Nutrition for Growth Summit 2024

Debate between Lord Benyon and Lord Kamall

Wednesday 29th November 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

I understand the point made by my noble friend and I would refer him to the White Paper that we published last week, which has been widely accepted by those who really understand these issues as a good attempt to try to integrate issues such as nutrition in so many different areas. We have to carry the public with us. Very often, when you ask in a public meeting what percentage people think that we spend on overseas aid, they give you a vastly greater amount than we actually do. We need to explain that it is going to change people’s lives and, hopefully, make economies better, reduce the need for people to migrate and keep stability. There are so many different strands to this, and we need to make that case, which was eloquently made in the White Paper.

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

My Lords, to coincide with last year’s Commonwealth Games, there was also the Commonwealth food futures 2022 summit, to discuss exactly these issues. Can the Minister tell us what other international organisations the Government are working with to ensure that we really improve the nutrition of the very poorest and most needy on this planet?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

We think that the nutrition for growth dialogue on an annual basis, holding ourselves to account, is really important. We co-hosted the global food security summit, which was held last week in Lancaster House, with Somalia and the United Arab Emirates. The nutrition for growth proposal is that the next meeting should take place in Paris. We are working very closely with the French on this. My colleague, Andrew Mitchell, has met with them and with the director general, Melinda Bohannon, to try to work out how we can make this next phase really effective. In the short time that I have been in the department, I have seen how transparent we are in the quantities that we give and how we explain it. I hope that noble Lords will look at the White Paper and see how we are working with so many other different parties, particularly civil society, in achieving this.

Farm Animal Welfare

Debate between Lord Benyon and Lord Kamall

Monday 26th June 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

The number of live animals exported from Great Britain since Brexit has been zero—none: not one. There is one vessel, the “Joline”, which operates out of Folkestone and has the capacity to take live exports from Great Britain to Europe, and there is none going on that vessel at the moment. We still want to bring in this legislation, because there may be future demand, the infrastructure to support that trade might start up again and we want to make sure we are legislating in the right way. On the key point about Northern Ireland, that is an even more complex issue, because we are trying to resolve this through the Windsor Framework, but I will write to the noble Baroness on that.

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

My Lords—

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

We have a very clear set of guidelines, which we have improved in recent years, such as by putting CCTV cameras in slaughterhouses. As the noble Lord will know, the Food Standards Agency oversees this and requires vets to be present. I think his point relates to pre-stun slaughter, and that is an ongoing discussion. We want to work with those groups that want a particular type of slaughter, while recognising that there is a very strong view out there about our knowledge and understanding of what an animal senses in those final moments of its life. We want to make sure that our WATOK rules, as they are called, are absolutely up to date, and I shall continue to keep him informed of this.

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

My Lords, it is absolutely right that the Government seek to be at the forefront not only of technology but also of animal welfare. What thinking is there in the department about the future of meat, particularly lab-grown meat and whether there are any welfare implications for lab-grown meat in future?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

This is a fast-moving technology all over the world, and I think people look at it with some suspicion in terms of where plants come from and what has to happen to plants in order to make them both taste like meat and look like meat. We want to support a livestock industry in this country that continues to have a much wider benefit across the rural economy but with the highest welfare standards possible. However, in this area of policy, if a Minister was to stand at this Dispatch Box and go to the furthest extreme possible, there would still be people in the animal welfare movement—or more the animal rights movement—who would say it is too little, too late; you will never satisfy everyone. I think the Government have this right.

Environmental Principles Policy Statement

Debate between Lord Benyon and Lord Kamall

Monday 9th January 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

The noble Lord made the point I was trying to make, in a converse way, rather better than I did. I hope that we will continue to work together on these policies.

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

My Lords, my noble friend the Minister and many other noble Lords referred to the precautionary principle. Sadly lacking is the idea of innovation. Could we not look more at that, particularly when it comes to the prevention principle?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

My noble friend makes a very good point. We are concerned here with transposing the five key principles that underpinned all environmental law when we were in the European Union to the basis that was set out in the Environment Act. He is entirely right that hard-wired in government policy-making we need a belief that we are supporting innovation in all its forms. That strays into environmental policy-making as well.