UK Food Shortages

Desmond Swayne Excerpts

Thursday 23rd February 2023 Commons Chamber

[Dr Coffey]

I think I set out pretty clearly what is going on right now. [Hon. Members: “Nothing is going on!”] It sounds to me as if the shadow Secretary of State has abandoned the agricultural transition plan, which conflicts with what the Leader of the Opposition said the other day. That is interesting: we are seeing a Labour split already, within 48 hours. I am slightly surprised that the hon. Gentleman is trying to play politics with such a serious situation.

The House should bear in mind some of the support that has been provided, such as the changes that we made to the avian influenza compensation scheme. It is true that the number of hens fell by about 4 million last year, but there are still between 36 million and 38 million laying hens in this country. It is important that we continue to have that discussion.

The retailers have had a pretty reliable supply chain, but what has happened in southern Spain and Morocco is unusual, which is why we need a resilient farming industry and a resilient supply chain. [Interruption.] I hear someone mention greenhouses. We are seeing the industry evolve, but I am not aware that any greenhouse owner benefits from any basic payment scheme. The energy bill relief scheme continues to be available to various parts of the sector, although I am aware that that will not necessarily be the case from April onwards, and that there may be a significant reduction.

I think the hon. Gentleman needs to be careful when it comes to the question of ensuring that we retain confidence in the food supply chain. Supermarkets have decided to stop a lot of the buying so that everyone still has access to enough fruit and vegetables. I am led to believe by my officials, following discussions with the industry and with retailers, that this situation will last for another two to four weeks. We must try to ensure that there are alternative sourcing options, which is why the Department has had those discussions with retailers, and there will be further discussions led by Ministers so that we can try to get over this and to avoid similar situations in the future. Even if we cannot control the weather, we can and must try to ensure that the supply is not frustrated in quite the way it has been owing to these unusual weather incidents.

[Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)]

If only I had been told before I voted for Brexit that it was going to cause frosts in Morocco, I could have made a different decision—couldn’t I?

[Dr Coffey]

One of the joys of being the Secretary of State for this Department is having the environment and agriculture in the same portfolio, which leads us to take a sensible, careful, long-term approach to considering the factors that can help both our farming sector and the environment. We took that approach when designing the environmental land management schemes, and we are now on a careful journey as we move people away from a very rigid element of what was the basic payment scheme under the common agricultural policy, when more than half the subsidy went to just 10% of the farmers in this country. [Interruption.]

The hon. Member for Cambridge (Daniel Zeichner) wanted to go back into the European Union, I believe. That decision was made by all the EU countries, so he clearly does not know his history or know anything about the CAP. What he should be doing—unlike the shadow Secretary of State, who now seems to be undermining the environmental land management schemes—is recognising some of the initiatives we have been funding, the various grants we have provided, and the way in which we have tackled, for instance, tariffs on imports. It is by adopting approaches of that sort that we can help our farming industry.

Importantly, the retailers are working to provide alternative sourcing so that those restrictions on consumer consumption will not be in place for much longer.