Government Food Strategy

Debate between Baroness Walmsley and Baroness Jones of Whitchurch

Monday 13th June 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for repeating the Statement this evening. We have waited a very long time for this food strategy to be published—and what a disappointment it has turned out to be. It has provoked a united response, but for all the wrong reasons. It has been roundly criticised by Henry Dimbleby himself, by farmers, by food campaigners and by environmentalists, for being vague and unambitious. Henry Dimbleby has said that it is not a strategy and has warned that more children will go hungry. Minette Batters has said that the proposal to help farmers increase food production has been “stripped to the bone”. The Soil Association has criticised

“a narrow-minded ideology which believes government should not intervene to reshape diets”,

and Greenpeace has said that the proposals

“only perpetuate a broken food system”.

Sadly, these proposals are a disservice to the excellent, well-researched report produced by Henry Dimbleby, which took a holistic approach to the farm-to-fork journey and its impact on our health. It highlighted the terrible damage that poor farming practices could do to our planet. It called out the complicity of food manufacturers whose drive for profits is pushing highly processed junk food on to the nation in the full knowledge of the ill-health consequences, and it warned of an obesity crisis that would overwhelm our health service if urgent action were not taken. The UK is now the third fattest country in the G7, with almost three in 10 adults obese, while children are going hungry because our school food system is failing so many of them in need.

The Dimbleby report was radical and challenging. As it says:

“Change is never easy. But we cannot build a sustainable, healthy and fair food system by doing business as usual.”


It seems, however, that this is exactly the approach the Government are taking. The Dimbleby review consisted of almost 300 pages, yet this response covers barely 10% of it. It has not even responded to the 14 very well-argued recommendations in the report. All the difficult questions have been ducked. Instead, we have a statement of vague intentions and a rehash of existing policies, not a blueprint to tackle the major food issues facing this country.

The Minister’s Written Statement talked about the need to work across all government departments to deliver the strategy but, frankly, such cross-departmental working should have been put in place before the White Paper was drafted. Where are the policies that would address the 7.3 million people living in poverty, including 2.6 million children? Where are the policies to make food banks a thing of the past, instead of our facing a 95% increase in food parcels being handed out since 2015? Where are the policies to tackle the rise in adult obesity that is putting our health service under such strain? Why have the Dimbleby plans to improve child nutrition been ignored? Why have the proposals to extend entitlement to free school meals been rejected, despite widespread support from teachers, health workers and campaigners?

We know that food prices are rocketing and the food system is under strain, but this White Paper gets nowhere near addressing the root causes. Costs are dramatically rising for farmers and food producers, putting further pressure on food price inflation, and the closure of the UK’s biggest fertiliser plant last week will add to food costs. Meanwhile, crops are rotting in the field and over 40,000 pigs have already been culled because of labour shortages.

So, where are the plans to support British businesses and ensure that British food is affordable? Where are the plans to support our farmers and stop them being undercut by imports with lower animal welfare and environmental standards? Why was the commitment to tackle low-quality imports taken out of the paper at the last minute? What message is that sending to farmers? Instead, we should have a plan to ensure that we buy, sell and grow more of our great British food, entrenching Britain’s reputation as a beacon for quality food, high standards and the ethical treatment of animals.

The Dimbleby report was a once-in-a-generation opportunity to reset our food strategy for the future. It tackled the difficult issues, knowing that not everything would be agreed. So, why did the Government not feel able to give the recommendations in that report the detailed response they deserved? Does the Minister recognise that as a result, we have a White Paper that pleases no one, lacks ambition and represents a missed opportunity? I very much look forward to his response on these issues.

[Baroness Walmsley (LD)]

My Lords, there is much to say about this “Let them eat venison” food strategy—although there is not a lot of meat in it. It is full of vague intentions and grand promises such as a school food revolution. It seems to me that when this Government want to hide the fact that they have chickened out of doing something really revolutionary, they call it a revolution. Sadly, they have failed to do justice to Henry Dimbleby’s thoughtful, realistic and ambitious national food plan. No wonder he is disappointed that only half his recommendations have found favour with the Government.

Our national food system is broken. If your Lordships do not believe me, ask the NHS workers who are forced to use the food bank set up by the hospital where they work. Ask the person who has three jobs, trying to put food on the table but able to afford only cheap food or ready meals because there is no time left to cook. Ask the doctors who treat the 40% of overweight children and the 64% of overweight adults. Ask the nurses who treated the large number of people with obesity who died of Covid-19 at the height of the pandemic.

Henry Dimbleby recommended a food system to make people well, not one that would make them sick, while at the same time protecting the environment. Yet what do we have in response? Twenty-seven pages that ignore evidence-based measures such as introducing a sugar and salt tax, an idea that the soft drinks industry levy has shown to be an effective way of incentivising manufacturers to reformulate and reduce sugar in order to avoid the tax. Tonnes of sugar have been cut from the diets of children and teenagers, while people drink just as many soft drinks and the industry has not suffered at all. However, despite that success, the amount of sugar the average person eats is continuing to rise because of the increase in consumption of junk foods laced with sugar, salt and other appetite stimulants. So why will the Government not follow the sugar tax idea with other foods? Can the Minister say who has been lobbying the Government to ditch this recommendation? Is it the same people who succeeded in persuading the Government to delay the implementation of the ban on TV and online advertising and volume promotions of HFSS foods before the ink was dry on the Health and Care Act?

The price of food is rising but there is no evidence that a salt and sugar tax would increase it. I spoke yesterday to someone in the food industry who was convinced that it would encourage reductions in salt, and particularly in sugar, without price rises. If the Government want to reduce taxes, perhaps they should start with the inflated amounts of VAT that are flowing into their coffers from our fuel and energy purchases; that would help families directly.

During the passage of the Health and Care Act, there was a great deal of talk about what the new integrated care systems could do to address the health inequalities crisis. We know that obesity is more common among poorer people, yet this so-called strategy will do nothing to help them afford healthy food. We are told that a healthy diet would cost five times what the poorest families can afford, but the sugar and salt tax could pay for some of the measures that Dimbleby proposed to balance things out. Extending the Healthy Start programme and eligibility for free school meals and the holiday activity and food scheme would help to get fruit and vegetables into the diets of poor families, yet there are no proposals about that. Why not?

The Government talk about willpower, information and education for consumers, yet we have had health education in school for years, as well as food labelling. It has not worked. When the soft drinks levy was introduced, Liz Truss objected, saying that people should be free to choose. However, the problem is that people are not free to choose healthy food because they cannot afford it; they can only afford cheap calories. In some housing estates, almost the whole row of shops consists of junk food outlets. Where is the choice there? It is a matter not of will power but of affordability and availability.

The Government have a responsibility here. I was amazed to read in the White Paper that the cost of food is not a matter for government. Does the Minister really believe that? Of course it is, when people are getting sick, putting pressure on the NHS and costing the taxpayer a lot of money. I do not expect this Government to care about poor people losing years of life because of poor diet, but I would have thought they would understand the economic case for ensuring a healthy and productive population. Achieving the Government’s own ambition of five extra years of healthy life by 2030 is nowhere near on track, especially in the lower demographic groups.

Neither is there anything concrete in the White Paper to help farmers produce good food more efficiently, while protecting the environment. Farmers are already up in arms about what they are being asked to do without extra support, and worried about competition from large farms in Australia and New Zealand. Subsidies have been cut by 20% and the Government are still not clear about the details of the environmental land management payments.

Your Lordships’ Science and Technology Select Committee, in its report on nature-based solutions to net zero, said that farmers need a free and independent expert advice service to help them improve their productivity while improving biodiversity, but all we have is an alphabet soup of schemes and funds—and nowhere in the food strategy could I see the word “soil”. Another of Dimbleby’s recommendations that is notable for its absence is that we should aim to eat at least 30% less meat, given that 85% of our agricultural land is used to feed animals. Apart from the ridiculous “Let them eat venison” proposal, I see nothing practical to achieve that.

We are offered more research on things that we already know and more reviews about things that do not need reviewing—nothing but delay and equivocation. What a missed opportunity.