Asked by
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of
the supply chain issues in the food and farming sector identified
by the National Farmers’ Union and the British Retail Consortium
at the Food Security Summit on 14 December 2021; and what plans
they have to prepare a long-term solution to these issues.
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 UK’s food industry sectors operate highly resilient
supply chains, as demonstrated throughout the Covid-19 response.
The Government have well-established ways of working with the
industry on preparedness for, and in response to, issues with the
potential to cause disruption to food supply chains. Our
production-to-supply ratio remains high in comparison with
historical levels: we produce 60% of all the food we need. These
figures have changed little over the past 20 years.
(Lab)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for that reply. We are facing a
serious supply chain crisis, with an estimated 500,000 labour
shortages and rising costs. There is a shortage of seasonal
workers to pick our fruit and veg and of lorry drivers to deliver
them. There is a lack of produce on supermarket shelves and a
rise in imports as a result. We are seeing a mass cull of pigs
because we have no butchers, while the import of pork products
from the EU is rising. Does the Minister accept that short-term
fixes and three-month temporary visas will not solve the labour
shortage? We need a long-term plan for this. Does he also accept
that we should have a target of at least 60% food
self-sufficiency in the UK, and that this should be underpinned
by specific support to put British farmers and businesses
first?
(Con)
The noble Baroness is of course right that we should not be
concerned just with short-term fixes. However, if she will
forgive me, I think that she is a little out of date. We have
agreed, through to 2024, to allow 30,000 people to come from
outside the UK into this country under the seasonal workers
scheme. In addition, we have people under the EU settled status.
We are also trying to encourage more domestic employment and
innovation through automation. All these things will ease the
pressures that existed last year—and still exist, to an
extent—but the situation is better. We are not complacent and it
will continue to improve.
(CB)
My Lords, can the Minister tell us what action is being taken to
improve the facilities available to long-distance and other
delivery drivers on the motorway network? Together with the long
hours that these drivers spend waiting, the lack of facilities is
a main concern in the recruitment process. It is not about pay
and, in some ways, it is not about quotas for foreigners to come
in. The concern is about the facilities.
(Con)
The noble Lord is absolutely right. We have worked with other
departments, including the Department for Transport and the Home
Office, in the development of our scheme to encourage more
drivers, to ease the difficulties caused mainly by the pandemic
but also by our withdrawal from the EU, which have resulted in a
shortage of drivers. The noble Lord is right: it is the quality
of their lives that we need to look at, alongside all the
generous incentives that we are giving to encourage people to
come here and fill this gap.
(Con)
My Lords, what measures are the Government taking to prevent the
scene of edible vegetables being ploughed in rather than being
harvested and entering the food chain?
(Con)
My noble friend raises an important point. Vegetable producers
will always try to produce slightly more than the demand because
that is better than being short of supply to the next stage of
the food chain. Every year, some vegetables are ploughed in, but
it has increased recently, for reasons that we are all aware of.
We are very mindful of encouraging a much more stable supply
chain. That is why we have increased the number of drivers and
brought in a variety of different skill sets through the seasonal
workers scheme. We hope that this problem will ease in the coming
months.
(Lab)
My Lords, looking more widely in the farming industry, what are
the Government doing to help farmers reduce their methane
emissions, which are an extremely large source of carbon
emissions?
(Con)
We are taking a number of measures to tackle this pernicious
greenhouse gas. It operates very differently from other
greenhouse gases; it has a much more damaging short-term effect
but is a short-term problem. There is enormous progress in
technologies around what we feed cattle and in husbandry. We can
offset the effects of methane through other measures we are
taking through our environmental land management schemes.
(CB)
My Lords, I speak as the chair of Feeding Britain. All the
problems that noble Lords have referred to are impacting on the
price of food. One measure we have is the Healthy Start vouchers,
and I congratulate the Government on increasing this; it really
helps poor families. However, we have just learned that the
uptake is only just over 51%. What are the Government doing to
extend the reach of these things? Will they consider making an
opt-in scheme the de facto way of becoming a member of this
important scheme which helps low-income families?
(Con)
I will relay the suggestion to colleagues in the Government. The
Healthy Start food vouchers scheme, which has been raised from
£3.10 to £4.25, should be seen as part of a wider array of
measures that we are providing to target families on lower
incomes. The £500 million household support fund is another
example, but the noble Baroness makes a very important point
which I will relay.
(Con)
My Lords, I refer to my horticultural interests. What success has
the department had in negotiations with the Home Office on
extending temporary worker schemes to non-edible horticultural
products—for example, nursery trees, nursery products, flowers,
and other such things?
(Con)
This is an incredibly important part of our economy, particularly
our rural economy. I am delighted that we have managed to get the
addition of ornamental and other non-food-related measures as
part of the seasonal worker scheme, and it is quite right that we
do so. But we are reliant on the industry telling us in advance,
as much as it can, about where it thinks the pressures will come
from in the future. We have the ability to increase the £30,000
by another £10,000, and we want to encourage much more training
in the sector.
of Hardington Mandeville
(LD)
My Lords, the national food strategy has met with criticism from
ITV, which is keen to continue advertising fast, unhealthy food.
Given the rise in obesity and diabetes, why are the Government
not promoting local, healthily grown fruit and vegetables which
can then go into the free school meals system, to both improve
the health of our children and support our farmers?
(Con)
My Lords, we are. We want to encourage local food chains to
operate more effectively; it is of course much healthier for the
environment and the quality of the food is better. We want to
disrupt highly centralised food chains where we can. We also want
to make sure that we are encouraging as stable a food chain
system as we can, because we rely on the just-in-time measures to
get food from the field to the plate.
Lord McLoughlin (Con)
My Lords, we are seeing a rise in the number of farm shops up and
down the country, but what is the department doing to ensure that
large supermarkets sell British products?
(Con)
The best pressure on supermarkets does not necessarily come from
finger-wagging of the Government or measures from Ministers but
from the customer. We must encourage people to shop locally; for
example, if they are concerned about the effects of their diet on
climate change, eating grass-fed, locally produced meat means
they are probably doing more to help the environment than when
buying products that have been brought from the other side of the
world, under circumstances that are much below our standards in
this country.
The Deputy Speaker () (Con)
My Lords, the noble Lord, of Cheltenham, wishes to speak
virtually. I think this would be a convenient moment to hear from
him.
of Cheltenham (LD) [V]
My Lords, how do the new trade deals with Australia and New
Zealand help with the aims of maintaining Britain’s food
production self-sufficiency level at 60% and creating an
environment for farm and food businesses to thrive and compete in
the coming years?
(Con)
There is good news on a variety of different measures in trade
deals, not least on the point of the noble Lord’s question. We
are about to see the end of the ban on UK lamb being sold to the
United States. Free trade is important; it benefits us all. We
have incorporated into the two trade deals that the noble Lord
talked about the absolute determination to protect our standards
of animal welfare and environmental protection. That is the best
protection that we can give to the high-quality produce that our
farmers produce in this country.
