Oral Answers to Questions

Chris Loder Excerpts

Thursday 10th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[George Eustice]

We have put in place a number of interventions to help people struggling with food affordability, particularly in lockdown and its aftermath. We continue to keep all these policies under review. We have the free school meals voucher system that ran, as the hon. Gentleman says, over the summer, and there are other measures that we have been working on with local authorities.

[Chris Loder (West Dorset) (Con)]

What steps his Department is taking to ensure that small farmers obtain a fair price from supermarkets for their produce. [R]

[The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (George Eustice)]

We want farmers to get a fair price for their produce, and the Government are committed to tackling the contractual unfairness that exists in the agrifood supply chain. Through the Agriculture Bill, we are seeking to strengthen the position of farmers by improving transparency in the supply chain, and there are new powers in the Bill to introduce statutory codes of contractual practice.

[Chris Loder]

I thank my right hon. Friend for his reply, but the supermarket Sainsbury’s is threatening to tear up the contracts of small dairy farmers in West Dorset that supply it with milk if they refuse to sell it a percentage of their calves. Does he agree that Sainsbury’s is abusing its dominant position, and will he support me in defending small farmers across the country from these predatory supermarkets?

[George Eustice]

I am happy to meet my hon. Friend to discuss this issue in more detail. We now have in place the groceries code adjudicator, which regulates the types of contracts that supermarkets can put in place and precludes certain practices, but through the Agriculture Bill, we can go further and stipulate further requirements in contracts in future.