Asked by
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they will take to
monitor the delivery of the proposals in their food strategy
white paper, published on 13 June.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for
Environment, Food and Rural Affairs () (Con)
My Lords, I declare my farming interests as set out in the
register. The Government food strategy is cross-departmental. We
will monitor delivery of the strategy across government,
including drawing together evidence on the impacts of individual
policies to determine the overall progress of the strategy. We
have committed to report on how we are taking forward our actions
under the strategy alongside the next UK food security report,
drawing on independent analysis from the Climate Change
Committee, the Food Standards Agency, and the Office for
Environmental Protection.
(CB)
I thank the Minister for his reply. I am very glad that he is
still in his job this morning. However, I beg to disagree. The
National Food Strategy, in its original state, was a real attempt
to bring food together across all the different departments. In
fact, the White Paper response from the Government has put
various elements back in different departments, and the one
chance that we have had since the war to see food systemically as
a whole has been thrown away. No one can be in any doubt that the
food system is breaking: childhood obesity, health, effects on
farming and biodiversity, and now an inability to get three
decent meals a day by some 10 million people in this country. How
can the Government call this a cross-cutting strategy?
(Con)
I always defer to the noble Baroness because of her great
experience and passion on this issue. However, this is absolutely
a cross-government initiative. We have set up our
cross-government food group, which brings together senior civil
servants across government departments and the FSA to examine our
strategy and monitor it on key delivery points. We will bring
together the monitoring and evaluation of individual policies to
enable us, and the wider population, to evaluate the food
strategy and how we are performing against our targets.
(Con)
My Lords, can my noble friend explain how the food strategy
addresses the very urgent need to increase our self-sufficiency
in food, particularly the parlous state of fruit and vegetable
production in this country?
(Con)
On food security, as part of the Agriculture Act 2020, we laid
before Parliament our food strategy report, which said that we
have broadly maintained a fair degree of self-sufficiency.
However, I absolutely agree with my noble friend that we need to
improve that. We must encourage farmers to continue producing
good-quality food on scale and address that we live in a global
food market as well as a national one. There are huge pressures
on farmers as a result of short-term issues, such as Ukraine, and
long-term issues regarding commodity price spikes.
(Lab)
My Lords, the food strategy White Paper rejects the independent
review’s recommendation that free school meals should be extended
to more children on low incomes, saying that the Government will
continue to keep eligibility under review. When school caterers
are reporting a steep fall in the number of pupils who can afford
school meals, and the Government have provided nothing for
children in their additional cost of living crisis payments, is
this not the time for action on free school meals rather than
further review?
(Con)
The Government recognise the importance of free school meals for
those parts of the population that are on low incomes. That is
why eligibility to no recourse to public funds families has been
announced. We will continue to support families whose children
require free school meals.
The Lord
My Lords, the National Food Strategy that was produced last year
found that the UK’s current appetite for meat was unsustainable
and that the intake needed to fall by 30% within 10 years to help
the environment. I would be grateful if the Minister could
clarify what role exists for vegetarian and vegan food in the
Government’s strategy. It does not appear to be set out, not
least when it comes to aligning with the Government’s net-zero
strategy.
(Con)
I think farming and perhaps also the Government have failed to
make the argument between good meat and bad meat. Bad meat is
grown on feed lots at a high carbon price to society and damages
those farmers who are producing good-quality meat on grass-based
systems. That is what we want to encourage. We want sustainable
production of meat. We hear what the Climate Change Committee
says on the amount of meat that people should eat. We want people
to make their own choices but be given the right information on
which to make those choices. Vegan diets can sometimes be very
damaging to the climate because the materials are sometimes grown
where rainforests used to be.
(LD)
My Lords, the strategy was supposed to be overarching. What are
we doing to integrate things such as good exercise patterns into
the food strategy? In particular, what are we doing about access
to the countryside, which was part of the Agriculture Act? Are we
ensuring that people are getting the chance not only to eat well
but to exercise properly? How are we integrating that into things
such as transport?
(Con)
The Government are very keen to see more access to the
countryside. We are doing this in a variety of different ways,
some of which build on the work of the Agnew commission last
year. We want to make sure that we are providing access as close
as possible to where people live and where they can get to. The
noble Lord makes a very good point about transport. We want to
make sure that we are working with land managers to create more
access points, so people can go by car, park and go on a circular
walk or take a bus and access the countryside, because we
understand the well-being that comes from greater public
access.
(Lab)
My Lords, taking on board the fact that there is an increase in
young people, children and older people suffering from food
allergies, will the Minister today commit to working with
colleagues to ensure that that level of food allergy is properly
addressed through the food strategy and that a programme is put
in place to address food allergies?
(Con)
The noble Baroness speaks on a point that affects many people
across these islands. I will take her point and relay it to the
relevant Minister in the Department of Health, whoever that may
be.
(CB)
Can the Minister tell us who is responsible in government for
ensuring that we have secure supplies of food and that we move
from a just-in-time delivery system to a just-in-case delivery
system? This involves a number of departments of government, but
who is responsible?
(Con)
My department has overall responsibility for that, working with
other departments. The noble Baroness is right: this is not
something government can just mandate. We have an extremely
efficient food distribution network and supply chain which was
found to be resilient during Covid. It now needs to adapt to a
changing world and changing demands from the consumer to make
sure that we do not have the vulnerabilities that have been
exposed this week in the Netherlands. We want to make sure that
we are working with industry to get this right.
(Lab)
The Minister will know that I have the greatest respect for him,
and I am surprised to see that he is still in his place today,
but nevertheless can he explain how the important health issues
in the Dimbleby report, which are about obesity, controlling junk
food, advertising and reducing food inequalities, will be taken
forward given that they are not included in the food strategy
from the Government, regardless of the fact that we do not appear
to have any Ministers to deal with it at the current time?
(Con)
I have a long list here, but I would get in trouble if I read it
out. It is all the elements of the Dimbleby report that the
Government are taking forward. The noble Baroness is right to
refer to issues relating to health and well-being and the obesity
strategy. They are massive issues for society and government. We
have clear plans to try to tackle them. There have been 14
obesity strategies in her and my lifetime. I hope we now have one
that integrates some really good evidence and that we are
implementing through a variety of ways: education, health trusts,
GPs and a cross-government approach.
(Con)
My Lords, the Government have worked hard to ensure balanced
school meals, but there are now reports that suppliers of school
meals are beginning to substitute some of the better nutrients
that should be provided in school meals with cheaper variants.
What are the Government doing to ensure that we do not slip back
to high-carbohydrate food for schoolchildren?
(Con)
I will take that point to colleagues in the Department for
Education. There are very strict guidelines on the nutritional
value in school meals and we want to make sure that local
education boards and academy trusts are mindful of those
regulations. If they are not abiding by them, we will have to
make sure that they do.
