Food, Poverty, Health and the Environment Committee Report

Earl of Devon Excerpts

Thursday 10th June 2021 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Devon (CB)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to welcome the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Sentamu, to the Cross Benches. I hope he finds them as supportive as I have. It is also a pleasure to speak in the Chamber once more. It has been a very long year since last I was here, and a similar length of time since this excellent report was first published. The 12-month delay to this debate has only increased its urgency.

My appreciation goes to my noble friend Lord Krebs and the whole committee for producing such an excellent and insightful report in the teeth of the pandemic. The inequalities of which they write have been brutally exposed by Covid-19’s assault on those with poor diet and related ill health. There could not be a more important time to consider its conclusions and to press for the change that our nation is so hungry for.

As many have said, in reply the Government will doubtless repeat their reliance on the national food strategy, which is due to provide its second and concluding report at some point this year. The work of Henry Dimbleby and his team is to be welcomed and applauded, but we must be wary of the Government kicking the can by delegating their responsibility to bodies that will report at some future point. Assuming that the national food strategy reports later this year, the Government have a further six months to respond, so we will not see those details until the summer of 2022. With every month of delay, inequalities and ill health build. This delay will be fatal for many.

I note my interest as a Devon farmer—not quite Neanderthal but with some feudal origins. I am also a member of the advisory board of the South West Food Hub. I will restrict my focus to issues of food production, education and procurement.

As your Lordships are well aware from the Agriculture Act and the Environment Bill, never in recent times has there been more upheaval in policy and funding for land management. The loss of basic area payments and the introduction of ELMS heralds a sea change in how our rural environment is funded, providing public money for public good and moving focus away from the provision of food. Your Lordships will recall many hours debating the 10 ELMS purposes in Section 1(1) of the Agriculture Act, none of which include the provision of food—the basic purpose of agriculture for a millennium. Section 1(4) does require the Secretary of State to

“have regard to the need to encourage the production of food”,

but it is a secondary concern—it is a “regard”. British farmers are now predominantly environmental land managers.

Add to this elements of the Environment Bill, such as local nature recovery strategies and biodiversity net gain, and we have additional incentives pushing farmers away from the production of food towards the provision of ecosystem services. These worthy developments risk fundamentally altering our land use, and I request that the Minister reaffirm the Government’s commitment to the principal role of farming being the provision of locally sourced, sustainable and nutritious food for the benefit of the British people. If that is not the case, we need to know.

At the same time as these major upheavals are impacting farming, the Government are pursuing a trade policy focused on establishing a post-Brexit free trade network at seemingly any expense. The import of lower-cost, lower-standard agricultural products are at the heart of those negotiations. At this very moment we are in an arm wrestle with Australia over its desire for access to British consumers for Aussie red meat, providing an existential competitive challenge to the British pasture farmer.

Although I agree with the report that we need a dietary shift to less and better-quality meat, that shift should not be to meat produced to lower welfare and environmental standards imported at considerable carbon cost. This would not improve the diet of the British public. Indeed, it might make meat even cheaper and thus increase its consumption, moving us yet further from the Eatwell guidelines. Rather than subjecting our high-quality livestock production to an uneven playing field through unbalanced trade capitulations, our Government should be banging the drum for grass-fed British meat and dairy as the highest-quality and most sustainable natural protein available. Will the Minister confirm that British livestock farming will not be sacrificed by the noble Lord, Lord Hannan, on the altar of free trade?

The story of our food and the sustainable natural heritage from which it derives needs to be better told. Professor Dasgupta’s recent report on the economics of biodiversity is adamant that environmental education is key to restoring an understanding of our natural world. The Government have not responded to that recommendation, and I wonder whether the Minister can let us know whether they intend to do so.

I applaud the Government’s efforts to increase public understanding of a healthy diet, and to making health education compulsory for state-funded pupils. If the Government are able to do that for human health, would it not be reasonable to expand the syllabus to include our planetary health, thereby providing all state-funded pupils with the environmental education Professor Dasgupta considered essential? This would enable them to adopt both a healthy and an environmentally sustainable diet.

As the noble Lord, Lord Curry, has noted, public food procurement is the one area in which the Government could have the quickest and most fundamental impact on public health and sustainable food production. I note the Government’s commitment to using public sector procurement to improve the quality of food, as well as supporting local communities, improving nutrition and sustainability.

The South West Food Hub is a community interest company working in partnership with the Crown Commercial Service to deliver a new approach to public sector food procurement, known as the future food framework. The aim is to support small and medium-size producers in the region to sell directly to public sector institutions, ensuring that hospitals, schools, prisons, the armed services et cetera are eating healthy and locally produced food procured at a consistent and affordable price. The scheme both minimises food mileage and maximises the opportunity for those consuming the food to engage with and understand its production. Will the Minister confirm the Government’s support for the work of the South West Food Hub and its ground-breaking pilot with the CCS?

Finally, there has been much talk of obesity and the Government’s obesity strategy. As a member of the National Plan for Sports and Recreation Select Committee, I just add that we will be addressing another aspect of the obesity crisis—as the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, well knows—with a view to encouraging greater activity and well-being for those who we hope will be enjoying a healthier and more balanced diet. I congratulate the Liaison Committee for its joined-up thinking in that regard.