National Food Strategy and Food Security

Alistair Carmichael Excerpts

Thursday 27th October 2022 Commons Chamber

[Esther McVey (Tatton) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House recognises that food security is a major concern to the British public and that the impact of the covid-19 pandemic, the cost of living crisis and the conflict in Ukraine has made UK food security more important than ever before; further recognises the strain on the farming sector due to rising farming and energy costs; supports the Government’s ambition to produce a National Food Strategy white paper and recognises the urgent need for its publication; notes that the UK food system needs to become more sustainable; and calls on the Government to recognise and promote alternative proteins in the National Food Strategy, invest in homegrown opportunities for food innovation, back British businesses and help future-proof British farming.

The motion is in my name and that of the hon. Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy). I pay tribute to her for all her help in co-ordinating this debate, and I particularly thank the Backbench Business Committee for finding time for it.

Food security is a perennial concern. Even the meaning of “food security” causes concern and disagreement, but I will use this definition as a starting point—being able to feed the population at a reasonable cost, even in the face of future shocks such as a global pandemic, massive harvest failure or a general crisis of agricultural productivity caused by climate change. However, colleagues may well wish to expand on that definition and talk about a whole array of issues, for this is such a vast topic with so many important implications for farmers and for families and household food bills, particularly now that we see them rising with the cost of living crisis.

The UK is addressing the issues of food security by using new approaches to agriculture such as vertical farming, precision agriculture and genome editing. It is cutting food waste with Government policies and new technology, producing alternative proteins from cultured insects and algae—not for the faint-hearted—as well as producing plant-based meat, on which the UK leads the way, and packaging food in innovative ways to reduce damage, prolong freshness and fight off bacteria.

However, with the shocks we have suffered to our food security over the last two years—the consequences of covid and lockdowns, and now of the war in Ukraine —there is much more the Government need to do, particularly to help our local farmers. In the north-west, our 12,815 farming and growing community quietly go about their business, collectively producing a wealth of food commodities and contributing more than £726 million to the economy. Our UK farmers and growers are world leaders in food safety, animal welfare, traceability and environmental enhancements, and these values are reflected through our UK annual food and drink export value of £2 billion.

I want to focus on my little corner of the world. Over 70% of Cheshire county is still agriculture-producing, with large swathes given to dairy, sheep and cattle farming. More than 7,000 people are employed on 2,804 farm holdings covering nearly 160,000 hectares of land. We are home to some of the country’s leading dairy farms and dairies—for example, Grosvenor’s Eaton Estate in Cheshire produces more than 35 million litres of fresh milk a year, which is enough for half a million people every day. In Tatton, we have County Milk, which is a family-run business and the largest privately owned dairy ingredient company in the UK. We have the award-winning Delamere Dairy, located in Knutsford, and Bexton Cheese in Knutsford. We have the award-winning Lambing Shed, run by the Mitchell family, and Cheshire Smokehouse in Morley Green, Wilmslow. We have Mobberley Ice Cream, Great Budworth Ice Cream and Seven Sisters Farm Ice Cream—there are lots of ice creams—and Roberts Bakery. I meet my local farmers regularly, assisted and facilitated by the local National Farmers Union team.

There have always been concerns in farming, for livestock and the Great British weather are temperamental fellows to work with, but of late these issues have got bigger and they need to be addressed if we want our food strategy to work. In Tatton, our farmers, like those across the country, are facing labour shortages, energy price increases of up to 400%, fertiliser cost increases of over 150% and red diesel increases, as well as increases in rural crime. Only the other week, I met a group of local farmers at Shepherd’s farm in Aston by Budworth, which has just invested £300,000 in a new milking shed of the new cubicle type, and they all concurred that we are now seeing particularly tough times.

My farmers are renowned for good husbandry, good farming and good farming techniques, and they go to great lengths to look after their animals and land, for high-quality care leads to high-quality meat, milk and produce, but they need help to find staff and to offer competitive training and apprenticeships. New farmers entering the profession need to have a chance to get a farm, and those leaving it need a chance to relinquish a farm at a price that will provide for their retirement. Can the Minister please look into these matters as a matter of urgency? I know significant work has been done, but certainly more work needs to be done. If the Minister cannot provide a full answer today, I am more than happy for him to write to me.

Another of my constituents is Philip Pearson, who, along with other members of his family, runs a family business called the APS Group. Set up by his grandfather after the second world war in Alderley Edge, it is now the biggest tomato producer in the UK, producing approximately 650 million tomatoes a year. He has explained quite clearly that the horticulture sector in the UK is desperately short of staff to look after crops and to cope during the harvest. He would have expected 1,500 workers, out of a peak total of 2,500, from central and eastern Europe each year—from March to Christmas—but this has not been possible this year.

A question for the Minister is: can these farmers have more visas for seasonal agricultural workers—the number must rise from the current 30,000 to at least 50,000 as soon as possible—and can farmers employ Ukrainian nationals and other migrants now housed in the UK to help deliver an increase in the number of seasonal agricultural workers?

[Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)]

The right hon. Lady is making a very powerful case, very little of which I would disagree with, but the food strategy is not all about agriculture. The fishing industry also needs visas for crews in particular, which has been a problem for years. Through her, can I add to the Minister’s list to take to the Home Office the plight of the fishing industry as well as that of farmers?

[Esther McVey]

The right hon. Member absolutely can, and indeed he has. I expect other Members to talk about the farming in and the produce coming from their parts of the country. As I said, I am focusing on Cheshire, but I believe we all share the same concerns.

In my patch, farmers are leading the way in technology, too. In the case of APS, it is developing robotics for tomato production, starting with harvesting and going right the way through to packaging. It is putting significant money and research into this development to cope with the lack of people now coming forward to work in the farming sector. However, these robots will not be ready for four to five years, so it needs short-term help now to be able to deliver on its commitment to supply tomatoes for the country.

Farmers also care deeply about the environment. This particular farm is working hard to deliver compostable packaging. It uses its tomato plant waste to develop packaging, and it is using it for other sectors, including fake leather for car seats, coffee cups and even bactericidal treatment for the NHS. It is charged a packaging tax, yet it is developing green, biodegradable alternatives, so can the Minister let me know what incentives there are for such great British technology to help the companies providing these terrific developments, which will be used not just here, but right around the world?

--- Later in debate ---

[Kerry McCarthy]

I am glad to hear that; it is a good step. I will not go into the environmental arguments. I hope that people accept that I am not trying to force people down a particular path, but the Climate Change Committee, the UN and several Cabinet Ministers have accepted that, for environmental and health reasons, we could do with reducing meat consumption.

I turn to the need for a land-use framework. I understand that the Government intend to publish one next year. Land is a finite, scarce resource, but we do not always treat it as such. We need to be strategic about how we use it for food, carbon sequestration, biodiversity and fuel. Where possible, “best and most versatile” land should be used for food growing,

It is nonsense for the Government to seek to reclassify poorer-quality soil as BMV as part of their war on solar farms. Is that ill-thought-out proposal still Government policy? It was a few weeks ago; I hope the Minister understands that I am finding it quite difficult to keep up. Could he tell me whether the proposal to reclassify poorer-quality land as BMV is still going to be brought through?

After yesterday’s Prime Minister’s questions, I am also not sure where the Government stand on onshore wind. Will the Minister clarify that? I am glad, however, to see that the fracking ban is back, but that one U-turn—or two U-turns—has left many casualties on the road in its wake. Again, that goes to the whole issue of what land is best used for. As Henry Dimbleby told the EFRA Committee last week, over the seven or eight decades since the war, we have been steadily producing more and more food on the same amount of land. He said:

“That is making the land sick, destroying the environment and driving out nature.”

What he said about the need for the land to be carbon-negative—not net zero—was spot on. The potential for carbon sequestration is huge, and by taking some of the least productive agricultural land out of production, we could enhance biodiversity at the same time as creating natural carbon sinks.

Some 20% of our farmland—mostly peatland and upland—produces only 3% of our calories. Henry Dimbleby argued that about 5% of that should come out of farming. The rest of the farmland would be higher yielding, with lower inputs and lower environmental costs.

[Mr Carmichael]

May I warn the hon. Lady about the law of unintended consequences? By way of illustration, I offer the example of my own family farm on Islay, not in my constituency but on the west coast. Our farm sits in a site of special scientific interest designed to protect choughs, which are a highly endangered species. However, chough numbers continue to decline because the way in which land is farmed discourages the presence of cattle and, to encourage chough, both sheep and cattle need to be on that land. If she is not careful, the sort of blunt tool that she is talking about could work to the detriment of the chough population.

[Kerry McCarthy]

I do not know why the right hon. Member says that I am suggesting a blunt tool.

[Mr Carmichael]

You mentioned talking land out of production.

[Kerry McCarthy]

Yes; Henry Dimbleby suggests that that 5% should come out of production. However he does not dictate that that should be anywhere that, perhaps, does not have certain productivity levels or does not do this or that. That brings me neatly to my concluding point.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)]

Thank you very much, Madam Deputy Speaker—I will see what I can do about that!

First of all, I remind the House of my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. I congratulate the right hon. Member for Tatton (Esther McVey) on securing the debate and I thank the Backbench Business Committee for granting it. This is an enormously important and timely subject for the House to be debating.

The cost of food and where people put their money at the moment is probably the uppermost consideration in the minds of all our constituents. I hope the Government will bear that in mind when they think about the wider policy and strategy, because the implications for some of what we are seeing at the moment could be profound for both producers and consumers. When people are primarily driven by price—I think that is their primary consideration at the moment—and they go to a supermarket and are looking for the cheapest food on the shelf, they are not necessarily going to find it with a Union Jack, red label or saltire on it. At a time when the Government are seeking to increase, through the variety of trade deals we have, the range of foods coming into this country, which may not have been produced to the same environmental and welfare standards that we are accustomed to, the damage that could be done to our own producers could be long-term and profound.

I do not want to detain the House for too long today, not least because the right hon. Member for Tatton was comprehensive in her introduction to the debate. I can say that there was really nothing with which I disagreed in her speech—I am agnostic on the question of chickpeas, but apart from that. It is right that we should consider for a moment the role of our food producers in food strategy and food security, and particularly our fishermen, farmers and fish farmers. Aquaculture is one area of food production that offers a real opportunity for producing high-quality protein at affordable prices, but which also brings with it a number of challenges and opportunities.

This issue also strikes at the heart of the role of Government. There are things that the Government can do, such as on food labelling and encouraging people to eat more or different fish or to use food in a different way—that is perfectly legitimate. There is an obvious role for the Government, for example in the production of support payments for farmers. At other times, however, the role of Government is to get out of the way and allow food producers to get on and do what they do best. The Minister, with his background, will be alive to that tension in Government.

For farmers, fishermen and fish farmers, the many challenges result in a perfect storm. The rising cost of energy has had a wide range of impacts; the cost of fertiliser is the one that is spoken of most frequently, but the costs of running machinery, such as tractors, are also affected. With the agricultural industry facing an uncertain future, in particular, regarding the future of support payments, there is real anxiety in the industry about what the future holds.

Let me say parenthetically that the suggestion of support payments being subsidies for farmers has to stop. Support payments for farmers are actually support payments for, probably, consumers and supermarkets. It is their route to ensuring that cheap food keeps being produced in this country—it is not just farmers who benefit from support payments. One thing that the Government could do as part of the food strategy is to look at how the big supermarkets have a real, adverse impact on how farmers can get their food on to the shelves. There is a massive imbalance of power. A few years ago, we started the Groceries Code Adjudicator. It has not had the effectiveness that I hoped it would, but that issue has to be revisited through whatever means we can.

One of my frustrations relating to the future of support payments is that we see that as being about either agriculture and food production or environmental goods. From my experience as somebody who lives in and is part of an agricultural community and who was brought up on a farm, that is not an either/or—it is both. Farmers are working the land in a way that would maintain the richness of our countryside’s ecology, especially in many areas that are less productive, where the land is not of such good quality. I offered an example from my experience to the hon. Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy), but there are others from my constituency. I see the damage that is done to crops grown in Orkney by barnacle geese, and Orkney is not a great cropping county. The balance between what farmers can do and the challenges of nature has really fallen out of kilter there.

Our food strategy needs to be holistic; we cannot allow it to be silent on things. It is very well to say that we will have visas to bring in workers to pick fruit or to work on fishing boats, or whatever else it may be, but that is of absolutely no use if we have no housing in which to accommodate them. Housing in our rural communities is a massive issue. My hon. Friend the Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron) speaks about that issue frequently.

On transport, it frustrates me beyond measure that it seems to be a massive surprise to our shipping companies every year that suddenly in October, crofters start wanting to sell their lambs and to export them to the Scottish mainland. We need extra capacity in our ferries at that time. A bit more joined-up thinking in Government, wherever that is, would allow us to put food policy at the heart of Government and Government strategy. In that way, there would be a win for us all.