Anthony Mangnall (Totnes) (Con) I beg to move, That this House has
considered public sector food procurement and healthy eating.
Before I get under way, I thank the Backbench Business Committee
both for its allocation of this debate and indeed its reallocation
of this debate when we were put off track the other day due to
votes. We are locked into a seemingly never-ending debate when it
comes to food and health. Since 1992, there have been 14 obesity
strategies...Request free trial
(Totnes) (Con)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered public sector food procurement and
healthy eating.
Before I get under way, I thank the Backbench Business Committee
both for its allocation of this debate and indeed its
reallocation of this debate when we were put off track the other
day due to votes.
We are locked into a seemingly never-ending debate when it comes
to food and health. Since 1992, there have been 14 obesity
strategies piled high with hundreds of policies. All of them have
identified various aspects of cause and concern, while offering
up positions that attempt to address the stark reality that we
are now the third fattest country in the G7. Of course, a common
thread runs throughout all these strategies: the simple fact that
the food we eat matters.
Good, high-quality, well-produced food is unsurprisingly better
for us than cheap, ultra-processed, quickly produced food. Do not
take my word for it; look at the countless studies that have
shown students’ concentration and behaviour improving when served
better-quality food in their cafeterias. Look at the improvement
to patient health and recovery times when served with
from-scratch, cooked food using high-quality ingredients. In
fact, look at every study conducted by the NHS, local authority
or think-tank. Pick out any one of the 14 obesity studies since
1992, and we will find direct evidence linking good-quality food
to improved health and outcomes.
(Strangford) (DUP)
I congratulate the hon. Member for Totnes () on securing this debate.
It is a massive issue in my constituency, as it is indeed across
the whole of the United Kingdom. In 2012, 31% of children were
overweight or obese. Research demonstrates that obese children
are more at risk of being overweight as adults and of developing
a range of related health conditions. Does he agree that there
must be a happy medium to ensure not only that meals made in
schools are nutritious and healthy, but that students will eat
and enjoy the food that is in front of them?
The hon. Gentleman always makes salient points in Westminster
Hall debates. He is absolutely right to talk about schools,
education and how we can start talking about food, where it comes
from and its nutritional value, and also starting a relationship
in places of education to ensure that we do not lose that link
with our food. That is one of the sure-fire ways of addressing
obesity and ensuring that we have better health as a result of
the food we eat. It also allows us to inject some of the points
around localism and supporting local producers, which I will come
on to later.
The purpose of this debate is not for me to stand here and tell
people what they can and cannot eat—after all, I do implicitly
believe in the freedom of choice. However, it is for me to say
that when taxpayers’ money is spent on food procurement, we can
and should be improving what we buy, how we produce it, as well
as how we serve it. Change is rarely as simple as one might want.
However, my proposal for change is a simple one: the UK
Government, working with local authorities, need to set targets
to improve the public procurement process to ensure that local,
sustainable, higher-quality, healthier food that comes from
organic, regenerative or family-run farms and fisheries is served
in our schools, hospitals, care homes, military, prisons and
Government offices. I think that covers nearly every farming
organisation in the country and should not leave anyone out.
(Broxbourne) (Con)
I draw Members’ attention to my entry in the Register of Member’s
Financial Interests as chairman of the Country Food Trust. My
hon. Friend has made some extremely good points. Is it not the
case, given that the Government are embarking on one of the most
expensive deer-feeding programmes ever invented—in other words,
planting trees to be eaten by 2.5 million deer a year—in order to
get the culling effort up to the level of 750,000 where it needs
to be, that that high-protein, low-fat meat should be used in
public sector kitchens, as it is one of the healthiest meats
available in the United Kingdom?
I did not expect the debate to be going in that direction, but I
wholeheartedly agree with my hon. Friend. He is absolutely right.
How can we get game meat into our schools and places of
education? How can we find a better link to that and a better
understanding of the food that is in abundance across this
country? I think that is a perfectly reasonable and sensible
point.
My proposal, as I said, is a simple concept but a complex
challenge. We spend £2.4 billion annually on public sector food
procurement and catering, and there is the opportunity to support
local producers, improve food quality and diets, and safeguard
the environment, all of which can be achieved by setting national
standards. As I have found over the last four years, half the
battle in this place is persuading others, including the
Government, that a point of view or argument is the right one—and
even when we are proven right, it may not count for much.
(Penrith and The Border)
(Con)
I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing the debate. Food
security and the production of high-standard, locally produced
food are vital. In 2021, the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
Committee produced a report on public sector food procurement. It
highlighted the loophole in Government buying standards for food
and catering that allows public sector bodies to purchase food
that does not meet our UK legal standards in food production or
animal welfare on the basis of cost.
Does my hon. Friend agree that we should close that inconsistent
loophole as soon as we can, so that we can become a beacon to the
rest of the world on food production and animal welfare
standards? In so doing, we would be backing our fantastic British
farmers and food producers, who produce food to the highest
animal welfare and environmental standards.
I congratulate my hon. Friend on all his work as a member of the
EFRA Committee, in which he brings his expertise both as a
veterinarian and as a representative of a rural constituency with
many farmers. He is absolutely right that we must close those
loopholes. We must take the recommendations in the EFRA Committee
report, to which I will refer later. I will be happy to follow
through with anything he needs to strengthen his arm on that
point.
The Government already accept the premise of what I am calling
for. The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
consultation on possible changes to the public sector food and
catering policy stated:
“Government is adopting an ambitious and transformational
approach to public sector food and catering. We are determined to
use public sector purchasing power to ensure positive change in
the food system. Our vision is that public sector food and
catering is an exemplar to wider society in delivering positive
health, animal welfare, environmental and socio-economic
impacts.”
That is exactly the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for
Penrith and The Border (Dr Hudson). The consultation ran from
June 2022 to September 2022, and there were hundreds of
submissions from worthwhile national organisations.
Unfortunately, the Government have yet to respond to their
consultation. Will the Minister say when we are likely to see the
findings of the consultation and any recommendations, so that we
can recognise the opportunity to see those targets and ambitions
met?
To make those changes and recognise the ambitions stated in the
consultation, the procurement process has to be widened to
encourage and incentivise small businesses to engage with the
system. Whether it be a national or a local authority contract,
it is time consuming, risky and costly for small farms, fisheries
or local food producers to submit a bid. That clearly needs to
change. The Procurement Act 2023 reforms the procurement process
to make it simpler, faster, more transparent and less
bureaucratic. It is perhaps one of the most boring pieces of
legislation that has ever been passed by Parliament, but it is an
important one that will make a huge difference to small
businesses. With the measures coming into force in October 2024,
the Government have rightly made it their ambition to open the
market for public contracts to new entrants, especially small and
local businesses. The Act is the catalyst for reforming our food
procurement system, to ensure healthier, higher-quality food is
at the heart of our publicly funded organisations.
When the Act was debated in the Lords, a number of amendments
aimed to set national targets, such as ensuring that 50% of
purchases must be from the UK or that “locally” would mean within
30 miles of a contracting authority. I understand that those
proposals would have contravened many of our World Trade
Organisation legal obligations, but there are steps that we can
take to develop and improve local purchasing strategies while
continuing to adhere to WTO standards. Will the Minister say when
the Government will use section 107 of the Procurement Act to
introduce secondary legislation to disapply section 17 of the
Local Government Act 1988, which
“currently precludes local authorities from awarding public
supply or work contracts by supplier location”?[—[Official
Report, House of Lords, 28 November 2022; Vol. 825, c.
1641.]](/search/column?VolumeNumber=825&ColumnNumber=1641&House=2)
That was stated at the Dispatch Box in the House of Lords by a
Minister. Introducing secondary legislation would be welcomed, I
presume, by both sides of this House—I see the shadow Minister,
the hon. Member for Cambridge (), nodding—so there is an
opportunity to quickly see that reform brought to reality.
The more sceptical might think that this is all wishful thinking,
but international comparisons should be made, and some of the
successes are remarkable. For instance, in 2001 Denmark
introduced an organic action plan aimed at 60% organic
procurement in all public kitchens by 2020. Evidence showed an
increase in public kitchen procurement of organic food of 24% by
2016. The policy proved so popular that the city of Copenhagen
increased the target and achieved it, at 90%, earlier this year.
The policy improved not only the health of those using public
kitchens, but the understanding of food and nutrition, as well as
cooking skills. The Danish agricultural community also found
themselves boosted when able to bid for local tenders, with small
and medium-sized businesses actively engaging and benefiting from
the policy.
Brazil passed a law that requires 30% of the national budget for
food served in school meal programmes to be spent on food from
family farms, with priority given to those using agroecological
methods. Perhaps the most interesting point about that policy is
that it has also restricted the purchasing of processed and
ultra-processed food with taxpayers’ money. That has had a
positive impact on the farming and fishing communities, as well
as benefiting schools, hospitals and other publicly funded
organisations. In the United States, which we are often quick to
deride, states such as California and Massachusetts have put in
place frameworks that steer public purchasing towards local
sources, with the express purpose of improving the diet, health
and nutrition of their citizens. Austria and the Nordic countries
also have fantastic examples.
Even in my area of south Devon, in the south-west, we have
piloted interesting and innovative schemes such as the dynamic
purchasing system to help to facilitate greater buy-in from small
and medium-sized enterprises to allow them to take advantage of
public tenders—all with the express hope of streamlining the
consolidation and delivery of orders from multiple suppliers with
an online food store, a local delivery hub and knowledge of local
suppliers. Both at home and abroad, there are examples of how the
proposals that I have put forward could and should work.
The Government buying standard for food and catering services
sets out what public sector organisations should apply when
procuring food and catering services. The standards relate to
food production, processing, distribution and nutrition. Some of
the standards are mandatory; some are best practices. DEFRA is
responsible for updating public sector procurement standards, and
the Department of Health and Social Care is responsible for the
nutrition standards in the GBSF, as it is known.
The “National Food Strategy” report and the Environment, Food and
Rural Affairs Committee report that has already been mentioned on
public sector procurement of food rightly consider what needs to
be done to update the GBSF: the buying standards should be
updated to ensure procurement of healthy and sustainable food;
standards should be mandatory across the entire public sector;
the monitoring of compliance with the standards should be
improved; and supply chains should be opened up to a wider range
of businesses. Some of those measures are already under way.
However, it is frequently remarked on that the lack of joined-up
thinking between Departments when it comes to food has been the
predominant block to action in this space. Reshaping the GBSF to
take on board the food strategy recommendations plus improved
oversight and strategy, coupled with mandatory targets and
enforcement mechanisms, will be the only way in which we can
speed along the change that we wish to see in our public sector.
Mandatory standards across all sectors of public sector food
procurement would not only be a huge vote of support for our
food, farming and fishing communities, but necessitate an
oversight body to ensure that targets were met and promises
delivered.
I have sought to demonstrate that my proposal is not out of
kilter with the Government’s ambitions. I have referenced the
fact that the Government’s consultation on this topic asked for
submissions on the very points and ambitions that I have raised.
We wait in hope for its findings. I have provided the
international comparisons that show that we can not only be
compliant with WTO rules, but ensure that we have strong and
robust legislation that meets our own domestic interests. We can
do that while adhering to our international commitments.
I will end on the work of the Food, Farming and Countryside
Commission, whose excellent work on this topic and so many others
has demonstrated the overwhelming positive public appetite—no pun
intended —to change the public food procurement system.
Specifically, citizens across this country want the Government to
improve public sector food procurement and nutrition standards,
with 84% of people believing in stronger standards for the food
provided in our hospitals and schools.
(Woking) (Con)
I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing the debate and on his
passionate and extremely persuasive speech, but could we go back
one step and underline how important it is that our schools get
this sort of local, fresh produce? It is during those early years
that one gets the tastes and the habits of a lifetime.
My hon. Friend is right to raise that point. I will take a moment
to mention a national organisation called Chefs in Schools, which
was started and supported by Henry Dimbleby, who wrote the food
strategy report. It is a brilliant organisation that goes to
schools across the country, starts that early relationship
between students and food and encourages cooking skills to be
commonplace in every school. We should be encouraging that, and I
know that Chefs in Schools will welcome any MP who wants to hear
more about its programmes and whether they could be launched in
their schools. I have not spent enough time speaking about
schools, but I have made the point that we need to do better on
that relationship, in terms of quality and standards. My hon
Friend is right to raise the point, and I thank him for doing
so.
If this is done correctly, the Government need not commit more
money. None of the schemes I mentioned earlier required an uplift
in funding; they required a change of approach and attitude to
how we were purchasing food, and the schemes, initiatives and
platforms in place to allow them to do so. We can boost our
support for UK domestic producers across our rural and coastal
communities and provide an enormous vote of confidence in our
farmers and fishermen. As the Minister is a farmer, I have the
utmost confidence in him to deliver in response to my speech. It
would benefit farmers right across the country, and we should not
lose sight of that. We can uphold food integrity and standards by
creating a transparent, competitive, easy marketplace, and we can
provide high-quality food that will make all the difference to
our places of education, our hospitals, our prisons and our
military organisations.
4.46pm
(Bristol East) (Lab)
I congratulate the hon. Member for Totnes () on securing the debate.
I thought I had missed it last week, so I was pleasantly
surprised to see it on the Order Paper again.
The hon. Member mentioned the Government consultation on public
sector food and catering that closed on 4 September 2022. Almost
ever since then, it has become something of an obsession of mine
to chase the Government for a response. The last time I asked, in
September, I was told it would be out this year—which means by
next Tuesday—so I hope the Minister has good news for us today. I
gather that the 126 responses were the reason given for it taking
so long. That is not that many, so I hope the Minister can tell
us how many people are working on looking at those responses. It
should not have taken 15 months to come to a conclusion.
One thing that was consulted on was the idea that 50% of food
procured should be locally sourced and/or sustainable. When I
chaired the all-party parliamentary group on agroecology for
sustainable food and farming, we were very keen to look at what
France was doing. It showed that it can be done, and in a country
full of farmers, they very much welcomed it. I support that. The
leader of my party, the right hon. and learned Member for Holborn
and St Pancras (), committed us to it when he
spoke at the NFU a while ago, so I am keen to hear from the
Minister whether that is still in active consideration.
As I said, I used to chair the APPG on agroecology. In that role,
I had the pleasure—it was quite a pleasure—of interviewing the
then DEFRA Secretary, the right hon. Member for Surrey Heath
(), on stage at the Oxford Real
Farming conference. He went down very well with the audience—this
was before the Agriculture Act 2020 came in—because it was the
first time, I think, that a serving Conservative Secretary of
State had been to the conference. This was more the
agroecological end of things than traditional farming. One thing
on which he got a good response was committing to more support
for county farms, peri-urban farming and local farming in
general.
As a Bristol MP, I think there is so much potential. We have gold
status as a sustainable food city, but we also have food deserts
where people cannot access affordable and healthy food, so the
idea that through public sector procurement we could become the
customers of things that are being grown in Somerset, in
Gloucestershire and nearby—we are surrounded by countryside—to an
extent to which we are not at the moment seems so much something
that should be at the heart of what we are trying to do. That was
followed up when I was on the Bill Committee for the Agriculture
Act 2020, when the then Minister confirmed that it was very much
something the Government were going to do. Unfortunately, I then
had a meeting over Zoom—this was during covid—with his successor,
and it just seemed like it had dropped off the table all
together.
Will the Minister tell us whether he sees county farms and
peri-urban farming playing an important role, and what has
happened to the land use framework? There is quite a long list of
DEFRA things that seem to have disappeared into the ether, but
maybe the Minister has just got a very big in-tray and it is
somewhere in there. I hope that part of that land use framework
will include earmarking what land could be used for development
to support this kind of peri-urban farming approach.
I also want to ask the Minister about the horticultural strategy.
We do know that it, at least, has been definitely dropped. The
strategy would have promoted the growing and consumption of more
fresh fruit and vegetables, which the sector was very much
pushing for. It was only after I attended a Food Foundation event
and was asked if I knew what had happened to it that I tabled a
question and found out that the strategy had actually been
dropped. The sector had not even been told. In fact, it had been
announced via a written question in the Lords, but the sector had
then gone on to have meetings with DEFRA officials—there was at
least one roundtable —about the proposal after it had been
dropped. We know the pressures that fruit and vegetable growers
are under; we know the importance of the strategy. Can the
Minister explain why that was dropped? I have read the written
answers, but they did not do justice to the question.
Finally, I want to briefly talk about school food standards and
food poverty. One in four teachers reported that they have been
bringing in food themselves for hungry pupils over the last term,
while seven in 10 schools have said they are supplying basic food
and hygiene items to children. There is the basic issue of not
having access to enough food, but we know there is even more of a
problem when we get on to healthy food. I congratulate Henry
Dimbleby on his excellent work on this issue. I went to his book
launch—I think Chefs in Schools, which does excellent work,
provided the catering. We know that school food is not up to the
nutritional and sustainability standards that we would like to
see. In addition, according to The BMJ, in 2020, just 1.6% of
packed lunches met school food standards, so there is also an
issue with that.
The Government did say at one point that they were going to
review the national school food standards. They told me that in
response to questions, but later confirmed in response to other
questions that they did not feel the need to do so. I absolutely
feel, as we have heard, that the Government need to review those
standards. We have a lot more information now on the nutritional
impact of certain diets, and something that has been mentioned is
the impact on behaviour. There was a very interesting study—going
back quite a long time now—in young offenders institutions, which
showed that once those teenage boys were taken off junk food,
their behaviour changed radically. It seems to me, again, to be a
bit of a no-brainer: why would we not seek to change their diets
if we know we could basically save them from a lifetime spent in
the criminal justice system by just doing something as important
as feeding them properly?
This will be the last intervention I make. The hon. Lady and I
may come from different sides of the argument around eating meat
and this, that and the other, but I take her point entirely. The
fact of the matter is that there are more than 2 million deer in
England. To sustain the number at that level, we need to cull
750,000. We are talking of putting this low-fat, high-protein
meat into dog food while people are going hungry. Diets make such
a difference. We really do need to be imaginative in how we work
with schools and public sector organisations to improve people’s
diets.
I take the hon. Gentleman’s point entirely, but he has intervened
on me just as I was about to say something about plant-based
diets in schools, so it was perhaps not the best timing. I would
argue, and I think most people would agree, that plant-based
diets are healthy and sustainable, and it would be a good thing
if people—children, in particular—ate more vegetables, regardless
of whether or not they eat them as a side helping on a plate of
meat. They do need to eat more fruit and veg—can we all agree on
that?
Yes!
Right. According to the national school food standards, one or
more portions of veg or salad has to be served as an
accompaniment to each meal, and there has to be one or more
portions of fruit every day and at least three different fruit
and three different veg every week. We can do better than that.
There are also requirements for meat and for dairy to be served.
We should explore doing what Mayor Eric Adams has done in New
York, where plant-based meals are the default option in schools
and hospitals. They are not the only option; people can choose to
eat meat and fish, but it is just the fall-back option. Uptake of
those diets has gone up radically as a result. People have not
wilted away and fallen out of their hospital beds due to lack of
energy just because they have been eating a few more vegetables.
That is worth exploring.
ProVeg UK’s school plates programme works with 55 local
authorities and catering companies and is responsible for
catering in 6,500 schools. It provides free advice on menus and
recipes, and it trains chefs. It says that nearly 12 million
meals have been switched to plant-based options since the
programme began in 2018. It was actually 4.5 million until 2021,
so the uptake has been massive. I am not saying this with an
ethical vegan hat on or anything like that; I am just saying that
it would be a good way of getting young people to eat more fruit
and veg, which would be a good way of supporting fruit and veg
growers in this country.
More plant-based meals would help with sustainability, too. I
have just returned from the climate change talks at COP, where
there were some very interesting discussions. Land use and food
systems were meant to be on the agenda at COP for the first time,
and I hope that the Minister would support that. At the moment,
only 5% of public procurement contracts—across the board, not for
just food—require a carbon reduction plan, so I will finish with
this question: does the Minister see public sector procurement of
food as helping to reduce our carbon footprint?
4.56pm
(Somerton and Frome) (LD)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Christopher.
I thank the hon. Member for Totnes () for securing this
important debate.
Food must form an important part of any credible long-term health
proposal, as well as any long-term environmental and geopolitical
planning. The hon. Member for Totnes has already mentioned the
role the south-west played during the local food hub trials, but
many of my constituents feel led up the garden path by this
Government’s food and farming strategy.
Somerset had 8,500 people working on farms or in food production
in 2021—the highest of any county in the UK. It brought in around
£500 million to Somerset’s rural economy. The farms of the
south-west are some of the smallest in the UK, and we must
recognise that nuance when talking about food supply. Indeed, I
live in the Blackmore vale, where my family farm is. It is known
as “the vale of the little dairies”, made famous by Thomas Hardy,
as some hon. Members may know. We have so many different types of
farms, and a supply strategy that may work for a large arable
farm is not necessarily applicable to small dairy farms, like the
one that I grew up on. I am in Westminster to ensure that
farmers’ voices are heard loud and clear—something farmers have
recently had to look to a motoring journalist for.
A recent 2022 report from the Food for Life project, which is run
by the Soil Association along with other partners, showed that
although regional supply companies win about 78% of public food
contracts, the food itself is often not local. One in three
organisations surveyed did not even know where the food it
supplied came from. If the public sector is set up to favour
local food and understand the nuances and complications of the
industry, our population will be not only food secure, but job
secure and health secure. Food for Life and its partners are
calling for reforms to the way that food producers and public
sector procurers link up. We should make use of ugly fruit and
vegetables, and encourage and fund rural hubs like Frome
Community Fridge, which gathers and distributes food that would
otherwise go to waste. We need to educate public food procurers
and consumers on seasonality, and promote fruit and vegetables
that grow better here than highly popular but non-native recipe
mainstays. We need seasonally produced nutritious food in our
public sector institutions. By cutting out food miles, the impact
on the environment is lessened, and we all need food in our
public sector to be affordable.
The recent programme for international student assessment report
reveals that 11% of pupils in the UK miss out on a meal at least
once a week; that is above the OECD average. As we have heard
today, hungry pupils are less likely to learn. I frequently
receive emails from teachers and parents calling for free school
meals to be extended. The appetite is clearly there and I hope
the Minister will listen. The Liberal Democrats will provide free
school meals for every primary school child and every secondary
school child living in a universal credit household. Children who
eat well learn well, and children who learn how to eat well will
eat well for life. We want children growing into educated and
informed consumers who champion seasonality, safeguard our
precious environment, eat locally and, above all, eat
healthily.
5.01pm
(Coatbridge, Chryston and
Bellshill) (SNP)
It is nice to see you in the Chair, Sir Christopher. I thank the
hon. Member for Totnes () for securing this debate
on public sector food procurement and nutritional standards.
According to Government estimates, the UK public sector spends
approximately £2.4 billion a year procuring food and catering
services, representing approximately 5.5% of UK food service
sector sales. Of the total spend, 29% is in schools. We have just
heard about the advocation for nutritional meals in schools. Of
course, in Scotland every child between primary 1 and primary 5
can avail themselves of free school meals. Twenty-nine per cent
of the total spend is in further and higher educational settings;
25% in hospitals and care homes; 11% in the armed forces; 5% in
prisons and 1% in Government offices. The sheer amount of food
being purchased by central Government and Government bodies and
agencies, and the spend itself, highlight just how important
policies that work are for those seeking to procure, but also for
taxpayers, workers and, indeed, our planet. UK Government
procurement rules are, of course, subject to change, with the
Procurement Act 2023 having passed through this place and
received Royal Assent late this year. That will replace the
current EU law-based regimes that we are working against.
What must be considered in all this, of course, are the decisions
made on the cost of food through the procurement process. Let me
take this opportunity to pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member
for Glasgow Central () and her work as chair of
the all-party parliamentary group on infant feeding and
inequalities. The APPG has found that the cost of infant formula
has increased by over 25% in the past two years alone. Just two
companies hold 85% of the market share and are thus making high
profit margins within that one item alone. The choice to procure
a more expensive formula over a cheaper one not only costs our
NHS unnecessarily more, but burdens families even further in what
is already a relentless cost of living crisis, because people are
likely to stay on one brand throughout the course of their
child’s feeding. That is why procurement choices are so vital and
why I am pleased that the SNP Scottish Government have their own
procurement policies; of course, procurement is devolved and we
will continue with the strategy that we have implemented. As
ever, dialogue between Scottish Ministers and the UK Government
will be ongoing—and, I am sure, will be as cordial as ever.
It is vital that food procurement policy represents the need for
healthy, nutritional and sustainably sourced food. The Good Food
Nation (Scotland) Act 2022 was introduced in Holyrood exactly to
ensure that the Scottish Government can deliver on their aims of
sustainable and healthy food procurement in Scotland. The core
aims of the policy include work to ensure that it is the norm for
Scots to have a keen interest in their food, knowing where it
comes from and what constitutes good food, and valuing it and
seeking it out wherever they possibly can; and work to ensure
that those who serve and sell food—from schools to hospitals,
retailers, restaurants and cafés—are committed to serving and
selling good, nutritious, healthy food.
Enormous strides have been made when it comes to Scotland’s
relationship with food and its dietary requirement knowledge. As
a result of ensuring that everyone in Scotland has ready access
to the healthy and nutritious food they need, diseases are in
decline, as is the environmental impact of our food consumption.
All that is hugely encouraging. World-class Scottish producers,
when they produce, strive to be increasingly healthy and
environmentally sound, which we know is so important. The 2022
Act underpins a lot of work that is already being done across the
Scottish Government to make Scotland a good food nation. That is
the foundation on which we will build a healthier country.
I just wonder, since he is speaking about the high standards that
Scotland might have, whether the hon. Member has any comment on
the WildFish report about the damage that the Scottish salmon
farming sector is doing to the habitats in which the fish are
farmed and to the quality of the food that comes out of it.
The hon. Gentleman makes an interesting point. Of course, we will
always look for sustainability wherever we can. Salmon is worth
so much to the UK economy—far less to the Scottish economy. We
have had some discussions about highly protected marine areas, so
there is some ongoing work there, but I take on board the hon.
Gentleman’s point.
The Scottish Government is also improving the quality of food
purchased on their behalf, with 12% more eggs, 14% more pork and
69% more beef, although there is no more venison, yet—it is too
dear, probably—and 7% more milk and cream of UK or Red Tractor
standard now, compared with before the pandemic. We have been
making really good inroads in Scotland, and we in the SNP would
welcome and encourage the UK and the other devolved Governments
to follow our example in working to make all the UK’s nations
good food nations.
5.06pm
(Cambridge) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Sir Christopher.
I congratulate the hon. Member for Totnes () on his characteristic
vigour and energy in introducing such an important topic and
launching a volley of questions that I am confident the Minister
will evade. Let me also thank several people for their assistance
in preparing for this debate: James Bielby of the Federation of
Wholesale Distributors; Vicki Hird, formerly of Sustain and now
of the Wildlife Trusts; and Joss MacDonald from the Food
Foundation whose excellent report, “The Broken Plate”, is
invaluable.
Given the time constraints, my comments will inevitably be brief,
but we know from masses of research, including Henry Dimbleby’s
excellent “National Food Strategy”, that the food consumed by the
majority of adults and children in the UK does not currently meet
the requirements of a nutritious diet. Most adults and children
consume in excess of the maximum recommended intakes for sugar,
saturated fat and salt, and do not meet the recommendations for
fruit and vegetable, fibre or oily fish consumption. Is that an
issue for just those individuals? Frankly, I do not think so. It
has got to be about system change, and Government procurement is
an important lever.
Sadly, I see no evidence that the current Government have a
strategic approach to the food system. My hon. Friend the Member
for Bristol East () and the hon. Member for
Totnes mentioned a whole series of pieces of work that we are
waiting for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural
Affairs to respond to by the end of the year. I remember that the
food security strategy was sneaked out on the last possible day a
couple of years ago, so maybe we will have lots of Christmas
presents in the offing in a couple of weeks’ time. Those pieces
of work include not just the public sector food and catering
policy consultation but, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol
East said, the demise of the long-awaited horticultural strategy.
There is a widely held consensus that the Government’s national
food strategy is inadequate and fails to build on the strengths
of the Dimbleby report.
A future Labour Government will take these issues far more
seriously. They are much too important to be left to chance, and
they deserve a considered and strategic approach. For Labour,
food security is national security. For the benefit of the
consumer, the producer and society as a whole, we need more
seasonal, sustainable and nutritious British-grown food. Instead
of encouraging more low-quality imports, a Labour Government will
back British farmers to produce more locally grown, healthy food
in this country. One of the ways that we will do that is through
public procurement. We will ensure that 50% of all food purchased
by the public sector is locally produced and sustainable. That
will be £1.2 billion of public money spent on quality food that
is genuinely better for people’s health—a clear target for every
year we are in government.
The hon. Gentleman has done a dangerous thing: it sounds like he
has produced a Labour party policy, which must be the first we
have heard in many months. Perhaps he might answer this. He has
suggested that Labour will produce food locally and set a
national target, but how will it make that compliant with WTO
standards? I would also make the point that, although I am happy
to have a prod at the Government for what they have and have not
done, the landmark piece of legislation that has passed is the
Procurement Act 2023, which does all the things we want and which
people on both sides of the House have been asking for.
I am always grateful for the hon. Gentleman’s interventions. He
is a touch prickly, and I think he will find that there are
hundreds of worthy Labour party policies out there. I am happy to
engage in full consultation and dialogue with him on what the
future holds. I also have to say that it is not beyond the wit of
people to find ways through this; others have done it, and we
will do it.
As I said, we are talking about £1.2 billion of public money
being spent on quality food that is genuinely better for people’s
health—a clear target for every year in government. Fifty per
cent is just the minimum—just the start—and we will do everything
to go beyond that, so that we can maximise the power of public
procurement to drive up standards and fortify food security.
As part of our aim to improve children’s nutritional intake, in
particular, and to build a future where children come first, we
will introduce fully funded breakfast clubs for every primary
school in England—another excellent Labour policy that I commend
to the hon. Member for Totnes. Our free breakfast clubs will put
money back in parents’ pockets, give every primary child a
healthy meal at the start of the day, and be an important first
step on the road to building a modern childcare system, enabling
parents to work and providing an important spur to economic
growth. We will improve children’s diets by finally implementing
the 9 pm watershed for junk food advertising. The Government’s
own impact assessment found that that policy would lead to
children eating nearly 12.5 million fewer calories across the
UK.
But that is for the future. Sadly, the situation at the moment is
getting worse. The wholesale sector supplying the public sector
has been hard hit by rising costs and inflexible budgets. Many in
the sector are struggling to fulfil their public sector food
contracts, with some servicing them at a loss. The Government
response has been frankly woeful. Their announcement to increase
the funding rate for universal infant free school meals by 12p
per pupil was a belated token acknowledgment of the problem. That
increase remains well behind the current rise in food inflation,
which for wholesalers is running at 20%, and fails to consider
the range of external factors the food and drink industry
currently faces.
Soaring costs are putting the public sector food industry under
considerable strain, forcing conversations to be had about the
realities of fulfilling public sector food contracts. Inevitably,
the quality and quantity of the food being served to young and
vulnerable people are being adversely impacted. Public sector
caterers are struggling to meet food standards and being forced
to reduce portion sizes and to use less UK-grown produce,
directly contrary to the Government’s stated aims. The quality of
the food used to service public sector contracts will continue to
decline in order to mitigate rising costs if the Government do
not take action. The impact of food inflation has already
resulted in pupils being forced to accept smaller lunches with a
lower nutritional value. In some cases, schools have opted to
offer only cold packed lunches because of the cost of energy. I
am sure we will remember the scenes during the covid crisis when
some of the meals on offer were shameful. Several wholesalers
that supply school contracts have mentioned to me that they are
reducing portion sizes by, for example, offering less protein
less frequently.
In conclusion, we need a new way. Labour’s mission-based
strategic approach will help us to see the food system as a whole
and will ensure that we all have access to more nutritious,
sustainable, local, British-grown food.
5.14pm
The Minister for Food, Farming and Fisheries ()
It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Sir Christopher, and
not in the Chamber asking me difficult questions. I pay tribute
to my hon. Friend the Member for Totnes () for calling this
debate.
The debate provides a great opportunity to put a spotlight on the
important role the public sector has in leading positive change
in our food system. Our public sector spends close to £5 billion
a year on food and catering services in its supply chain, and it
very much has an influential role in the transition to a
healthier, more sustainable food system. DEFRA’s Government
buying standards for food—GBSF for short—set out the requirements
for public sector organisations to do that and to champion
healthier, higher-quality, sustainable food in their supply
chains. We want the public sector to lead by example and to
demonstrate best practice, playing a vital role in helping local
food culture and economies flourish by providing those standards.
We are unleashing the purchasing power of the public sector.
Dr Hudson
Can I just highlight again the loophole in the Government buying
standards the Minister mentioned? The public sector can deviate
from buying high-quality food on the basis of cost; it can
deviate from animal welfare standards if it is cheaper to do
that. The Minister’s predecessor gave us very encouraging answers
on the EFRA Committee on our recommendations for closing that
loophole. It is a simple thing to do. I really urge the
Government to look at that and to close the loophole, so that we
can give the best example with our local public sector food
procurement.
Of course, we want those consuming food purchased in the public
sector to have access to the healthiest, best-quality food
possible. We need to balance that with a desire to get good value
for taxpayers’ money at the same time. Where foods are of the
same quality and standard, we would of course expect people to
purchase locally wherever possible. We want to use our influence
to encourage people in the public sector to make the most of
locally produced, high-quality British food. That is done through
a blend of mandated standards that apply to central Government
Departments —His Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service, NHS
hospitals and the armed forces in England—and best practice
standards, which exist to encourage all public sector
organisations to work towards having healthier and more
sustainable food in their supply chains.
Public sector food should champion healthier, sustainable food
that is provided by a diverse range of suppliers. To underpin
that approach, we held a consultation last year on public sector
food and catering policy, including on updating the Government
buying standards for food and catering services, which were last
updated in 2014. Leaving aside the nutritional standards, which
were updated in 2021, there was broad support for some of the
proposals we included in the consultation, including pursuing
greater environmental sustainability gains and increasing the
opportunities for small and medium-sized businesses in the
sector.
I am pleased to say that we have worked hard with colleagues
across Government to take our response through to the final
stages of drafting. I am confident that the revised standards
will deliver positive change, as well as making life easier for
those implementing them. The team has been working across
Government with those Departments that have a vested interest,
such as the Ministry of Defence, which has specific operational
challenges in feeding its workforce, and with the Crown
Commercial Services to oversee the consideration of SMEs in its
new Buying Better Food and Drink agreement. That agreement will
help SME food producers to access public sector food
opportunities, provided that they meet the GBSF.
The GBSF already supports and strengthens cross-Government
policies linked to environmental sustainability, animal welfare,
food safety and nutrition. With regards to the environment, for
example, the standards encourage the championing of seasonal
produce and mandate that a proportion of food in the supply chain
meets higher environmental production standards. That can
currently be demonstrated through membership of organic and
LEAF—linking environment and farming—assurance schemes, and we
will continue to work to link them to world-class environmental
land management schemes.
As well as bringing the standards up to date, the refresh will
make the GBSF simpler and more engaging for those in the sector
to interpret, whether returning to the standards or coming to
them for the first time. Accompanying guidance will clarify how
any changes can be applied, as well as improve the transparency
of the supply chain, so that a greater range of potential
suppliers are able to understand the opportunities the sector has
to offer. To continue driving improvement and ambition in the
sector, we will continue to develop and refine guidance following
publication by engaging with the sector to improve uptake and
retain Government focus on the priorities I have mentioned.
We have had a very interesting debate. I hope I have reassured
Members that we are on the right track.
The Minister has been teasing us here. I think we all want to
celebrate the hard work of the brilliant officials in his
Department, so can he give us the date when these things will be
published? We will then champion them in this place and recognise
the brilliant work that has been done in refreshing all the
things he has just mentioned.
I think “soon” is the answer that I can give my hon. Friend. We
will soon publish the consultation findings, alongside the
updated standards and guidance I talked about. We want to
showcase the sustainable, high-welfare, quality produce that the
public sector can procure. I will probably have to let the hon.
Member for Bristol East () down and say that we will
not deliver before Christmas, but I do not think she will have
long to wait after that, because we want to get on with this—we
want to procure the best food for our local schools.
I hear the hon. Member for Cambridge () assuring us that he is
going to procure only local food. If I am being honest, I do not
believe him. I hope that the model used by Labour-controlled
Exeter City Council, which has denied people the right to have
meat in their diet, will not be followed nationally.
It is not meant to all be locally produced; it is 50%. They do it
in France. In the Government’s consultation, which closed on 4
September last year, that was one of the things they asked people
for a view on. If the Minister thinks it is such nonsense, why
did he bother consulting on it?
My point is that it cannot all be done locally. There has to be a
balance. We are committed to improving the amount of food that we
produce and procure locally. We want UK producers to be engaged
in the system. We are making great progress on that, but we have
to do it within the WTO standards, which are internationally
recognised within the law. We will do it within those rules, and
we will drive the amount of UK produce that is procured in the
right direction.
I thank all the people who have taken part in the discussion
today.
Will the Minister give way?
I cannot let this moment pass without a final discussion of
venison in our diet.
We accept that protein is an important part of a balanced diet,
particularly for children. I make this as a serious point:
venison is sustainable. There is universal agreement—George
Monbiot included—that we need to cull those animals. We must
ensure that that healthy protein, with no hormones and no
antibiotics, goes to those most in need, and our schools would be
a good place to start.
I wholly accept my hon. Friend’s argument, and it is something we
are taking very seriously. DEFRA is working on a deer strategy. I
want to see that meat enter the food chain; we want to ensure
that those animals are culled safely and that the meat is
processed in the right way to make it available. My hon. Friend
is right to say that it is low-fat, high-quality, sustainable,
high-welfare meat, which we should make the most of. I commit to
helping him with his campaign with DEFRA officials, to ensure
that we can make it happen.
When we publish the revised GBSF, I encourage Members on both
sides of the House to support their implementation across the
public sector. They will not only help to demonstrate best
practice in improving the healthiness and sustainability of the
food we eat, but encourage small businesses, producers and social
enterprises to make the most of the opportunities that the sector
provides.
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Totnes for bringing forward
this debate. I hope that Members will conclude that we are on the
right track and heading in the right direction.
5.24pm
I will not take up much time, other than to thank you, Sir
Christopher, for chairing this debate, and to thank hon. and
right hon. Members for their contributions. I set out to create a
specific definition that would allow us to comply with our
international obligations and learn from international
examples—from Denmark and the Nordic countries, Brazil, Austria
and states in America—so that we can get this right.
We should also look at introducing the secondary legislation that
was promised at the Dispatch Box. It offers us a real
opportunity; it would have no difficulty passing through the
House extremely quickly and would be welcomed in the House of
Lords. As we approach the end of the year, I hope we can look at
introducing and delivering that next year, as the Minister
suggested.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered public sector food procurement and
healthy eating.
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