Food Security

Deidre Brock Excerpts

Thursday 31st March 2022 Westminster Hall

[Deidre Brock (Edinburgh North and Leith) (SNP)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered food security.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone. I thank the Backbench Business Committee for recognising the importance of food security and allowing this debate. A debate on food security was needed before the crisis in Ukraine, and it is even more urgent now. Before I turn to issues of food security in the UK, I want to address the situation in Ukraine, which remains absolutely critical.

Our immediate focus must be on doing everything possible to support the people of Ukraine and address their humanitarian needs. Russia’s brutal war is now into its second month. The United Nations World Food Programme estimates that at least 30% of the Ukrainian population is in dire need of lifesaving food assistance, and early data indicates that 90% of the people remaining in the country could face extreme poverty, should the war deepen even further.

Of course, the humanitarian emergency does not end in Ukraine. We urgently need to get to grips with the real threat of a global food shortage. Russia and Ukraine are ranked among the top three global exporters of wheat, maize, rapeseed, sunflower seeds, sunflower oil and fertiliser. There were already food shortages in parts of north and east Africa, which sourced almost of all of its imported wheat from those two countries.

Ukraine is also the single biggest supplier of food to the World Food Programme, which might be forced to cut distribution in places such as Yemen, Chad and Niger, while taking on the feeding of millions of hungry people in and around Ukraine. According to WFP officials, all of that points to 2022 being a year of catastrophic hunger. Without urgent funding, the programme’s director predicts a hell on earth in some of the most impoverished regions in the world, potentially resulting in famine and destabilisation in parts of Africa and the middle east, as well as mass migration.

The scale of the crisis cannot be understated, so I am eager to hear any indications at all from the Minister of how the UK Government are preparing for such a global security emergency.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

There is another thing that exacerbates the issue. If the Ukrainians are to put the harvest in, they have 10 days from now to do it. That focuses attention on where the problems are.

[Deidre Brock]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. That point very much sharpens our minds.

An immediate reversal of the cut to foreign aid might be an obvious first step to help with all of this, but we need to go even further if we are to prevent the hell on earth that the UN has warned of. At the same time we need to examine how best we safeguard domestic food security by supporting our farmers, producers and consumers while continuing to uphold our commitments to sustainable, nature-friendly food production. Even before the war in Ukraine and the sanctions on Russia, our farmers faced a tidal wave of costs for fertiliser, fuel, energy, seed and feed.

The price of fuel, which continues to play a critical role in UK food production and infrastructure, has risen even further as a result of the war, and farmers who were already warning of increasing fertiliser costs have seen the Russian invasion send prices rocketing even further. Yes, we need to reduce our reliance on artificial fertilisers, pesticides and fuel in food production and agriculture, and tackle the many challenges that, as Nature Friendly Farming reminds us, are the result of

“a global food system that is already in crisis”,

but the transition to sustainable, holistic food systems will not happen overnight.

Ministers recently suggested that there is enough manure and slurry to compensate for the fertiliser price increases, but that suggests a lack of understanding of what is actually happening on the ground. Are the Government considering securing the supply of fertiliser for UK farmers, at least in the short term, by subsidising costs and protecting the ability to produce the 40% of fertiliser produced domestically? I am interested in the Minister’s answer to that.

On top of that, as the National Farmers Union of Scotland and others have highlighted, grain price increases will impact on both the costs of livestock production and shop prices for consumers. The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs recently acknowledged that the price of wheat, which the pig and poultry sectors rely on heavily for feed, had already doubled since Russia’s invasion.

Meanwhile, with Ukrainian workers making up around 60% of seasonal agricultural staff, the war is compounding the existing labour crisis in the industry. The Scottish National party has asked repeatedly for immigration to be devolved to Scotland—so far to no avail—but at the very least we want to see immigration policy greatly overhauled, so that we can set up the humane and practical approach that, among other benefits, would see us attract the seasonal and permanent staff that our industries require. Agriculture was already suffering from post-Brexit shortages of such workers, as well as haulage drivers and processing staff. That was the message that the Scottish Affairs Committee heard loud and clear on our recent visit to horticulturists and soft fruit providers in Perthshire and near Dundee.

This all points to the great likelihood of reduced yields, with a knock-on impact on supply. I am already hearing of Angus farmers deciding not to plant wheat this year because the costs do not make it viable any more, and of others forced to reduce their livestock numbers. If that is repeated across the country, there will be far-reaching implications not just for farmers, but for food processors and manufacturers, and ultimately for prices in supermarkets.

Of course, millions of households across the UK were already struggling with soaring food bills long before the crisis in Ukraine. A 2018 report by the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation revealed that 2.2 million people in the UK were severely food-insecure—the highest reported rate in Europe—and the situation has worsened since the pandemic. The Food Foundation reports that the percentage of food-insecure households increased from around 7.5% pre covid to almost 11% by January 2022, affecting nearly 6 million adults and 2.5 million children. That is a national scandal and is set to intensify, with the Office for Budget Responsibility forecasting the biggest annual fall in living standards since records began in 1956. The Food and Drink Federation reminds us that February 2022 saw the highest rate of food inflation in a decade, with folk on the lowest incomes, who spend more of their household budget on food and fuel, hit the hardest, as seems to happen so often. Worryingly, the forecasts do not yet account for the possible effects of the conflict in Ukraine on food or other commodity prices. The FDF estimates that cost rises could take seven to 12 months to feed into consumer prices.

These cold, hard statistics reflect a bleak reality in which more and more households are indeed being forced to choose between eating and heating. Unbelievably in 2020s Britain, we are hearing of food bank users declining potatoes and root vegetables because they cannot afford to boil them, so it was disappointing that the Chancellor’s spring statement made what I have to describe as very little effort to grapple with food insecurity and poverty. The increase in cash in the household support fund is of course welcome, but I am afraid that it is nowhere near adequate. The Trussell Trust, the UK’s largest network of food banks, has warned that the failure to bring benefits in line with inflation will drive more people to emergency food parcels. The Chancellor protests that he cannot do everything to help the UK’s poorest households, but uprating benefits is one thing that he could do right now as a lifeline for some of our most vulnerable constituents, and I beg him to do something about it immediately.

Unfortunately, I have to say that the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions did not seem to recognise the link between the benefit system and food security. At a Work and Pensions Committee hearing last month, my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow South West (Chris Stephens) cited a 2018 study showing that the poorest tenth of English households would have to spend 74% of their disposable income if they followed the Government’s guidelines for a healthy diet, compared with just 6% for the wealthiest decile. The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions repeatedly opted not to respond to the points raised by my hon. Friend, deferring to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs on these issues.

I was therefore very pleased that the media reported last night that the Minister responding to us today would be chairing a crisis meeting this morning to discuss food prices and related issues. The Minister looks puzzled, but it was in The Guardian last night—I am sure she will be able to address that when she responds. We look forward to hearing more about that, and we certainly look forward to hearing about the outcomes and the actions that the Government will take to address the shocking reality of food poverty and inequality. Those in DEFRA really must work more closely on this issue with their counterparts in the Department for Work and Pensions. According to the Trussell Trust, 47% of people using food banks are indebted to DWP, and yet it has taken until this year to add questions related to food aid to the DWP’s family resources survey. That is a pretty sorry oversight. The response to the pandemic has shown that holistic, cross-departmental action can be mobilised when the moment calls. Given the scale of this crisis and the confluence of threats, we must see a similar approach taken to food security both domestically and internationally.

The Scottish Government issued a position statement on a human rights approach to tackling food insecurity in February 2021. In October, they began a consultation on a national plan to end the need for food banks; they have introduced the Good Food Nation (Scotland) Bill, which lays the foundation for Scotland to become a good food nation. I look forward to hearing from the Minister that there are similar levels of commitment to similar actions from the UK Government. I also look forward to hearing when their overdue response to the national food strategy can be expected. A Scottish food security and supply taskforce has been set up jointly; it will meet frequently over the coming weeks to identify and respond to disruption to food security and supply resulting from the war in Ukraine. I am interested to hear from the Minister whether an equivalent is being set up by the UK Government.

We really do need to prioritise self-sufficiency once again and support our farmers to sustainably maintain production levels. NFU Scotland and many others have also warned about the domestic impact of what many see as a laissez-faire approach to post-Brexit trade deals and importing cheap foods with lower environmental and animal welfare standards. We should be building resilience in domestic food production, not threatening it.

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

That point comes to the heart of the matter. With the rising import costs about which the hon. Lady has already spoken, there comes a danger of reduced productivity. That means that there is a gap in the market, which then stands to be filled by those cheaper imports. For that reason, this really is a moment of existential crisis for the UK’s agriculture industry. How does the hon. Lady think that can be avoided?

[Deidre Brock]

I am going to make some suggestions shortly, but we are hearing across a number of different organisations in agriculture and the agricultural industry sector that extra support for our farmers must be given—and given very soon.

[Mr Carmichael]

I promise that this is the last time that I shall intervene. Supermarkets have a crucial role in the setting of farm-gate prices. We have the Groceries Code Adjudicator, but it needs more teeth to do the job that we want it to do.

[Deidre Brock]

I absolutely agree with the right hon. Gentleman. NFUs across the UK have been calling for that for some time. It will be interesting to hear the Minister’s answer to that point. Another consequence of Brexit is that UK farmers will miss out on access to the EU’s proposed €1.5 billion fund to counter food insecurity. The SNP thinks that food security funds equivalent to what UK farmers would have received as part of the EU should be established immediately; that would certainly go towards helping some of the problems that farmers and agricultural industries are experiencing at the moment. The funds should be appropriately allocated to the different Governments of the four nations.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow South West pointed out yesterday to the Prime Minister, we must also make serious efforts to cut down on our food waste. Over 2 million tonnes of edible food is wasted on farms and in factories every year. There was a scheme introduced in 2019 to help farmers get food to charities and reach those in need; it was successful but its funding has not been renewed. I am hoping that the Government and the Minister will be able to give us some assurance that they are listening to the calls from Feeding Britain, Good Food Scotland and FareShare that those initiatives be continued.

Many of us have been warning about our food security for years, particularly in the face of Brexit. Frankly, it always seemed like we were being ignored. The crisis in Ukraine has dramatically thrust this issue centre stage. However, we have to remember that there were systemic issues both at home and abroad. We need to build resilience into the farming system for the long term, not lurch from one crisis to the next—as the Sustain alliance rightly says. I am fully aware that this is a very difficult balancing act for all Governments, but the thistle must be grasped. The consequences of failing to act are just too terrible to contemplate.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (in the Chair)]

The debate can last until 4.30 pm. There are seven Members seeking to contribute and I want to ensure that everybody gets in, so we will have a six-minute limit. I will call the Front-Bench spokespeople no later than 3.58 pm and the guideline limits are 10 minutes for the SNP, 10 minutes for Her Majesty’s Opposition, 10 minutes for the Minister and then Deidre Brock will have two or three minutes at the end to sum up the debate. So we have a six-minute limit straightaway. I call Neil Parish.

--- Later in debate ---

[Deidre Brock]

I would say this, but I think that was one of the best debates I have ever listened to. It was considered, intelligent and informed. Although I did not necessarily agree with everything that was said, broadly there is a consensus across this place that food security is an incredibly important issue that deserves to be more widely talked about in this place and across the UK.

I congratulate all those who took part in the debate—familiar faces or not. All the contributions were excellent and raised a lot of important points that I hope the Minister will take note of and take to heart when she undertakes further discussions on the subject and makes interventions. From more at-home production to fewer faceless and nameless suppliers, from setting targets for minimum domestic food production and food sovereignty to seeking a balance between rewilding projects and food production, and from the responsibilities that supermarkets must take on to the diversification of food production and the effects on our fishing communities, it really has been a very wide-ranging debate, as the Minister said.

I hear what the hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Luke Pollard) said about familiar faces at these debates, although I commend all Members for being here. It is the last day before recess, and I was actually very pleased at the turnout and thank everyone for coming along. However, I feel that the debate has barely scratched the surface. There is a lot more to be said about this issue, and many more people in this place need to be involved in this discussion and to become more aware of it.

I hope it is appropriate to say that I will be seeking to secure another debate on this issue with the Backbench Business Committee, and hopefully we can get it into the main Chamber so that we can open it up for further discussion—hopefully before the Secretary of State comes to talk to us about food security, and perhaps later in the autumn. I thank Members again for coming along today.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered food security.