Food Price Inflation

Baroness Keeley Excerpts

Thursday 19th May 2022 Commons Chamber

[George Eustice]

The reality, as I have said, is that the changes in global commodity prices are being driven by the high price of gas and energy. As I pointed out earlier, the cost of fertiliser, which is one of the key drivers of those international commodity prices, has now fallen by 40% from its peak in March, and is now running at about £620 a tonne. If fertiliser prices remain at that level, or indeed continue to fall, we are likely to see pressure come off the forward prices of international commodities.

[Barbara Keeley (Worsley and Eccles South) (Lab)]

I want to share with the Secretary of State the experiences of my constituent Rebecca, who is a single mum expecting her second baby soon. She said she reached out to me in “desperation and fear”,

and she told me:

“The cost of living has shot through the roof, it is unaffordable and I am having to make some pretty desperate decisions. My weekly shop amount has already jumped from under £50 per week to £75 a week… I am finding it virtually impossible to buy the necessary equipment for my baby’s impending arrival.”

How can the Secretary of State expect Rebecca and millions like her to struggle with tax increases and soaring inflation with no additional support? What is he going to do and what are the Government going to do to ease this pressure on families, which Rebecca tells me is now making her “fearful for the future”?

[George Eustice]

As I acknowledged in the statement, it is undoubtable that rising energy bills have affected household incomes, because people are paying more money on their gas and electric. Food prices have indeed risen—but across the year, with the rate currently at about 6.5%. Of course, we all have constituents with such challenges in their lives, and we all work with them. The Government have put in place the household support fund specifically to help those who fall between the cracks and cannot get support elsewhere, and we have doubled the size of that fund.

Cost of Living and Food Insecurity

Baroness Keeley Excerpts

Tuesday 8th February 2022 Commons Chamber

[Barbara Keeley (Worsley and Eccles South) (Lab)]

Last year, I spoke about one of my constituents who was fearful that the Government’s cutting the universal credit uplift would mean that they had to choose between heating and eating. They lost £80 a month due to that Government cut, and their energy prices had already risen by £95 a month. That was in November, but the outlook is even more bleak now and we hear more and more often of that choice between heating and eating. The next few months will see too many people already under great stress plunged beneath the poverty line. Inflation is set to rise at almost double the rate of benefits, which means that the Chancellor’s support package will not protect those most at risk of hardship.

I have a family in my constituency who receive universal credit, who are subject to the benefit cap and who already have rent arrears. The mother has told me that she is really struggling to pay her bills and is finding it difficult to feed her five children. The financial pressures mean a continued strain on her mental health and wellbeing. Every week, I and my team deal with so many cases like that.

A year ago, I joined a small group of people in Salford, along with my hon. Friend the Member for Salford and Eccles (Rebecca Long Bailey), who wanted to find a way to give additional support to local families in need. Led by Antony Edkins, who has been a headteacher in my constituency, we set up the Salford Families in need Meal Project. Across the year, we have raised funds to enable a food club to be run every week in partnership with the social food charity, the Bread and Butter Thing. Our food distribution hub, run at Barton Moss Primary School in my constituency every Wednesday, provides a bridge between food bought from supermarkets and the crisis food given out by food banks. The families in my constituency who use the food distribution hub are among the 20,000 people across the north who now get affordable food distributed by the Bread and Butter Thing. Membership of that charity has grown by 270% in the past year, which shows just how much the levels of food insecurity have increased.

A report from the cross-party think-tank Demos says that the Government are failing to ensure that there are longer-term interventions to help people move out of food insecurity. Families in food insecurity can also have need for other types of help. Mark Game of the Bread and Butter Thing said:

“it’s about so much more than food. People need access to healthy, nutritious, affordable food within an ecosystem of local services providing employment, mental health, debt counselling, housing support and more.”

That range of needs was underlined by Victoria Unsworth, the local primary school headteacher, who helps run the food distribution hub in my constituency, when she said this to me recently:

“I cannot begin to tell you how, in the last few weeks, the need has increased. We have families with food shortages, removal from houses, living in houses with no toiletries, no heating, no electricity…parents splitting up, homeless. These are just the ones we know of.”

It is shameful that the Government are forcing people into these conditions. Families are breaking apart. How can the Government talk of levelling up when this is happening on their watch?

This cost of living crisis will have an impact on health, as we have heard earlier in this debate. Not being warm enough and not having enough food have consequences for our health, both physically and mentally. The Government have said that they want to reduce inequalities in healthy life expectancy, but that is impossible when 1 million adults go whole days without eating, and 9% of the population are experiencing food insecurity.

Today, the Manchester Evening News focuses on the fact that, for the first baby born in 2022 at a Bolton hospital whose family live in my constituency, life expectancy will be more than 10 years less than it is for a child living in a more affluent suburb in the south of England. The paper quite rightly says to the Government on behalf of those babies born in Salford and other northern cities in 2022, “Don’t leave us Behind”.

Environment Bill

Baroness Keeley Excerpts

Report stage & Report stage: House of Commons
Tuesday 26th January 2021 Commons Chamber

[Barbara Keeley (Worsley and Eccles South) (Lab) [V]]

I speak in support of amendments 21 and 28, tabled by the hon. Members for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) and for Gloucester (Richard Graham). I thank the Ramblers and other campaign groups that are supporting the amendments and campaigning to promote public access to nature.

The amendments have a simple purpose: to extend the Bill from just protecting nature to ensuring that we can all access nature. The lockdowns and restrictions of the past year have shown us how important it is for people to have access to high-quality outside space. Although we have all been staying at home to protect the NHS, getting out for regular exercise, whether walking, cycling or running, has been vital to protecting people’s mental health.

The use of outside space is to be encouraged after the pandemic, not written off as a temporary phase, but that will mean protecting and expanding green spaces in our cities and supporting and encouraging people to get out into the countryside. As it stands, the Bill allows the Government to set targets for promoting access to nature, which is welcome, but I am concerned that that may end up as a low priority, and we should not allow that to happen.

The amendments would guarantee that future Governments had to take action to protect our access to nature. They would ensure that nature was available to more people, not just those who can afford to access it. We need that to change, because there are already serious inequalities in access to open spaces. Only 57% of adults in the UK live within a five-minute walk of green space, whether a park, field or canal path, but even that disappointing headline figure hides significant further inequalities.

Only two in five people from black and other minority ethnic communities say that they can walk to a green space within five minutes. Adults with a household income below £15,000 are twice as likely to say that they cannot access green space as those with a household income of £70,000. One in four people in my local area of Salford is in that first income band. People in the most deprived areas of England tend to have the poorest health and significantly less green space than those in wealthier areas. We need to do much more to ensure that access to nature is equitable for everyone.

Can the Minister confirm that the Government will set targets for public access to nature, and that they will include widening access to ensure that more people are able to enjoy it? Such targets are only the first step. We will also need concerted action, such as subsidies to farmers to promote access over their land, and the promotion of public transport links from inner-city areas to green, open spaces and the countryside. Without such action and clear targets to prompt it, there remains a danger that access to nature will continue to be denied to many people, so I urge the Government to accept the amendments.

[Ben Everitt (Milton Keynes North) (Con)]

Before the hon. Member for Vauxhall (Florence Eshalomi) gave her contribution over video link, I thought I would be the only Member to speak without tabling a new clause or amendment. The truth is that I actually quite like this Bill—it is a good Bill. It feels like we are having a good day at the office. That does not mean that we should not be debating it, of course, and that is what I am here to do.

Chiefly, I am disappointed by the delay. Climate change is obviously the biggest, most strategic threat that we face as a country and a planet. We have the tactical immediate threat of coronavirus, of course. It is unfortunate, but understandable, that the legislative timetable split. Like my right hon. Friend the Member for Ludlow (Philip Dunne), I remain confident that the Bill will return in the next Session. I seek assurances from the Minister that my colleagues still have that ambition and enthusiasm to make sure that these changes become law.