Oral Answers to Questions Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDaniel Zeichner
Main Page: Daniel Zeichner (Labour - Cambridge)Department Debates - View all Daniel Zeichner's debates with the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
(2 years, 10 months ago)
Commons ChamberI believe I am meeting my hon. Friend to discuss stilton and other important cheeses this afternoon.
The national food strategy is a weighty tome, but Henry Dimbleby, who the Government commissioned to write it, is not a happy man. Last week, following the New Zealand trade deal, he told the Soil Association conference that,
“the Government has clearly rejected my advice.”
He also said:
“There is no point in creating a food and farming system here that looks after animals, sequesters carbon, and supports biodiversity, if overseas products on our shelves don’t do the same.”
I suspect that virtually everyone in the Chamber agrees with that—the Opposition certainly do. Can the Minister tell us her view and the Government’s view?
The hon. Gentleman will be glad to hear that my view and the Government’s view are entirely aligned. Henry Dimbleby’s report was a useful step in the development of the Government’s food strategy and we are grateful to him for the enormous amount of work that he put into it. As I said earlier, we will respond as a Government probably in the middle of January, which will be six months after the report was published. That is what we always said the timescale would be. There is a lot of work to do and it is a really important piece of work. It is genuinely a once-in-a-generation chance to try to put our food strategy on the right track for the future. I cannot give Members any spoilers now.