Food and Farming: Supply Issues

Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville Excerpts

Thursday 20th January 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

This is an incredibly important part of our economy, particularly our rural economy. I am delighted that we have managed to get the addition of ornamental and other non-food-related measures as part of the seasonal worker scheme, and it is quite right that we do so. But we are reliant on the industry telling us in advance, as much as it can, about where it thinks the pressures will come from in the future. We have the ability to increase the £30,000 by another £10,000, and we want to encourage much more training in the sector.

[Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville (LD)]

My Lords, the national food strategy has met with criticism from ITV, which is keen to continue advertising fast, unhealthy food. Given the rise in obesity and diabetes, why are the Government not promoting local, healthily grown fruit and vegetables which can then go into the free school meals system, to both improve the health of our children and support our farmers?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

My Lords, we are. We want to encourage local food chains to operate more effectively; it is of course much healthier for the environment and the quality of the food is better. We want to disrupt highly centralised food chains where we can. We also want to make sure that we are encouraging as stable a food chain system as we can, because we rely on the just-in-time measures to get food from the field to the plate.