British Farming: Competitiveness

Baroness Grender Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd March 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

We have been very clear when working on our trading agreements with other countries that our standards are sacrosanct. We will not allow deals that undermine the standards that we have in this country. We are investing £11.8 billion in the farming budget over this Parliament, so we are absolutely serious about building our farming road map and responding positively to the Farming Profitability Review from the noble Baroness, Lady Batters. It is really important that any products that are produced to different environmental or animal welfare standards can be placed on the UK market only if they comply with the strict requirements that we put in place.

[Baroness Grender (LD)]

My Lords, the way to help with this significant issue would be the Government achieving their own manifesto promise of getting at least 50% of food supply to the public sector produced by British food producers. Can the Minister share with us what is preventing the Government achieving that with some urgency?

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

The noble Baroness is absolutely correct that we talked in our manifesto about the importance of public procurement in supporting our food industry. The Procurement Act allows contracts for certain value thresholds also to be reserved for smaller UK suppliers. We want to look at the big suppliers and the smaller suppliers in order that we can deliver that manifesto commitment as best we can, because 50% is a large amount of our food procurement. Last year, we had a new national procurement policy statement, which puts emphasis on weighting environmental and social outcomes in government contracts. British farmers and local suppliers will be very well placed to meet those outcomes.