Asked by
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans they have to reduce
food waste.
(CB)
My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on
the Order Paper and in so doing declare an interest: I have been
involved in the food industry all of my walking life.
The Minister of State, Department for the Environment, Food and
Rural Affairs and Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office
() (Con) [V]
My Lords, reducing food waste helps mitigate climate change,
protect biodiversity, improve other environmental outcomes and
use our resources more efficiently. This Government are committed
to meeting the UN’s sustainable development goal 12.3 target to
halve global food waste by 2030. Actions that we have taken
include appointing a food waste champion, supporting householders
to waste less with campaigns such as the Food Waste Action Week,
grant-funding the redistribution sector and working with industry
on sustainable supply chains.
(CB)
I thank the noble Lord for that response. I am sure one of the
main problems is that the sell-by dates on products are far too
cautious. I remember once eating a biscuit that was 20 years old.
It was perfectly edible.
(Con) [V]
My Lords, I have considerable sympathy with that point. I do not
think that I have eaten a biscuit quite that old, but I would not
be afraid of doing so. The UK is objectively an international
leader in tackling food waste. We are fully committed to the UN
sustainable development goal target, which, as I said, is to
halve global food waste at consumer and retail levels by 2030. We
will use all available tools and I take the noble Lord’s comments
on board.
Baroness Bakewell (Lab) [V]
I am pleased to hear the Minister endorse the efforts being made
globally and internationally by the Government, but can I take
him back to World War II, when there was a huge effort to take
the campaign into every household? It was done by advertising, by
broadcasting and by recruiting restaurants, cafés and
commentators to reach individuals. Please can the Government
address their policy in that direction?
(Con) [V]
My Lords, that is very much the direction in which we are
focusing our efforts. For example, Food Waste Action Week in
March is the first of what we hope will be an annual event
focused on citizen food waste and is all about increasing
awareness. We are also urging businesses to help consumers
directly. The way food products are sold, packaged, labelled,
priced et cetera can make a big difference to waste levels at
home. We are funding both of WRAP’s campaigns: Love Food Hate
Waste and Wasting Food: It’s Out of Date. These schemes are about
helping and motivating people to cut waste. There is masses of
evidence to suggest that that is working.
(LD) [V]
My Lords, with queues at food banks and children suffering from
food poverty, food waste is an outrage. In some cases,
supermarkets are refusing to take produce grown under contract,
resulting in it being ploughed back into the ground. These crops
could be used to make meals to help feed the homeless. What is
the Minister doing to ensure that no nutritious food is destroyed
in this way?
(Con) [V]
My Lords, there are so many benefits to cutting food waste and
the noble Baroness has mentioned just one. The total amount of
surplus food redistributed in the UK in 2018 alone—as a
consequence, partly, of UK Government efforts—was 56,000 tonnes.
That is worth £166 million and is food that would have been
thrown away but was not. UK food redistribution almost doubled
between 2015 and 2018 for charitable and commercial sectors.
Surplus food redistributed via charities made up almost 60% of
that total, up from 40% in 2015. We are investing in numerous
organisations that are on the front line of ensuring that food,
instead of being wasted, is redistributed to those people who
need it most.
(Con) [V]
My Lords, the reduction in food wasted by households during the
pandemic, seemingly as a result of careful shopping, budgeting
and home cooking, is to be warmly welcomed. Can my noble friend
say what action is to be taken to ensure that similar reductions
happen in the hospitality sector as it begins to open up?
(Con) [V]
The noble Baroness makes an important point. We are supporting
WRAP, which is our delivery partner, to help the hospitality
sector to waste less food. WRAP has developed a new programme,
called Guardians of Grub, to help the sector put food waste
reduction, with all the associated cost savings, at the heart of
its operations. As I mentioned, we are also supporting the
redistribution sector to get more surplus food to those in need.
In 2018, the hospitality industry provided more than 1,000 tonnes
of surplus food—around 2% of its total—and since then we have
invested significantly in redistribution, so we expect those
positive trends to continue.
(CB) [V]
My Lords, given that the global food system accounts for as much
as 30% of greenhouse gas emissions, does the Minister agree that
food, farming, dietary change and tackling food waste should form
part of the Government’s commitments for COP 26? Does he also
consider that it would be appropriate for England to join
Scotland in signing the Glasgow food and climate declaration?
(Con) [V]
My Lords, it is remarkable that over the last 40 years food
production has trebled, but that has come at a huge cost, in soil
erosion, in the unsustainable use and pollution of water and in
deforestation. Agriculture is responsible for about 80% of the
world’s deforestation and deforestation is now the second biggest
source of emissions. Meanwhile, efforts to produce cheaper meat
have led to industrial-scale use of antibiotics, which in turn
exacerbates issues around antimicrobial resistance. This
absolutely is a central issue and much of the work that we are
doing in the run-up to COP 26 in November is centred around the
need to shift and change fundamentally the way in which we use
land.
(Lab) [V]
Food waste disposed of in plastic packaging either goes to
landfill or contaminates organic waste streams. Does the Minister
agree that this could be partially solved by incentivising food
producers and retailers to use compostable packaging, by which I
mean the type that degrades naturally, rather than as a result of
chemical processes? What action are the Government taking to
support that?
(Con) [V]
The Government have a keen interest in the issue of biodegradable
and compostable packaging. The sad truth is that much of the
packaging that is advertised as such really is not. We are
looking at that in great detail, with a view potentially to
creating a standard to avoid any confusion. I hope that we will
resolve those issues soon and will be able to establish a clear
policy that is both understandable and effective.
(LD) [V]
Does the Minister agree that supermarket promotions such as
“three for two” and “buy one, get one free” promote
overprovisioning and result in waste? What action is being taken
to make supermarkets address the causes of food waste?
(Con) [V]
Much of the focus of the work that the Government are doing is on
trying to get the food sector, at all levels, to reduce the
amount of food waste generated. Clearly, that involves
supermarkets packaging, advertising and presenting their products
in a way that helps consumers to make the right choices, with a
view to reducing their environmental footprint and food waste.
(PC) [V]
My Lords, is the Minister aware that under the Environment
(Wales) Act 2016, which deals with the sustainable management of
natural resources, the Welsh Government might be empowered to
introduce a food waste charge on all food that is not sold or
disposed of for human or animal consumption by its end date? Will
he encourage the Welsh Government to act in that regard and will
he consider whether such steps might be equally applicable in
England?
(Con) [V]
On food waste, with our counterparts in the DAs, we learn from
each other. Much of our work with WRAP, including citizen
campaigns, is supported by Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
In the resources and waste strategy, we have committed to seek
powers in our Environment Bill to impose responsibilities on
producers to reduce their waste, should progress from all the
current measures be insufficient to get us towards that
sustainable development goal. We continue to look closely at the
issue.
(Con)
My Lords, does the Minister agree that apps and charities are
more effective in the redistribution of surplus food than any
government policy, however well intentioned, can be? May I take
him a little bit upstream and talk about the production phase?
For years, British agriculture was locked into a system where
there was necessary overproduction and where intensive farming,
the use of chemical fertilisers and the felling of hedgerows were
encouraged by an output-based system. Will my noble friend
confirm that we will now have a farming policy in this country
tailored to suit the needs of the countryside, which is the
sublime inheritance of all of us in these islands?
(Con) [V]
I agree with the noble Lord about the value, the benefit and the
effectiveness of the private sector in dealing with these issues,
particularly through new technology and apps. I can also
absolutely confirm that one of the biggest opportunities that we
have in relation to farming, land use, conservation and the
environment is the ability now, post Brexit, to ditch the old
common agricultural policy and replace it with a new system that,
instead of incentivising land use destruction, which CAP
undoubtedly did throughout the continent, is moving to make all
payments conditional on delivery of a public good. Of course, one
public good, among many, is environmental stewardship.
