Food Security

    The speech made by Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, the Conservative MP for The Cotswolds, in the House of Commons on 27 October 2022.

    I am grateful to have caught your eye in this important debate, Madam Deputy Speaker. May I say how delighted I am to see the Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, my right hon. Friend the Member for Sherwood (Mark Spencer) back on the Front Bench? That is great news, because he really does know a great deal about the subject.

    I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Tatton (Esther McVey) on opening the debate. I look forward to being invited to have some of her excellent chickpea soup, preferably garnished with some excellent Tatton beef. I also congratulate the hon. Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy). Having spent years disagreeing with her in rural debates, I agreed with nearly everything she said. On chickpeas, I hope that she agrees that one of the great challenges for British agriculture is to produce more pulses and a greater variety of them. That is absolutely possible with new varieties.

    The national food strategy is an important milestone, and Henry Dimbleby was an important contributor. This week, as hon. Members have said, the price of staple foods including bread, tea, potatoes and vegetable oil has absolutely soared. Data from the Office for National Statistics collected thousands of prices from items available on supermarket websites, and food price inflation is staggering. When we look at the percentage changes in the prices of the lowest-cost products between September 2021 and 2022 we see that vegetable oil is up by 65%, pasta by 59.9%, tea by 46%, bread by 37%, and milk by 29.4%. These price increases are huge, making the weekly shop for many people simply unaffordable. The differences in price seem to be starkest in the case of food staples as opposed to luxury items: for example, the price of orange juice is actually down by 8.9%, while the price of wine has increased by only 2%. The impact on food staples will be catastrophic for those living on the breadline, who are already having to budget tightly to feed their families each week.

    Food and energy prices are highly regressive, causing more of those on low incomes to pay much more as a percentage of their budgets than those higher up the income scale. Increasing food prices will soon become as big a problem as the increase in energy prices, to which much more attention has been paid in the House and elsewhere. As has already been said, 18% of all households have experienced food insecurity in the last month.

    Supermarkets should be doing more to compete with each other and try to hold prices down, even if it has an impact on their profits. After all, that is what they are dictating to their suppliers—often small suppliers, some of whom will not survive this latest bout of cost and food inflation. The country’s largest supermarket, Tesco, has taken steps to ease the costs for its customers. Despite falls in profits, it is freezing prices on more than 1,000 products, while at the same time increasing the hourly rate of pay in its stores to £10.98 to help its workers.

    While costs in supermarkets are soaring, the increased costs of fertiliser and feed, exacerbated by Russia’s war in Ukraine, will cause a crisis for some farmers who will undoubtedly cease to trade. The cost of potatoes in the supermarkets has recently been hiked by 13.2%, whereas farmers have seen only a 5% rise this year. I know that the hon. Member for Bristol East will disapprove, but British Sugar is to increase its wholesale sugar price by 40% by the end of the month, while sugar beet farmers have seen a substantive increase of only 30% this year, which is the first increase in three years. All this is happening in an environment where the price of fertiliser—the main cost to farmers—has increased by 300% in the last 18 months.

    DEFRA urgently needs to discuss this matter with the supermarkets. They should not be raising their prices for customers by more than the increase for their suppliers, and they certainly ought not to be increasing shareholders’ profits on the back of the poorest in the country. In short, they should be exercising restraint for a short period to get us over this financial crisis. They should also continue the policy that some began during covid, and buy British wherever possible.

    It is important for the Government to continue with their environmental land management scheme re-evaluation to see whether taking land out of food production for environmental schemes such as tree-planting and rewilding balances with the need to maintain the land to grow food sustainably, and to protect our own food security. In the current circumstances, in which the cost of food is so high and the poorest in our society —as has already been said—are having to rely on food banks to feed themselves, it is our duty to ensure that we can produce as much of our own food as possible to meet demand.

    David Rutley (Macclesfield) (Con)

    My hon. Friend is making a powerful case, because he knows a great deal about this subject—as does my right hon. Friend the Minister. Does he agree that, given the challenges we are facing, it is right to start focusing on tackling food waste? I recently met representatives of a potato business in my constituency, E. Park & Sons, and Sodexo, one of one its major clients. That focus will not just help them and their bottom line, but ensure that food is more available in these difficult times.

    Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown

    My hon. Friend has raised a point that is important in two respects: it applies not only to the food retailers and processors but to individuals in their homes, where far too much food waste goes on.

    As an island nation, we should not be over-reliant on imports or the global market with the shocks that can come with that, the most recent case being the war in Ukraine. In the 1980s, our self-sufficiency in food was 75%; it has now fallen to only 60%. We need to encourage as much food production in this country as possible, so that more of the food we eat is grown in this country to keep prices at a sustainable level. Since August 2021, imports of food and live animals have increased rapidly, while exports have barely moved.

    I fully recognise that environmental schemes such as tree-planting and soil improvement schemes to prevent our rivers from being polluted will help to slow climate change and improve our natural environment. However, it is also the case that as global temperatures warm, vast swathes of countries near the equator will inevitably produce less food, which means that temperate countries such as ours will have to produce more to feed the world.

    Environmental and animal welfare issues are often forgotten. Either animals are having to be transported for long distances to be slaughtered, or environmental damage is caused by shipping or, worse still, flying food for vast distances across the world. The way to improve the situation is to ensure that animals are slaughtered as humanely as possible close to the farm where they are kept, and to ensure that all food around the world is consumed as close as possible to the point of production whenever that is practicable.

    Let me say this sincerely to my right hon. Friend the Minister: we need to be very careful about taking land out of production. It makes no sense for a 2,000-acre good-quality arable farm in Essex which was formerly growing wheat, barley, rape and field beans to be encouraged to put all its land down to grass under the countryside stewardship scheme. Let me also say to the hon. Member for Bristol East that while I fully accept that we should be taking some of our poorest land out of production for environmental schemes, we should be very careful about taking our best land—particularly grade 1 and 2 land, in the old parlance that was used when I was training —out of production for non-food-producing schemes.

    No one is keener on improving and protecting the natural environment than I am. Those of us who are lucky enough to live in the Cotswolds are eager to protect its natural beauty, and I pay tribute to my Cotswolds farmers for not only producing some of the best lamb in the country but participating fully in environmental schemes to improve biodiversity. On the other hand, everyone in the world is reliant, wherever possible, on a good supply of food at a reasonable price. If we are to reduce the amount of food that we import and have a long-term sustainable food policy, we must do more to grow and process our own food. That will help to bring down the cost of our basic food staples, helping individuals and families to shop for food without fear of what it will cost. I imagine that so many are unable to do that at present. Equally, we in the UK have the most beautiful countryside and rivers in the world, in which we need to be careful to preserve our biodiversity.

  • Geraint Davies – 2022 Speech on the National Food Strategy and Food Security

    Geraint Davies – 2022 Speech on the National Food Strategy and Food Security

    The speech made by Geraint Davies, the Labour MP for Swansea West, in the House of Commons on 27 October 2022.

    In 2010, when the Labour Government left office, there were 26,000 people getting food from food banks. By 2021, that had increased a hundredfold to 2.6 million, and that was before the Ukraine war. Now, one in four children and one in five adults—4 million children and 10 million adults—are in food poverty, in the sixth richest country in the world. That is a catastrophe. The number of people who are in food poverty, who cannot afford to eat nutritious food and who are freezing in their house, is much, much higher than it was during the pandemic.

    I am a member of the Co-operative party and the Labour party. We agree with the right to food. The right to life is in the UN charter and the UN convention on human rights, and obviously an intrinsic part of the right to life is the right to food. I support Co-op party initiatives such as Healthy Start vouchers, and it is important that they be rolled out and index-linked to keep up with inflation, but we need much more.

    The co-operative movement was started by the Rochdale pioneers to stop adulterated food. It is about food, and everybody should have the right to daily nutritional food. Winston Churchill famously said that the most important asset of a country is its health; a country’s health is predicated on having enough healthy food, and the reality is that people do not have enough money to buy healthy food after taking account of the housing costs and the heating costs that they face. Amartya Sen, a famous Nobel prize winner, wrote about famines: he was focused on the developing world, but he argued that famines are not about a shortage of food, but about the conjunction of high prices with low wages in particular communities, leading to starvation.

    That is what we are now on the brink of seeing in Britain. High prices are coming in—yes, because of Ukraine, but also from Brexit. The price of imports is going down as the value of sterling has gone down. We have shortages in our own production: a quarter of our fruit is not picked, we have had a mass culling of 40,000 pigs and we do not have enough people to work in abattoirs. We have problems with food production locally and with sterling being further pushed down, which is driving prices up. Some of those problems were avoidable political problems.

    Alongside high prices, we have low wages. Since 2010, we have had very low growth and pay freezes. In the previous 10 years under the Labour party, or certainly in the 10 years to 2008, the economy grew by 40%. The Institute for Fiscal Studies has shown that if that trend in growth had continued, average wages would now be £10,000 higher. The country would be much more resilient to the external shocks that are now causing this catastrophe of localised famine.

    The Government need to act, and act quickly. They need to think carefully about how to manage the upcoming new Budget. I know everybody thinks the national insurance abolition idea is great on the face of it, but the reality is that it will give £7.60 back to the lowest 10% and more than £1,000 back to the richest 10%. At a time when half of people on universal credit are in food poverty, we need to think very carefully about how we sustain our people and about what is right and what is effective for our nation.

    We have talked about the quality of our food, but the truth is that people in poverty are often obese because they have to resort to low-nutrition, high-fat, high-salt, high-sugar products that keep them going for a long time but are not particularly good for them. That is storing up a time bomb for the NHS of obesity, diabetes, heart attacks and strokes. Health inequality is a real problem for us. Famously, in a 2014 study of many countries over many years, the OECD found a relationship between inequality and growth, namely that less inequality means higher growth and a bigger cake.

    Health inequality is also linked to income inequality. I look forward to the White Paper, but we need to be serious. We need to feed our people to get a productive economy and a fair economy that we can all be proud of. I am from Wales, and I am very pleased about the initiatives in Wales that are providing universal free breakfasts and are now rolling out universal free lunches. For all children—for all the adults who sign their children up—that will be free in Wales. Henry Dimbleby, whose strategy I very much welcome, has welcomed that. When questioned by the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, on which I serve, about universal credit and levels of payment to make food affordable, he said:

    “That is beyond my pay grade.”

    But it is not beyond the Government’s pay grade to realise what the issues are. If children have affordable, nutritious food, their performance is better, their life chances are better, future tax revenues are better and NHS costs are lower. From UK plc’s point of view it makes a lot of sense, quite apart from being morally right.

    I spoke only this week to an online audience of student unions across Wales. That was one group, of course, and I am not saying that they are the only group, but as hon. Members might expect, they face high rents, they live in houses in multiple occupation and their food costs and energy costs have gone up. A large proportion of them have something like £10 a week or less to live on after paying for utilities. They cannot afford their student learning materials. More than 90% of them face mental health problems. There is a cost of living crisis, and they also face an uncertain future in the jobs market and the mortgage market. We need to think very carefully about that.

    Finally, I turn to food security. Having invaded the Crimea, Russia is now producing 15% more food. We should think about our food security. The cost of fertiliser has gone up, and we are reliant on too much. Our home production should be organic. We need spatial planning. We need a proper plan so that we do not end up with another wave of austerity that costs 300,000 lives. Instead, we should focus on the opportunity to provide all our people with decent food. We need a healthy and productive economy that is more equal and fairer, and a stronger, greener future for all, but I fear that that will only come with a Labour Government.

  • Matthew Offord – 2022 Speech on the National Food Strategy and Food Security

    Matthew Offord – 2022 Speech on the National Food Strategy and Food Security

    The speech made by Matthew Offord, the Conservative MP for Hendon, in the House of Commons on 27 October 2022.

    It is a pleasure to speak in this debate, and I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Tatton (Esther McVey) and the hon. Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy) on securing it. I have been calling for a national food strategy for many years. Like the hon. Member, I agree that the food strategy is not about the nanny state; it is a road map, putting a spotlight on the path that we should tread as a nation.

    The national food strategy mentions food security a lot. Many of us are concerned about that, but what is food security? Academic research on that issue found that there are more than 200 definitions of “food security”. The NFS, however, defines self-sufficiency as the ability of a nation to produce its own food, but under that definition the UK has not been self-sufficient in food security for the past 176 years. We are all aware of the problems with the blockades during the first and second world wars. The Agriculture Act 1947 was designed to improve food security, but I am not convinced that we have since achieved that.

    Many people say that food security is all about shortage, but we have to ask ourselves, “Is there actually a shortage of food?” No, there is not. Global food production is forecast to be higher this year than last. If England’s 2019 wheat crop had been used for human consumption alone, it would have provided 2,500 calories per person per day for 63 million people while using less than 20% of our agricultural land.

    Globally, a large share of crops are used to fuel cars and feed livestock. In the US, a third of the maize crop is turned into biofuels in a process that is worse for the climate than burning fossil fuels. Grain is expensive not because it is scarce, but because we feed most of it to livestock. Animals consume a disproportionate amount of feed to supply a small amount of meat. That ensures that 70% of farmland produces just 10% of the calories manufactured in the UK each year.

    Some hon. Members will be able to see where the debate is going. The issue of meat consumption is important to many people in the United Kingdom, and the popularity of vegetarianism and veganism is more important than ever. I will declare an interest: I have been a vegetarian for 39 years—not for moral or ethical reasons, but simply because I do not like eating meat. The hon. Member for Bristol East is a vegan, probably for the same reason, so I share her love of chickpeas rather than of Cheshire lambs. There are alternatives. I would never stop anyone eating meat, and I feel that everyone has the right to do so. It is important to many people and they enjoy it, so we should let them continue to eat meat.

    However, the food strategy has one area in which the Government have missed a trick: sustainable protein. The Government have the opportunity to become a global leader in the sustainable protein space. When I say protein, I mean plant-based or fermentation-made and cultivated meat, eggs, dairy and seafood. If we establish the UK at the forefront of the protein transition, we will help to make the UK’s food system more resilient, healthier and more sustainable. At the same time, the industry would align with many of the UK’s existing policy commitments, including reaching net zero carbon emissions by 2050, addressing the looming threat of antimicrobial resistance and championing animal welfare. It would also further cement the UK’s reputation as a climate leader and a global scientific superpower.

    Making meat from plants and cultivating it from cells presents enormous opportunities to provide the British public with the familiar foods that they want, but at a fraction of the external cost to the environment and planetary health. Plant-based meat production results in up to 90% fewer greenhouse gas emissions and uses up to 99% less land than conventional meat. When produced with renewable energy, cultivated meat could cut the climate impact of meat by 92% and use up to 95% less land. In addition, those sustainable proteins are free from antibiotics and involve no risk of the emergence of zoonotic diseases, which is associated with raising and killing animals for food.

    Back in June, I asked the Government whether they would consider sustainable protein as part of the national food strategy. They said that it was a very important issue, on which they were very keen, but they decided not to include it as part of the national food strategy. I therefore ask the Minister to do so today. This is an opportunity not to prevent people from eating meat, but to give them a choice. As a vegetarian, I would have the choice to eat such a product, whereas other people would have the choice of eating what is considered freshly reared meat or something that has been created. That could also help to address some of the issues surrounding food labelling. I know that many colleagues share concerns about production methods in certain religious communities, so the alternative protein market would allay some of those concerns.

    I ask the Minister to do four things: establish a strategy to make the UK a global leader in the sustainable protein space; invest in open access research and development for sustainable proteins; ensure a fair and robust regulatory plan for the market; and invest to ensure a dynamic industry ecosystem. That could help many parts of the world, and the UK could really take its place as a global leader in the market. Rather than cutting down on choice, it would extend choice to our constituents.

  • Alistair Carmichael – 2022 Speech on the National Food Strategy and Food Security

    Alistair Carmichael – 2022 Speech on the National Food Strategy and Food Security

    The speech made by Alistair Carmichael, the Liberal Democrat MP for Orkney and Shetland, in the House of Commons on 27 October 2022.

    First of all, I remind the House of my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. I congratulate the right hon. Member for Tatton (Esther McVey) on securing the debate and I thank the Backbench Business Committee for granting it. This is an enormously important and timely subject for the House to be debating.

    The cost of food and where people put their money at the moment is probably the uppermost consideration in the minds of all our constituents. I hope the Government will bear that in mind when they think about the wider policy and strategy, because the implications for some of what we are seeing at the moment could be profound for both producers and consumers. When people are primarily driven by price—I think that is their primary consideration at the moment—and they go to a supermarket and are looking for the cheapest food on the shelf, they are not necessarily going to find it with a Union Jack, red label or saltire on it. At a time when the Government are seeking to increase, through the variety of trade deals we have, the range of foods coming into this country, which may not have been produced to the same environmental and welfare standards that we are accustomed to, the damage that could be done to our own producers could be long-term and profound.

    I do not want to detain the House for too long today, not least because the right hon. Member for Tatton was comprehensive in her introduction to the debate. I can say that there was really nothing with which I disagreed in her speech—I am agnostic on the question of chickpeas, but apart from that. It is right that we should consider for a moment the role of our food producers in food strategy and food security, and particularly our fishermen, farmers and fish farmers. Aquaculture is one area of food production that offers a real opportunity for producing high-quality protein at affordable prices, but which also brings with it a number of challenges and opportunities.

    This issue also strikes at the heart of the role of Government. There are things that the Government can do, such as on food labelling and encouraging people to eat more or different fish or to use food in a different way—that is perfectly legitimate. There is an obvious role for the Government, for example in the production of support payments for farmers. At other times, however, the role of Government is to get out of the way and allow food producers to get on and do what they do best. The Minister, with his background, will be alive to that tension in Government.

    For farmers, fishermen and fish farmers, the many challenges result in a perfect storm. The rising cost of energy has had a wide range of impacts; the cost of fertiliser is the one that is spoken of most frequently, but the costs of running machinery, such as tractors, are also affected. With the agricultural industry facing an uncertain future, in particular, regarding the future of support payments, there is real anxiety in the industry about what the future holds.

    Let me say parenthetically that the suggestion of support payments being subsidies for farmers has to stop. Support payments for farmers are actually support payments for, probably, consumers and supermarkets. It is their route to ensuring that cheap food keeps being produced in this country—it is not just farmers who benefit from support payments. One thing that the Government could do as part of the food strategy is to look at how the big supermarkets have a real, adverse impact on how farmers can get their food on to the shelves. There is a massive imbalance of power. A few years ago, we started the Groceries Code Adjudicator. It has not had the effectiveness that I hoped it would, but that issue has to be revisited through whatever means we can.

    One of my frustrations relating to the future of support payments is that we see that as being about either agriculture and food production or environmental goods. From my experience as somebody who lives in and is part of an agricultural community and who was brought up on a farm, that is not an either/or—it is both. Farmers are working the land in a way that would maintain the richness of our countryside’s ecology, especially in many areas that are less productive, where the land is not of such good quality. I offered an example from my experience to the hon. Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy), but there are others from my constituency. I see the damage that is done to crops grown in Orkney by barnacle geese, and Orkney is not a great cropping county. The balance between what farmers can do and the challenges of nature has really fallen out of kilter there.

    Our food strategy needs to be holistic; we cannot allow it to be silent on things. It is very well to say that we will have visas to bring in workers to pick fruit or to work on fishing boats, or whatever else it may be, but that is of absolutely no use if we have no housing in which to accommodate them. Housing in our rural communities is a massive issue. My hon. Friend the Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron) speaks about that issue frequently.

    On transport, it frustrates me beyond measure that it seems to be a massive surprise to our shipping companies every year that suddenly in October, crofters start wanting to sell their lambs and to export them to the Scottish mainland. We need extra capacity in our ferries at that time. A bit more joined-up thinking in Government, wherever that is, would allow us to put food policy at the heart of Government and Government strategy. In that way, there would be a win for us all.

  • Jo Gideon – 2022 Speech on the National Food Strategy and Food Security

    Jo Gideon – 2022 Speech on the National Food Strategy and Food Security

    The speech made by Jo Gideon, the Conservative MP for Stoke-on-Trent Central, in the House of Commons on 27 October 2022.

    It is a particular pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy), with whom I sat on the all-party parliamentary group on the national food strategy, which has been disbanded. She covered a comprehensive range of issues that needed to be spoken about, so I will try not to cover some of them.

    I have consistently highlighted the need for a robust food system to ensure that every one of our constituents has access to nutritious, affordable food. In achieving that, we must safeguard our countryside and restore the balance of nature. We need to reduce the health problems that result from poor diets, and we can accomplish that only by working together—both across all Government Departments and more widely in society—from field to fork.

    The food system underpins our economy and security, and the health of our planet. Without restoring equilibrium to our food system, we will continue to have food production that depletes nature and makes us unwell. As the world faces ever more environmental and social challenges, ensuring a well-functioning and equitable food system becomes a matter of strategic importance. Food security depends on global peace, stability, and a healthy planet and population. We have been facing a threat to all three of those.

    The war in Ukraine has seen millions across the world put at risk of starvation. Ukraine is commonly referred to as the breadbasket of the world. It boasts some of the most fertile land on Earth, with rich black soil—chernozem—perfectly suited to growing grains and producing and exporting vast amounts of barley, corn, rye and wheat. Ukraine ranks first in the world in global sunflower production and export. Even after the war is over, it is likely that up to 50% of the land will have been rendered unproductive by landmines, which will take many years to clear.

    As buyers have looked to find alternative supplies, international commodity markets have faced turbulence and prices have risen. That affects the price of basic foods in shopping baskets in our local supermarkets.

    Russia is one of the biggest exporters of fertilisers. Farmers in the UK have concerns about input costs—particularly about fertilisers and animal feed—as well as energy costs. Indeed, agricultural commodity prices have always been strongly correlated to the price of energy. We forget that energy prices were increasing before the war in Ukraine, and as a net importer, the UK is exposed to the increasing volatility in gas prices. Energy inputs for farms increased by 34% between January and April 2022, and farm motor fuel costs increased by 30% over the same period. That comes at a period of significant economic turmoil following the effects of a global pandemic, when the food supply chain has had to respond to a surge in demand due to panic buying. A cluster of hot, dry summers has led to crop failure and nature loss, making our land less productive. We will all notice the impact on familiar products. I read recently that there is a challenge with tomato ketchup, which is a key ingredient of Staffordshire oatcakes. It may become a rarer commodity as climate change threatens to halve the harvest in the coming years.

    Fear of food shortages from multiple fronts has changed our attitude towards food. Increasingly, purchasing decisions are based on affordability and choosing the healthy option is more difficult than before. Lack of money means cold food and cold water. Some 71% of households who experienced food insecurity in the past month said they have cooked less, eaten food cold, turned off fridges and washed dishes in cold water.

    When families are being faced with the question of whether to eat or heat, it is more important than ever that we should have a national food strategy in place, aligning the nation’s hunger and health with UK climate goals and UK farm sustainability. Access to good food is essential to improving life chances and health must be a focus of our food production. Whatever the cause, we must recognise that the challenges around access to a healthy diet are major indicators of inequality. As I think the hon. Member for Bristol East mentioned, 18% of all households experienced food insecurity last month, compared with 54% for households on universal credit, so any Government policy developed needs to address that disproportionate impact.

    Foods that are bad for our health should not be the cheapest foods on the market, yet people are having to compromise the quality of their diets to cut food costs. The Food Foundation suggests that of those experiencing food insecurity, 58% said they were buying less fruit and 48% said they were buying fewer vegetables. One young person from Bite Back 2030 said:

    “There’s two chicken shops about a one-minute walk from my school that sells two wings and chips for £1. A school dinner is £2.40.”

    This is a serious issue. People are being forced to choose the cheapest calories, which are typically the least healthy. Families with lower incomes are not going to be driven by whether labels say food is high in calories, fat, sugar and salt. We should probably check those things, but we do not because the driver is money and that is what is affordable and within budget. Good food policy needs to reduce and rebalance the bombardment of unhealthy food and use the revenue raised to make more affordable, accessible, easy and appealing food for those on low incomes.

    We see the need to work closely with the food and drink industry to ensure that our whole population can afford good food, but tackling obesity is also central to our commitment to levelling up. We need to support healthier options and behaviours by addressing social factors that lead to obesity and making them more conducive to healthy living. Underpinning any economic levelling up must be a levelling up of diet-related life choices.

    Because I care passionately about the importance of fixing our food system from the triple challenges of climate change, biodiversity loss and diet-related ill health, I am hosting a food summit at Staffordshire University in Stoke-on-Trent on 4 November. I am delighted that the author of the national food strategy report, Henry Dimbleby, will be opening the summit. We will have a big conversation about food, and about inspiring new thinking and embracing new expectations of our food system, celebrating innovators and shining a light on the great work already under way. I think my right hon. Friend the Member for Tatton (Esther McVey) mentioned some of that work on innovation already.

    Under the current food system, the amount of food being produced from a given area of land has increased and the amount of other life occupying that same area of land has decreased. Data from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs shows that wheat yields in the UK have doubled from 1970 to today. Yet through that time, we have also seen the number of farmland birds decrease by 54%. We have touched on land use, so I will skip over it, but it is very important that we have a clear understanding of how we should use land.

    We need to recognise the dual role of farmers as food producers and conservationists, but we have to be careful not to turn farmers into environmental contractors with little incentive to continue food farming. Therefore, the food strategy could be clearer in linking food production to action against climate change and action to enhance the natural environment. Without such action, climate change further threatens to cause crop failures and nature loss, which makes our land less productive. Our priority must be looking at how we can reduce the environmental impact of the foods we consume, while making it easier and cheaper for people to consume healthier and more nutritious food. To build national resilience to food insecurity, we need to grow—quite literally—our local food production and enable smaller food businesses to thrive.

    The strategy is right to recognise that promoting local food and drink can also increase cultural identity and community pride. That, in turn, makes an area a more attractive tourist offer, while also ensuring the resilience of the local food supply and supporting farmers and small producers. Growing community involvement in the redistribution of food will help us to minimise food waste and ensure that food surplus from the supply chain is not wasted.

    I welcomed the emphasis that the Prime Minister placed on delivering the 2019 manifesto commitments. The manifesto has high aspirations for agriculture, food standards, children’s dietary health and levelling up opportunities, which are impacted directly by access to good food. Research has already been conducted on health disparities, and this could be considered within the compassionate framework that the Prime Minister has committed to, so the motion has my full support.

  • Kerry McCarthy – 2022 Speech on the National Food Strategy and Food Security

    Kerry McCarthy – 2022 Speech on the National Food Strategy and Food Security

    The speech made by Kerry McCarthy, the Labour MP for Bristol East, in the House of Commons on 27 October 2022.

    I thank the right hon. Member for Tatton (Esther McVey) for that comprehensive introduction. It means, I hope, that I can keep my remarks quite short. I agree on a lot of what she said, although she may not be surprised to hear that I do not agree with her about chickpeas. Hodmedod, a really good British pulse grower, has been growing them in Norfolk for the past few years and I urge her to support it in its efforts. There is so much potential and growing pulses here is really good for the soil. I can wax lyrical about things like chickpeas.

    Esther McVey

    I want to explain that I make a fabulous chickpea soup and stew. If anyone would like to know the recipes, I will be more than happy to share them.

    Kerry McCarthy

    I make a very good chana dal.

    The debate is about food security, which the right hon. Lady covered in detail, but also about the national food strategy. I pay tribute to Henry Dimbleby, who put a huge amount of work into the strategy. I have a well-thumbed copy of the strategy document; it is almost like a Bible to me, giving an overview of all the different aspects of food policy and what we need to do.

    I think Henry should feel let down by the inadequacy of the Government’s response to that document. I want to highlight some of the things the Government should be doing more on. The work was commissioned by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, and he was an executive director there. It is disappointing that the Government are not treating that as the Bible for how to take things forward.

    Food poverty is now far worse than when Henry Dimbleby started that work. We have seen frightening figures from the Office for National Statistics this week showing how prices of basic foodstuffs have shot up: vegetable oil by 65%; pasta by 60%; bread by 38%. The Food Foundation recently reported that 18% of households, and 26% of households with children, have experienced food insecurity in the past month. That is nearly 10 million adults, and around 4 million children. Many of those surveyed said they have cooked less, eaten food cold, turned off fridges and washed dishes in cold water because of concern about energy bills and rising inflation. Many were buying less fruit and vegetables.

    On “Newsnight” last week, the former Children’s Commissioner, Anne Longfield, said she had never seen child food poverty on this scale before. She called, as did Henry Dimbleby, for Cobra to be convened. I raised that at Cabinet Office questions this morning and got a response about how the Prime Minister wanted compassion to be at the heart of what he did, but I did not get a response on how a cross-departmental approach to tackling food poverty could be steered by the Cabinet Office. A cross-departmental approach is needed. As Henry Dimbleby said when giving evidence to the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee last week, we need a structural mechanism to drive progress. If it is not Cobra, I would like to know from the Minister what mechanism he envisages would work.

    Cobra is also very good at looking at granular detail, which is important because this calls for a localised response. We can express some generalities about food poverty, but Bristol, for example, which is known to be quite a foodie place, also has two of the top five food deserts in the entire country. There are estates in south Bristol where it is very difficult to access affordable and healthy food. So this needs to be done at a local level. My first question to the Minister is about how he sees that overarching response. Would DEFRA be leading? Does he see a role for Cobra?

    In terms of swift action, the national food strategy is clear that extending eligibility for free school meals is one of the best levers we have. Extending it just to families on universal credit would feed an extra 1.4 million children. Healthy Start and holiday hunger schemes are also important.

    Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)

    I am grateful to my hon. Friend for drawing attention to the importance of families being able to afford healthy food—all the more important given the rising cost of living. In relation to Healthy Start, she will know that take-up of these essential vouchers that provide fresh fruit and veg, and milk and vitamins to pregnant and new mums and their children is at only about 60% across the country. Will she support me in calling on the Government to work across Departments so that those applying for universal credit who are also eligible for Healthy Start are automatically registered for that Healthy Start support?

    Kerry McCarthy

    I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. As I understand it, next week she will introduce a Bill, which I very much support and I hope that the Government will, too.

    I do not have much time to talk about the importance of healthy diets, but does the Minister know what has happened to the health inequalities White Paper? Will we see that soon?

    The national food strategy approach on junk food is quite straightforward: it is about restricting advertising and promotions, and targeting ingredients. Some people I know are concerned that that will mean increased costs for consumers, who can ill-afford to feed their families as it is. However, the suggestion is not to tax food in the shops but, for example, to tax sugar in the huge quantities bought by the food manufacturers, so it would be in their interests to reformulate their products to avoid that tax. We saw that happen with the soft drinks levy. I would be interested to know what the Minister thinks about that.

    There is all this concern about the nanny state and not wanting to dictate to people what they do and do not eat. However, we accept that action on smoking is important for public health reasons and that action on alcohol abuse is important. When we look at the cost to the NHS of diet-related diseases and ill health, it seems a no-brainer to me to take an interventionist approach on this, too. It is not about telling people what they can and cannot eat; it is about helping them to make the right choices for themselves and their families, making sure that the education is out there and giving financial incentives such as the Healthy Start scheme.

    In terms of other levers that could be used, public procurement could make a huge difference. The DEFRA consultation on public sector food and catering closed on 4 September. Could the Minister tell us when we will hear the results from that?

    This may be going back to chickpeas, but the Mayor of New York, Eric Adams, who describes himself as an imperfect vegan—I suppose that is better than nothing—has introduced a scheme whereby the default option for catering in New York hospitals is plant-based. That does not mean that people cannot choose meat-based options or things that are not plant-based, but apparently it is proving to be really popular and there is good take-up. Again, that is a way of encouraging people down the path of taking a healthier option. I hope the Minister agrees that much of the food served in our hospitals—regardless of whether it is of animal origin—is not the sort of food we should be serving people we are trying to make healthier and better.

    Kate Green

    In that regard, my hon. Friend will be pleased to know that Healthy Start does support the provision of plant-based meals.

    Kerry McCarthy

    I am glad to hear that; it is a good step. I will not go into the environmental arguments. I hope that people accept that I am not trying to force people down a particular path, but the Climate Change Committee, the UN and several Cabinet Ministers have accepted that, for environmental and health reasons, we could do with reducing meat consumption.

    I turn to the need for a land-use framework. I understand that the Government intend to publish one next year. Land is a finite, scarce resource, but we do not always treat it as such. We need to be strategic about how we use it for food, carbon sequestration, biodiversity and fuel. Where possible, “best and most versatile” land should be used for food growing,

    It is nonsense for the Government to seek to reclassify poorer-quality soil as BMV as part of their war on solar farms. Is that ill-thought-out proposal still Government policy? It was a few weeks ago; I hope the Minister understands that I am finding it quite difficult to keep up. Could he tell me whether the proposal to reclassify poorer-quality land as BMV is still going to be brought through?

    After yesterday’s Prime Minister’s questions, I am also not sure where the Government stand on onshore wind. Will the Minister clarify that? I am glad, however, to see that the fracking ban is back, but that one U-turn—or two U-turns—has left many casualties on the road in its wake. Again, that goes to the whole issue of what land is best used for. As Henry Dimbleby told the EFRA Committee last week, over the seven or eight decades since the war, we have been steadily producing more and more food on the same amount of land. He said:

    “That is making the land sick, destroying the environment and driving out nature.”

    What he said about the need for the land to be carbon-negative—not net zero—was spot on. The potential for carbon sequestration is huge, and by taking some of the least productive agricultural land out of production, we could enhance biodiversity at the same time as creating natural carbon sinks.

    Some 20% of our farmland—mostly peatland and upland—produces only 3% of our calories. Henry Dimbleby argued that about 5% of that should come out of farming. The rest of the farmland would be higher yielding, with lower inputs and lower environmental costs.

    Mr Carmichael

    May I warn the hon. Lady about the law of unintended consequences? By way of illustration, I offer the example of my own family farm on Islay, not in my constituency but on the west coast. Our farm sits in a site of special scientific interest designed to protect choughs, which are a highly endangered species. However, chough numbers continue to decline because the way in which land is farmed discourages the presence of cattle and, to encourage chough, both sheep and cattle need to be on that land. If she is not careful, the sort of blunt tool that she is talking about could work to the detriment of the chough population.

    Kerry McCarthy

    I do not know why the right hon. Member says that I am suggesting a blunt tool.

    Mr Carmichael

    You mentioned talking land out of production.

    Kerry McCarthy

    Yes; Henry Dimbleby suggests that that 5% should come out of production. However he does not dictate that that should be anywhere that, perhaps, does not have certain productivity levels or does not do this or that. That brings me neatly to my concluding point.

    Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (The Cotswolds) (Con)

    Will the hon. Member give way?

    Kerry McCarthy

    I think that the hon. Gentleman will make a speech, so I will let him make his comments then.

    This is where the environmental land management scheme comes in, which is a sophisticated approach and not a blunt tool. It is about looking at everything taking place on the land, including what is being done to support nature and biodiversity. I would think that the farmland mentioned by the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) would very much come under those criteria; I hope so. My final question to the Minister is: where are we now with ELMS? Farmers are desperately seeking certainty on it. Will he confirm that the public money for public goods approach will still underpin support for our food and farming system?

  • Esther McVey – 2022 Speech on the National Food Strategy and Food Security

    Esther McVey – 2022 Speech on the National Food Strategy and Food Security

    The speech made by Esther McVey, the Conservative MP for Tatton, in the House of Commons on 27 October 2022.

    I beg to move,

    That this House recognises that food security is a major concern to the British public and that the impact of the covid-19 pandemic, the cost of living crisis and the conflict in Ukraine has made UK food security more important than ever before; further recognises the strain on the farming sector due to rising farming and energy costs; supports the Government’s ambition to produce a National Food Strategy white paper and recognises the urgent need for its publication; notes that the UK food system needs to become more sustainable; and calls on the Government to recognise and promote alternative proteins in the National Food Strategy, invest in homegrown opportunities for food innovation, back British businesses and help future-proof British farming.

    The motion is in my name and that of the hon. Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy). I pay tribute to her for all her help in co-ordinating this debate, and I particularly thank the Backbench Business Committee for finding time for it.

    Food security is a perennial concern. Even the meaning of “food security” causes concern and disagreement, but I will use this definition as a starting point—being able to feed the population at a reasonable cost, even in the face of future shocks such as a global pandemic, massive harvest failure or a general crisis of agricultural productivity caused by climate change. However, colleagues may well wish to expand on that definition and talk about a whole array of issues, for this is such a vast topic with so many important implications for farmers and for families and household food bills, particularly now that we see them rising with the cost of living crisis.

    The UK is addressing the issues of food security by using new approaches to agriculture such as vertical farming, precision agriculture and genome editing. It is cutting food waste with Government policies and new technology, producing alternative proteins from cultured insects and algae—not for the faint-hearted—as well as producing plant-based meat, on which the UK leads the way, and packaging food in innovative ways to reduce damage, prolong freshness and fight off bacteria.

    However, with the shocks we have suffered to our food security over the last two years—the consequences of covid and lockdowns, and now of the war in Ukraine —there is much more the Government need to do, particularly to help our local farmers. In the north-west, our 12,815 farming and growing community quietly go about their business, collectively producing a wealth of food commodities and contributing more than £726 million to the economy. Our UK farmers and growers are world leaders in food safety, animal welfare, traceability and environmental enhancements, and these values are reflected through our UK annual food and drink export value of £2 billion.

    I want to focus on my little corner of the world. Over 70% of Cheshire county is still agriculture-producing, with large swathes given to dairy, sheep and cattle farming. More than 7,000 people are employed on 2,804 farm holdings covering nearly 160,000 hectares of land. We are home to some of the country’s leading dairy farms and dairies—for example, Grosvenor’s Eaton Estate in Cheshire produces more than 35 million litres of fresh milk a year, which is enough for half a million people every day. In Tatton, we have County Milk, which is a family-run business and the largest privately owned dairy ingredient company in the UK. We have the award-winning Delamere Dairy, located in Knutsford, and Bexton Cheese in Knutsford. We have the award-winning Lambing Shed, run by the Mitchell family, and Cheshire Smokehouse in Morley Green, Wilmslow. We have Mobberley Ice Cream, Great Budworth Ice Cream and Seven Sisters Farm Ice Cream—there are lots of ice creams—and Roberts Bakery. I meet my local farmers regularly, assisted and facilitated by the local National Farmers Union team.

    There have always been concerns in farming, for livestock and the Great British weather are temperamental fellows to work with, but of late these issues have got bigger and they need to be addressed if we want our food strategy to work. In Tatton, our farmers, like those across the country, are facing labour shortages, energy price increases of up to 400%, fertiliser cost increases of over 150% and red diesel increases, as well as increases in rural crime. Only the other week, I met a group of local farmers at Shepherd’s farm in Aston by Budworth, which has just invested £300,000 in a new milking shed of the new cubicle type, and they all concurred that we are now seeing particularly tough times.

    My farmers are renowned for good husbandry, good farming and good farming techniques, and they go to great lengths to look after their animals and land, for high-quality care leads to high-quality meat, milk and produce, but they need help to find staff and to offer competitive training and apprenticeships. New farmers entering the profession need to have a chance to get a farm, and those leaving it need a chance to relinquish a farm at a price that will provide for their retirement. Can the Minister please look into these matters as a matter of urgency? I know significant work has been done, but certainly more work needs to be done. If the Minister cannot provide a full answer today, I am more than happy for him to write to me.

    Another of my constituents is Philip Pearson, who, along with other members of his family, runs a family business called the APS Group. Set up by his grandfather after the second world war in Alderley Edge, it is now the biggest tomato producer in the UK, producing approximately 650 million tomatoes a year. He has explained quite clearly that the horticulture sector in the UK is desperately short of staff to look after crops and to cope during the harvest. He would have expected 1,500 workers, out of a peak total of 2,500, from central and eastern Europe each year—from March to Christmas—but this has not been possible this year.

    A question for the Minister is: can these farmers have more visas for seasonal agricultural workers—the number must rise from the current 30,000 to at least 50,000 as soon as possible—and can farmers employ Ukrainian nationals and other migrants now housed in the UK to help deliver an increase in the number of seasonal agricultural workers?

    Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)

    The right hon. Lady is making a very powerful case, very little of which I would disagree with, but the food strategy is not all about agriculture. The fishing industry also needs visas for crews in particular, which has been a problem for years. Through her, can I add to the Minister’s list to take to the Home Office the plight of the fishing industry as well as that of farmers?

    Esther McVey

    The right hon. Member absolutely can, and indeed he has. I expect other Members to talk about the farming in and the produce coming from their parts of the country. As I said, I am focusing on Cheshire, but I believe we all share the same concerns.

    In my patch, farmers are leading the way in technology, too. In the case of APS, it is developing robotics for tomato production, starting with harvesting and going right the way through to packaging. It is putting significant money and research into this development to cope with the lack of people now coming forward to work in the farming sector. However, these robots will not be ready for four to five years, so it needs short-term help now to be able to deliver on its commitment to supply tomatoes for the country.

    Farmers also care deeply about the environment. This particular farm is working hard to deliver compostable packaging. It uses its tomato plant waste to develop packaging, and it is using it for other sectors, including fake leather for car seats, coffee cups and even bactericidal treatment for the NHS. It is charged a packaging tax, yet it is developing green, biodegradable alternatives, so can the Minister let me know what incentives there are for such great British technology to help the companies providing these terrific developments, which will be used not just here, but right around the world?

    Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)

    Robotics is very important in my constituency of Strangford in two ways. First, for the dairy sector, it is a seven-figure sum to set up a new robotic milking dairy—my neighbours are doing that—and, secondly, it is a significant six-figure sum for those wanting to have tomato houses, as the right hon. Lady has mentioned. To make such vast investments happen, the Government must be involved, so the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs here and the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs back home will have to be very much part of that process.

    Esther McVey

    I thank the hon. Member for joining in and adding that pertinent point.

    We could not have this debate without talking about the high energy prices at the moment, with an increase of 400%, and what is happening to farms having to cope with those increased costs. For APS, this has resulted in reduced production of UK tomatoes and other foods, because the costs of production are not recovered through higher prices. Farmers must be mindful of passing on higher prices to customers—if they can, as the supermarkets and shops the food goes to will not accept them—so we must be mindful of how we support farmers.

    That company has even developed a combined heat and power plant, which supplies 3 MW of power to Alderley Edge, and it uses the waste heat and the carbon dioxide from that to grow their crop. I wonder whether it can get some recognition that it uses carbon dioxide from power generation to produce food, because that would help it to offset the huge increases in energy cost. I know the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy is reviewing the move from the European Union energy trading scheme to the ETS UK equivalent post Brexit, but can the Minister liaise with his ministerial colleague at BEIS and give me the latest news on that?

    Food production is essential for the delivery of the environmental benefits on which the Government plan to centre in their agricultural support policy, but unless we recognise the dual role of farmers as food producers and conservationists, we risk turning farmers into environmental contractors with little incentive to continue farming. That would do enormous damage to the jobs and communities that depend on farming, as well as weaken our food security. The strategy needs to be clearer in linking food production to action against climate change and enhancing the natural environment.

    My final plea is for greater clarity on food labelling, so that the high standards of British food are known and recognised—so a shopper knows the quality of the produce and where it is from. Buying British and locally, for me that means buying from Cheshire, is important not just because of the high husbandry standards of UK food but the low transport mileage to get from field to fork. That low transport mileage is particularly important if we are concerned about the environment. As my beef and sheep farmers say, it is better to have high-quality beef and lamb from Cheshire than chickpeas from halfway around the world. [Interruption.] I thank Members for the cheers for that.

    On food standards, it is important when the Government are negotiating and implementing free trade agreements to avoid undermining the domestic sector for farmers and growers and reducing standards. In its report on the UK-Australia free trade agreement issued on Friday 17 June 2022, the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee concluded:

    “In practice it appears unlikely that food produced to lower animal welfare standards will enter the UK as a result of this deal.”

    That is positive news, but my farmers are calling for greater transparency on food labelling. Like me, they believe in choice, but we only have choice when we have knowledge of what we are choosing and what we are choosing from.

    Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)

    I sit on that Committee and we observed that the average size of a sheep farm in Australia is 100 times the size of one in Wales, and they practise mulesing—shearing the back- sides of sheep in a painful way without anaesthetics—and transport cattle for 24 hours. So there is a clear problem of British producers being undercut by inhumane welfare practices and massive intensity of production.

    Esther McVey

    That relates to the transparency that some people are calling for to know what they are eating and enjoying, to appreciate the difference in cost and the treatment the animals have gone through. Fair competition can only really come from accurate labelling and transparency on produce. The UK produces some of the best food in the world, with the highest standards of safety and animal welfare, and it is only right that people in this country know what they are getting.

    Tatton farmers and producers are hard-working, dedicated to the sector, industrious and experts in their field, with many generations of experience. They want to help solve the food security issues that this country is facing, but along with this strategy, which goes some of the way, and along with awareness of what is happening around the world, more assistance is needed to help our farmers here and now with the problems the world is facing.

  • Jacob Rees-Mogg – 2022 Comments on Prime Minister not Going to COP

    Jacob Rees-Mogg – 2022 Comments on Prime Minister not Going to COP

    The comments made by Jacob Rees-Mogg, the MP for North East Somerset, on Twitter on 28 October 2022.

    The Prime Minister is right not to go to COP. The cost of living won’t be solved in Sharm el Sheikh where each hotel room for the conference is £2,000 a night.

  • Nadine Dorries – 2022 Comments on Prime Minister not Going to COP

    Nadine Dorries – 2022 Comments on Prime Minister not Going to COP

    The comments made by Nadine Dorries, the Conservative MP for Mid Bedfordshire, on Twitter on 28 October 2022.

    For balance, my friend…The Prime Minister is WRONG not to go to COP. Global warming is the biggest crisis facing our planet and net zero creates many 1000s of jobs which is good for the economy. COP in Glasgow was most successful ever… but don’t expect media to report that.