Asked by
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of
the causes of food insecurity in England.
The Minister of State, Department for the Environment, Food and
Rural Affairs and Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office
( of Richmond Park) (Con)
My Lords, food prices are driven by many factors, including
agricultural and manufacturing costs. We take food insecurity
seriously, monitoring household spending on food closely and
working with industry to mitigate any friction in the supply
chain that may drive up prices. The Government are of course
aware that food price increases are playing a part in a wider
rise in the cost of living. Recent increases in energy prices,
however, which are the predominant pressure on households, mean
that people have less money to spend on food, regardless of its
price.
(Lab)
I thank the noble Lord for that answer. The recent Food
Foundation report on food insecurity was truly alarming. Over
seven million adults, over 2.6 million children and nearly half
of all families on universal credit have experienced food
insecurity in recent months. The Government have the free school
meals scheme, the Healthy Start scheme and the holiday activities
and food programme to enable a very targeted way of providing a
nutritional safety net for the children who are most in need. Can
the Government promise to increase funding to these targeted
programmes to ensure that the shocking emergence of a generation
of poorly fed, poorer children does not become endemic in our
country?
of Richmond Park (Con)
I thank the noble Lord for his comments, and he is right:
tackling poverty in all forms is a key priority for this and any
Government. The Chancellor recently announced a new £15 billion
support package to help families with the cost of living,
building on measures worth nearly £22 billion that the Government
have already announced. That brings the total support for
households this year to £37 billion, which will be targeted in
any number of ways but is particularly designed to help those who
are most vulnerable.
(Con)
My Lords, given that our food security and self-sufficiency is
lowest in fruit and vegetables, what progress has been made on
issuing work permits for people to come and pick our fruit and
vegetables in the season which is just about upon us?
of Richmond Park (Con)
There has been a lot of talk about self-sufficiency, so I looked
into this to see what changes there have been in recent years. We
have a high degree of food security in the UK: we are largely
self-sufficient in wheat production, growing 88% of all the wheat
we need; we are 86% self-sufficient in beef; we are fully
self-sufficient in liquid milk—I am making a point that I hope is
interesting; we produce more lamb than we consume; and we are
close to 100% self-sufficient in poultry. The Ukraine situation
has certainly added pressure, but our situation vis-à-vis
self-sufficiency has not altered measurably in the last 20
years.
(CB)
My Lords, two years ago the Government conducted an internal
review into drivers of food bank use—everyone in this House would
agree that that use has gone up. A commitment was given by
Ministers at the DWP to publish this in 2020. In February this
year, in the other place, said that a further
commitment would be given to publish this review this year. Where
is it, and when are we going to see it?
of Richmond Park (Con)
I understand, and the Government accept, the data limitations in
monitoring food security. From April 2021, we introduced a set of
questions to the Family Resources Survey to measure and track
food bank usage specifically. I am told that the first results of
these questions are due to be published in March 2023, subject to
the usual quality assurance.
of Hardington Mandeville
(LD)
My Lords, the public are increasingly concerned about how they
will feed themselves and their families. It is not just about
reading the supermarket signs saying that sunflower oil has been
replaced by a similar or equivalent oil in products; it is about
the exponential rise in staple food product prices. A small bag
of oranges used to be £1.20 for 10; this has now increased to
three fruits for £1. Can the Minister say whether all government
departments, including the DWP and the Treasury, are working
together to find solutions?
of Richmond Park (Con)
The noble Baroness is right that there has been year-on-year food
price inflation, with rises of 6.7% in April, up from 5.9% in
March. She mentioned supermarkets, and Defra has been engaging
with the supermarkets very regularly to discuss cost of living
issues and the steps they can take to help address them. We will
continue to explore a wide range of measures they can take to
ensure the availability of affordable food, for example by
maintaining value ranges, price matching, price-freezing measures
and so on. This is a priority for Defra and, as she implies, is a
cross-cutting issue on which departments are working
together.
(Lab)
My Lords, the Dimbleby National Food
Strategy report was published in July 2021, which is nearly
a year ago. It sets out recommendations on many of the food
insecurity issues that we are raising today. Given its
significance, is the Minister embarrassed by the length of time
the Government have taken to respond to that report?
of Richmond Park (Con)
My Lords, I first acknowledge the work that went into that
report. It was a brilliant piece of work and I am grateful to the
team behind it, not least Mr Dimbleby. I hope, as I know the
noble Baroness does, that the Government will provide a proper
and comprehensive response, as soon as possible.
(CB)
My Lords, I quote from a government report that came out in July
2021. It reported that the data show that promotions of food in
supermarkets
“increase consumer spending by encouraging people to buy more
than they intended to buy in the first place.”
In light of that, does the Minister agree that it is time to stop
these promotions, as part of the contribution to helping people
to manage their food budgets more effectively?
of Richmond Park (Con)
My Lords, I am aware of the study the noble Lord cites, but I do
not pretend to be an expert in this area. The Government’s view
is that the proposed policy to inhibit, for example, “Buy one,
get one free” offers has been postponed to provide immediate
relief for those people facing acute food insecurity and poverty.
The policy has not been abandoned; it has simply been parked.
(Lab)
Is the noble Lord aware that recruiters are forced to go further
and further afield in an effort to find pickers—even to Nepal and
the West Indies? Is this a result not only of the war in Ukraine
but of Brexit, and therefore could it have been foreseen?
of Richmond Park (Con)
The noble Lord makes an important point. The department that I am
representing is working closely with the Home Office to ensure we
have the labour we need to pick and collect the food that is
produced in this country.
(Con)
Is my noble friend aware that the families and men and women who
go shopping in the UK are well able to make a judgment on their
own part and welcome promotions that reduce the price of the
produce they want to buy?
of Richmond Park (Con)
My noble friend makes a good point, and I refer him to my
previous answer.
(GP)
My Lords, I am sure the Minister is aware of the crisis in the
supply of infant formula in the United States, which is
associated with an extremely oligarchic concentration of
production and ownership of supplies. What assessment have the
Government made of similar risks to supplies of critical products
in the UK?
of Richmond Park (Con)
My Lords, the UK has a resilient food supply chain. The
preparations we were required to make in the event of a no-deal
exit from the EU ensured that the UK made preparations that
otherwise perhaps would not have been made. In a very real sense,
the possibility of a no-deal exit led to an audit of our supply
chains, which has resulted in a much more resilient system than
we might otherwise have had.
(LD)
My Lords, given that farms are reporting that only 25% of
seasonal workers have received their visas, would the Minister
have another attempt at answering the question from the noble
Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering, as to why there is a delay
in visas for seasonal workers?
of Richmond Park (Con)
I refer the noble Lord to my previous answer. Defra is working
very closely with the Home Office to ensure we have the labour we
need to collect the food grown in this country.
(CB)
Further to that, what are the Government doing to increase the
number of people from the UK who are potentially available to
work? Welfare-to-work schemes to bring people off inactive
benefits in circumstances such as these have always been
important to reduce poverty in this country. It is of particular
importance now that the EU labour market force has been
reduced.
of Richmond Park (Con)
The noble Lord makes an important point. There are many job
vacancies, not least in the area we are discussing. This is an
area of focus for the DWP and, indeed, for the Department for
Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.
(Lab)
My Lords, the biggest cause of food insecurity at the family
level is poverty. Some 22 million adults in the United Kingdom
survive on an annual income of less than £12,570. Will the
Minister commit to give an immediate increase of 15% to universal
credit and the state pension? If not, can he commit to live on
£12,570 for a year?
of Richmond Park (Con)
The noble Lord knows that I cannot commit to any such thing, but
I reiterate that the Chancellor has pulled together a package
amounting to £37 billion specifically to tackle the immediate
crisis in the cost of living faced by people in this country.
That money will go a very long way to alleviating the suffering
of those people at the bottom of the economic ladder in this
country.
