The speech made by Daniel Zeichner, the Labour MP for Cambridge, in Westminster Hall, the House of Commons, on 14 December 2022.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gray. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Ian Byrne) on securing this timely debate. He is a hugely passionate and determined campaigner on this issue who speaks up for people across the country who are left hungry as prices soar. It is striking that, with one honourable exception—the hon. Member for Central Suffolk and North Ipswich (Dr Poulter)—the Government Benches are empty, while the Opposition Benches are overflowing with Members who have spoken passionately in this debate. I have been impressed by the contributions from my hon. Friend the Member for Jarrow (Kate Osborne), my right hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell), and my hon. Friends the Members for Salford and Eccles (Rebecca Long Bailey), for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Luke Pollard), for Leeds East (Richard Burgon) and for Swansea West (Geraint Davies). I am not going to repeat the points they made because time is short.
I will go straight to a point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport, who observed the effect of food prices on primary producers. We have seen with rising egg prices that the issue has been well rehearsed but not resolved. Consumers pay more but producers do not cover their costs, so they stop producing, leading retailers to turn to lower standard imports. The excellent and widely reported research by Sustain last week shows just how fine the margins are for many producers, and how, when they are locked into fixed-term contracts, they are blown away by sudden and dramatic rises in costs.
For probably the third or fourth time in these debates, I ask the Minister for an update on the dairy code, the pork code and the fate of the Grocery Code Adjudicator. I do not expect any answers. I could not help smiling at the comments by Minette Batters of the National Farmers Union at the weekend, when she told The Times that the Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Suffolk Coastal (Dr Coffey), was “asleep at the wheel”. I thought that was a bit unfair; the Secretary of State does not even think she should be at the wheel. As my hon. Friend the Member for Swansea West will recall, she made clear it to the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee last week that she does not think it is the role of the Government to hand out free food or make price interventions.
That prompts this question: if it is not for the Government to intervene when people go hungry, then whose role is it? Ministers may be surprised to find that many people in this country do think that the Government have a role—just not this Government. My big question for the Minister is: what does he think his role is as the Food Minister? What is he for? It is almost exactly a year on from the Government sneaking out the food security review under the Agriculture Act 2020. Can he tell us what the situation is today? Farmers tell me that we are less food secure than we were a year ago. Growers are not planting, the sow herd is smaller and poultry farmers are not restocking. Are the Government concerned? Do they have a view? Can he even tell us whether we are more or less secure than we were a year ago?
I am grateful to the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds for pointing out in its briefing for this debate that the Government said the biggest medium to long-term risk to the UK’s domestic production
“comes from climate change and other environmental pressures like soil degradation, water quality and biodiversity.”
What have the Government done to address that challenge, other than miss their own so-called legally binding date to publish the targets promised under the Environment Act 2021?
Has there been any progress on the Government’s half-hearted food strategy from a few months ago? Although we all accept that there are big cost pressures, a more active Government would be using their convening power to make a difference. Will the Minister tell us how often he meets the major players in the industry? What are they telling him? What is he telling them? Is it down to just the big retailers to decide the nation’s food policy, or does anyone else get a say? Perhaps he can tell us how often the Food and Drink Sector Council meets and what it has achieved to tackle this crisis. Its website says that it last met in February, although I understand there was a more recent meeting. What did the Minister get from it? Can he tell us?
What assessment have the Minister and his colleagues made of the impact of the rising cost of food? What discussions has he had with Department for Education colleagues on the impact on children of real cuts in the nutritional value of school meals? Caterers try to provide meals, and yet they are handed just a few pence to make up the loss when costs soar.
What are the health consequences of the changing buying patterns, as people move to cheaper options? What discussions has the Minister had with colleagues at the Department of Health and Social Care; or has he succumbed to his Secretary of State’s clear intention to dump any plans to tackle the obesity crisis that Henry Dimbleby highlighted? There are plans to ban adverts for foods that are high in saturated fat, salt and sugar before 9 o’clock. Why, when type 2 diabetes is rising faster in children and young adults in Britain than anywhere else in the world, has implementation been delayed until 2025?
I doubt we will get any answers today. I wish the Minister and his colleagues a merry Christmas and a happy new year, but my sense is that on the cost of food—a very real issue facing every family in the country this Christmas—this Government have nothing to say, and frankly they show little interest. As always, their message is, “Leave it to the market; it is nothing to do with us. You’re on your own.” For too many this Christmas, that is exactly how it will feel.
