Oral Answers to Questions
Emma Lewell-Buck Excerpts(7 years ago)
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George Eustice
We have a strong dairy industry in this country, and there are lots of opportunities of that nature. We have established the food innovation networks, and we have the agritech fund and a number of other funds to support innovative product development of that kind.
Mrs Emma Lewell-Buck (South Shields) (Lab)
The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (George Eustice)
Energy prices and exchange rates are the key drivers of change in agricultural commodity markets, and they affect all the countries in the world, irrespective of whether they are members of the EU. Following the sharp spike in food prices in 2008, they levelled off in 2014 and fell by about 7% over the following two years. In the past year, they have seen a modest increase of about 1.3%.
Mrs Lewell-Buck
I thank the Minister for his response, but the fact is that the Office for National Statistics is reporting a surge in food prices that is likely to continue. Children are returning to school hungry after the Easter holidays and elderly people are being admitted to hospital malnourished, but still the Government refuse to measure hunger and food poverty levels in this country properly. Is it not the case that they refuse to measure those things because if they did so, they would have to admit some culpability?
George Eustice
No, the hon. Lady is wrong; we do measure them. We have the long-standing living costs and food survey, which has run for many years and which includes a measure for household spending among the poorest 20% of households. I can tell her that household spending in those poorest households has remained steady at around 16% for at least a decade.
Oral Answers to Questions
Emma Lewell-Buck Excerpts(7 years, 3 months ago)
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Mrs Emma Lewell-Buck (South Shields) (Lab)
The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (George Eustice)
We have a well-established living costs and food survey, which has been running for many years and which informs our “Family Food” publication. It includes questions on household spend on food, including that of the lowest 20% of income households. This figure has remained reasonably stable, at around 16%, for many years.
Mrs Lewell-Buck
May I congratulate you, Mr Speaker, because I believe it is your birthday? Happy birthday, Mr Speaker—I hope you have a good’un!
I thank the Minister for his response, but he knows as well as I do that that is simply not good enough. An estimated 8.4 million people in Britain live in food-insecure households. There have been repeated calls from me, the all-party group on hunger, the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, the Food Foundation, Sustain and Oxfam for the Government to adopt a household food-insecurity measurement. Why will the Government not just admit that the fact is that their resistance to introducing such a measurement is because once they have admitted the scale of hunger, they will have to do something about it and admit that it is largely caused by their punitive welfare reform policies?
George Eustice
I, too, add the best wishes of Government Members to you on your birthday, Mr Speaker. I understand that it is also the birthday of the House of Commons Chaplain, Rose. I am sure we will all want to add our best wishes to her, too.
I fundamentally disagree with the hon. Lady. This Government have got more people back into work than ever before, and the best way to tackle poverty is to help people off benefits and get them into work. In the LCFS, which has been running for many years, we have an established measure of how much the lowest-income households are spending on food. It is a consistent measure and we are able to benchmark changes year on year. As I said, that has been very stable: it was 16% when the Labour party was in power and it is 16% now.
Dr Coffey
I read it from cover to cover on the day it came out, as is appropriate for a Minister in serving the needs of the House. I can honestly say that our intention is to bring environmental legislation into law on the day that we leave the European Union. As a consequence, we see no need for any future legislation at this stage.
Mrs Emma Lewell-Buck (South Shields) (Lab)
The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Andrea Leadsom)
I would like to place on record my sincere thanks for the commitment and hard work of the military, Environment Agency staff, local councils, volunteers and the emergency services during last weekend’s tidal surge. While a small number of properties were flooded, more than half a million homes and businesses were protected from flooding along the east coast as a result of their efforts. I am sure the whole House would like to join me in expressing our gratitude.
Mrs Lewell-Buck
The consumer prices index is at the highest it has been for over two and half years, largely driven by rising food prices. Since the Government stubbornly refuse to measure and act on levels of food poverty, what will the Secretary of State do for the millions of people her Government have ignored for years now who cannot afford to eat?
Andrea Leadsom
Food prices are steady and have been reducing. There is a very recent small uptick, but generally food inflation has been low. As the Minister of State, my hon. Friend the Member for Camborne and Redruth (George Eustice), explained to the hon. Lady earlier, we do monitor the levels of expenditure on food very closely.
Household Food Insecurity
Emma Lewell-Buck Excerpts(7 years, 5 months ago)
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Mrs Emma Lewell-Buck (South Shields) (Lab)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered household food insecurity measurement in the UK.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gapes. Back in 2014, I said in this House:
“People are going hungry, and, with each passing day of this terrible excuse for a Government, more and more are falling into poverty, with little or no chance of escape. There are no second chances in Britain today. Food poverty is a clear consequence of the Government’s ideological assault on the social safety net and the people who rely on it. One hungry person is a complete disgrace, but thousands of hungry people are a national disaster.”—[Official Report, 12 December 2014; Vol. 589, c. 1500.]
That was one of many speeches I have made in this House about hunger and food poverty, and I have to say that I am getting increasingly fed up with the Government’s inaction. It is estimated that 8.4 million people in Britain now live in households affected by food insecurity, which means that millions of people in Britain—one of the wealthiest countries in the world—are hungry and malnourished.
The Government need to measure and to begin to tackle household food insecurity. Such action is long overdue. Food-insecure households lack reliable access to a sufficient quantity of food, yet there has been no national measurement of household food insecurity in the UK for more than 10 years.
Ms Margaret Ritchie (South Down) (SDLP)
I congratulate the hon. Lady on securing this important debate. Is she aware that the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, of which she is a former member, is currently conducting an inquiry into food waste? It is concentrating not on household waste but on food waste that is discarded by the producer because it does not fit the requirements of either the retailer or the processor. Does she agree that such food waste could help those who are suffering from food poverty?
Mrs Lewell-Buck
I am aware of the EFRA Committee’s inquiry, and it would be good for the Government to back the Food Waste (Reduction) Bill of my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy).
Although we have national statistics on how much households have spent on food and on individuals’ dietary intake, those data cannot tell us exactly how many households in the UK are unable to feed themselves adequately.
Ruth Smeeth (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Lab)
I thank my hon. Friend for securing such a vital debate. Does she agree that the rate of the problem is not constant throughout the year: there are peaks and troughs? Some families struggle in the run-up to Christmas and during school holidays because their children do not go to breakfast clubs or receive free school meals. If there is no additional support from the Government, the issue of holiday hunger will become more prevalent. Parents have to find the money for an additional 10 meals per week per child to ensure that their children are not malnourished.
Mrs Lewell-Buck
My hon. Friend is correct: holiday hunger is a scourge on this country. In a former life, I was a child protection social worker, and families used to say to me that school time was the only time their children could be guaranteed a healthy meal. They dreaded holidays. My colleagues and I often had to do shops for those families to feed them.
David Simpson (Upper Bann) (DUP)
I congratulate the hon. Lady on securing this debate. She started off by giving the Government a very hard time. I am not a spokesman for the Conservatives but, in 1996—20 years ago—the United Nations decided that it would eradicate food insecurity. What has it done since then?
Mrs Lewell-Buck
Unfortunately, I am not here to speak on behalf of the United Nations, but all the statistics show that the situation has got worse in the United Kingdom since 2010. Prior to that, we had the odd soup kitchen, and food banks were unheard of. Now, we can hear people in every street in every constituency talking about food banks and people who are going hungry.
Food insecurity has a terrible impact on households. Parents are unable to afford to feed their children nutritionally balanced meals, as my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Ruth Smeeth) said, which breeds a sense of shame, stress, anxiety and social isolation. Severely food-insecure adults and children go whole days without eating in this day and age, simply because they lack money. People are living on the bread line—in fact, many are living below it. Recent research from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation shows that people are going from just being hungry—as if that was not bad enough—to living in destitution. They lack clothing, toiletries and heating, and for many homelessness is becoming a reality.
Recently, a woman called my constituency office in desperate need of help after having problems with her benefits. She had no money for gas or electricity, and no food to feed herself and her four young children, all of whom are under 10 years of age. She was alone and unable to leave her home to get to the nearest food bank, which in any case was closed. Even if she had been able to leave her home, she did not have the necessary funds for public transport. In the end, my staff contacted one of the many food bank volunteers in Shields and managed to get food delivered to her and her children. If they had not been able to pick up and deliver that food, that family would have endured the further pain of starvation.
That is one of the everyday experiences that are being documented in food banks, GP offices, classrooms and charities across the country. I am sure that all my colleagues hear similar stories day in and day out from their constituents. When the all-party group on hunger, of which I am a member, travelled the country in 2014, we found that the overriding reason why people visited food banks was the Government’s punitive welfare regime and incessant use of sanctions. The recent debacle with Concentrix shows that the Government’s response to those who are most in need has not changed: they are simply not bothered about them.
All those personal tragedies point to a permanent scarring of life chances. Demonstrable links can be found between food insecurity and educational performance. Children’s intellectual and physical development is damaged by each episode of food insecurity that they experience. The physical and mental health impacts of food insecurity affect the entire economy. Evidence from Canada suggests that the healthcare costs of people who have experienced episodes of severe food insecurity are 121% higher. For those reasons, there is growing consensus among not only Members of Parliament but academics and civil society organisations that the Government should initiate a programme of regular and robust monitoring of food insecurity prevalence so that we can establish precisely the magnitude of the problem, identify which groups are at the greatest risk and properly target resources at prevention.
Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)
I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate. This is a very important issue. She is right to say that the Government have a responsibility to count the numbers so we can have a strategic response. In the meantime, we have to recognise the wonderful work that food banks do—she mentioned her own, and Slough food bank is brilliant—to plug the gap. Civil society is doing its best; it is time for the Government to step up, too.
Ruth Smeeth
An extraordinary feature of the debate is that other countries, which we consider allies, already view this as a state responsibility. In the United States, for example, to tackle holiday hunger, there is a federal programme, which has been federally funded—there has been no research—for more than 50 years. That is part of the country’s normal engagement. Feeding one’s citizens is definitely regarded as a Government responsibility. Does my hon. Friend agree that our Government need to open their eyes and look at things in the round, because not only people on benefits, but the working poor are struggling to feed their families?
Mrs Lewell-Buck
I agree. The very least that any Government can do is to ensure that people in their country are fed and cared for when other parts of the state have let them down.
Our best estimates suggest that 500,000 different people received food assistance from the Trussell Trust, the UK’s largest network of emergency food aid providers, in 2014-15. However, many, indeed most food-insecure people choose not to access emergency food aid, and not all food banks are Trussell Trust ones. New preliminary data from Gallup World Poll suggest that 8.4 million people—17 times the number accessing Trussell Trust aid—lived in food-insecure households in 2014. Those data were gathered through the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation food insecurity experience scale, which is an internationally validated tool for measurement of household food insecurity. It showed that we ranked in the bottom half of European countries for protecting our population from food insecurity and hunger.
Unfortunately, the survey through which those data were collected had a national sample of only 1,000 households and did not collect detailed information on respondents’ characteristics. We therefore do not know who is worst affected. What is more, the FAO does not intend to fund that survey beyond 2016. Instead, it will encourage states to produce national measures in their own routine national surveys. That includes us. If we did so, we would be able to track our progress on implementing the global sustainable development goals—to which the UK has said it is committed—intended to end hunger and ensure universal access to safe, nutritious food by 2030.
On 29 November, the Office for National Statistics was due to launch a consultation to establish what metrics should be incorporated into national statistics to track our progress on the goals. The consultation has now been delayed indefinitely. We should, however, move forward swiftly and decisively with such vital monitoring. It would put us in step with other nations, such as the USA and Canada, which regularly monitor prevalence rates, with the data collected playing a game-changing role in creating effective prevention strategies.
Ruth Smeeth
We heard an extraordinary story about food poverty in the run-up to this year’s Olympics in Brazil, which has made access to food a human right and, therefore, has provided access to food not only for children and the most vulnerable, but for everyone—from the poorest to the wealthiest. It has done so from an economic position that is nowhere near as positive as our own.
Mrs Lewell-Buck
Our country is lagging behind. Our response to the crisis is embarrassing, and things have never been more pressing. Only last week we heard that the number of hospital beds in England alone taken up by patients being treated for malnutrition almost trebled over 10 years. Malnutrition is a complex condition, but food insecurity adds a significant risk. The prevalence of both may well increase if left unchecked in the coming years.
Mark Durkan (Foyle) (SDLP)
I commend the hon. Lady for securing this important debate. The experience of the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 and the Autism Act 2009, for example, is that the core initiative is to ensure an obligation on the state, or parts of the state, to know the numbers and to identify the needs. Essentially, that is what she is calling for in this debate. That has to happen not only at a UK level, but at regional and local level because, in relation to holiday hunger, school holidays vary in length in different parts of the UK.
Mrs Lewell-Buck
I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. Later in my speech I will outline to the Minister how easy it is to introduce such a measure and how little it would cost.
The drop in the value of sterling as a result of Brexit uncertainties means that food prices will start to rise—by between 5% and 8% in the coming year, according to the Food and Drink Federation—and that will place even further pressure on households struggling to put food on the table. On average, healthier food costs two and a half times as much as food high in fat, salt and sugar, and people who experience food insecurity often cut back first on healthy, perishable and more expensive fruit and vegetables.
Proposals for measurement have received a considerable amount of support in the UK. In January 2015, my colleagues and I on the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee recommended that the Government should collect statistically robust data on the scale of household food insecurity. The APPG on hunger has recommended measuring and monitoring food insecurity. The Administrations of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are starting work on the development of metrics for each of the devolved nations. A UK-wide picture of the nature of food insecurity, however, could not be formed without applying a standard measurement tool in all four nations.
Securing a commitment to measurement from the Government has, however, proved immensely difficult. That is despite the interventions of the APPG and of the EFRA Committee, debates and questions in the House, and the work of organisations such as the Food Foundation, Sustain and Oxfam, which have consistently brought the data gap to the attention of officials in a variety of Departments.
The data gap could easily be closed through inserting a short list of questions into an existing annual survey instrument, such as the living costs and food survey or the national health surveys. The marginal cost is estimated to be between £50,000 and £75,000 per year. Surely it is worth the Government investing that small sum to address one of the biggest scandals of our time.
The UN food insecurity experience scale, and the United States Department of Agriculture’s household food security module from which it was adapted, have been rigorously designed and tested to measure the inability of households to access food. One of those tools could be inserted seamlessly into a UK research programme. Each of the international scales involves asking respondents a series of questions about their ability to access sufficient quality and quantity of food over the preceding 12 months.
I therefore urge this House to move towards annual measurement of food insecurity using an internationally recognised survey tool, beginning in 2017. The Government cannot continue to bury their heads in the sand when this is one of the biggest scandals of the past six years. They should be ashamed that hunger has grown on their watch and they should be doing all they can to stop such a grotesque blight on our society.
We are at grave risk of accepting food poverty and inequality as a normal part of society. Due to Government inaction and erosion of the welfare state, the safety net that once existed, which used to aid people who fell through it through no fault of their own when they fell on difficult times, has been stripped away. The gap is being filled by a range of charities and faith groups, and it should embarrass and shame the Minister and all his colleagues that they have sat back and allowed others to deal with this heart-breaking disaster of, at times, their very own creation.
Is that not the crux of the matter? In truth, the longer the Government refuse to measure the problem, the longer they do not have to acknowledge the scale of it and the longer they do not have to do anything about it. That is a huge dereliction of duty. They are more than happy to allow charities and the likes of the Trussell Trust to do their job for them, which is to care for children, families and vulnerable individuals who are not able to meet the most basic human requirement to feed themselves. It is telling that, when the Trussell Trust first published its shocking statistics about the scale of the problem, some on the Government Benches denounced those figures as distorted, rather than focusing on the shocking fact that food banks exist on such a scale at all.
As I speak, in my constituency, there will be a mother wondering how she is going to feed herself and her toddler today, schoolchildren struggling to focus because their stomachs are rumbling, parents who yet again skipped breakfast to ensure that their children did not have to, families searching their cupboards for what is left and elderly people who are unable to access fresh food. But that is not just the case in my constituency; it is the situation in constituencies and homes across the UK. It really is time that this Government got a grip on this problem. They must start by collating the data that they need to address it. As I have outlined, implementing measurement is not an insurmountable or costly challenge, and this Government owe it to every man, woman and child who woke up hungry this morning and will go to bed hungry tonight, in one of the richest countries in the world, to do so.
George Eustice
I very much agree with the hon. Gentleman. He will be aware that the Department for Education launched the school food plan two or three years ago. Hardwired into that, as well as giving schools quite specific criteria about the type of healthy and nutritious food they should have as part of their school meals, was the idea that all schoolchildren should visit a farm, so that they can see how their food is produced and understand the connection with that food production. There was also the idea that primary school children should be taught to prepare a basic food dish, so that they get used to managing and handling food. That means that they know where their food comes from and how to handle it. I very much agree with the hon. Gentleman that that is an important point.
The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has recently consulted on all of its statistical surveys. For each Office for National Statistics survey, including the living costs and food survey, there is a steering group that also includes representation from the devolved Administrations.
As we all know, the best route out of poverty is to have a job or to find employment. It is important to note that employment is now at a record high, at more than 74.5%, and that the number of people in work has actually gone up by 461,000 this year, to record levels. I recognise that in many constituencies, including my own, the issue is not so much worklessness as low pay. That is why the Government are increasing the national living wage to £7.50 from April 2017—and we have made clear that we intend to increase it further. We need to tackle low income, and we have outlined our plans to do so.
Mrs Lewell-Buck
Will the Government actually check and enforce that the national living wage is being paid? Their record on that is woeful; a lot of places do not pay the national living wage and the Government are just not interested.
George Eustice
It is not a DEFRA role to enforce that particular area, but I am sure that the Low Pay Commission and other parts of Government will look seriously at the points the hon. Lady raises. Payment of the national living wage is a legal requirement, and it is enforced.
George Eustice
The hon. Lady is right that it is not that at the same rate as the national living wage, but we have made great progress in recent years in tackling youth unemployment and helping people to get their first job in life. I actually think there is a distinction between those over the age of 25, who have been in work for some time, and those who may be trying their first job.
Not everybody is in work, and it is often said that late benefit payments or sanctions are a contributing factor in increased food bank use. It is worth noting that even the Trussell Trust’s report suggested that, based on its assessments, sanctions accounted for about 5% to 10% of the increased use of food banks. They do not account for all of it on their own.
When it comes to late payments, 90% of jobseeker’s allowance claims are now paid on time and within the 10-day limit, while nearly 89% of employment and support allowance claims are also paid within that timeframe, which is considerably better than in 2009-10. Indeed, the timeliness of payments has improved by about 23%. The Government have also responded to concerns over occasions when people have their payments delayed by introducing short-term benefit advances. Those are now being quite actively publicised in jobcentres, and they can be paid to people the very next day.
It is important to note that the use of sanctions has fallen sharply. Indeed, they are down by half for both JSA and ESA claimants in the year to March 2016. The Government have introduced the concept of mandatory considerations on sanctions so that we can deal with disputes more quickly. The truth is that we need some kind of sanctions in the benefit system for it to be fair and equitable. Staff at my local jobcentre are clear that they use sanctions as only a last resort. Even when they believe sanctions are justified, they have to be cleared by somebody up the line completely unconnected to the case in question. Often, the recommendation that there should be a sanction is not upheld. Huge progress has been made on sanctions. We have responded to some of the points that people have made, and, as I said, their use has halved in recent years.
Mrs Lewell-Buck
I am listening carefully to what the Minister is saying about sanctions. The head of the National Audit Office recently said that
“there is more to do in…reducing them further”.
Does the Minister disagree?
George Eustice
I have not seen that particular report, but I make the point to the hon. Lady that the number of sanctions halving in one year is, I believe, a dramatic change to what has gone previously. As I said, I believe that having some sort of sanctions is crucial if we are to have a fair benefits system. We cannot have a fair system if there is no kind of penalty or sanctions for those who do not abide by their obligation to seek work.
A number of hon. Members mentioned food waste, which is an important issue. There is always going to be some surplus food in any food chain. We have the Waste and Resources Action Programme and the Courtauld commitments, which aim to reduce food waste. WRAP’s research from 2015 showed that 47,000 tonnes of food—the equivalent of 90 million meals—was redistributed to help feed people. In the hierarchy of recycling, making sure that food does not go to waste in the first place, and is used to feed people, is our key aim. I commend and applaud the great work that organisations such as FareShare and FoodCycle do to help unwanted food from places such as supermarkets go towards helping local communities.
We have had an interesting debate, and again I commend the food banks in our constituencies for all their good work. We have a lot of statistical measures of poverty, and when it comes to the affordability of food, the long-standing metric of household expenditure on food is the most reliable and consistent indicator we have. I am therefore not persuaded at the moment that we need an additional set of questions along the lines that hon. Members have outlined. I take issue with those who say that we have ignored some of these issues. Indeed, huge progress has been made on sanctions, getting people into work, raising wage levels and ensuring that good food is recycled to those who need it.
Mrs Lewell-Buck
I thank all hon. Members for their contributions. It is always good to hear from the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) and my neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for North Tyneside (Mary Glindon), who spoke from the Front Bench today.
It is no surprise that the Minister disagrees with my analysis, but would it not have made a nice, refreshing change if he and his Government had held their hands up and admitted that their experiment with the welfare state has left an enduring and growing scar on this country? Food banks moving on to helping people with housing and all the other issues that have been referred to is yet another example of agencies and charities filling a gap left by his Government. They should not be doing that work—those are the basic tenets of government.
The nub of the debate is not food prices, as the Minister said. It is the fact that his Government’s policies have led to hunger and poverty on a massive scale and that they are refusing to measure it, despite there having been no national measurement for 10 years. He referred briefly to benefit sanctions and said he was not aware of the NAO report I mentioned. To be clear, 400,000 sanctions were imposed last year, despite there being limited evidence of their being justified, leading to “hardship, hunger and depression”. I suggest he goes and reads that report carefully.
George Eustice
It may be that we should exchange notes after the debate, but in the year to March 2016, there were 219,000 JSA sanctions, which was down from 497,000 in the same period in the previous year.
Mrs Lewell-Buck
The figures I am quoting are from November this year, when the report came out, so perhaps we should share notes.
It is a real shame that the Minister is out of step with everybody else on this. He is out of step with the cross-party APPG, the cross-party Select Committee, the Food Foundation, Sustain and Oxfam, which have all worked tirelessly on this issue. It is a real shame that he has not got the guts to press his Government to introduce a national measurement of household food insecurity. It would cost only up to £75,000 a year. That is considerably less than his annual salary and a little less than the salaries of most people in this House. I will not detain the House any longer, because I am getting angry, and I am upset.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered household food insecurity measurement in the UK.
Oral Answers to Questions
Emma Lewell-Buck Excerpts(8 years, 10 months ago)
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Elizabeth Truss
I am a bit surprised to hear the hon. Lady talk about her side of the House, given that this has always been a free vote matter that is up to the conscience of individual Members. I have made it very clear that I support repeal of the Hunting Act and would vote on that basis, but I recognise that Members need to make their own decisions on the issue, so I am surprised to hear that the vote would be whipped by the Labour party.
Mrs Emma Lewell-Buck (South Shields) (Lab)
5. What steps she is taking to invest in flood defences.
The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Elizabeth Truss)
Flood defences are an absolute priority for this Government. We are spending £2.3 billion on more than 1,500 schemes over the next six years, which will help us reduce flood risk to our country by 5%.
Mrs Lewell-Buck
I thank the Secretary of State for her response, but the reality is that in the last Parliament the Government promised £3.1 million of investment to reduce flood risk in my constituency, but figures published by the Environment Agency show that only £1 million of funding has been granted. Can the Secretary of State confirm which schemes will not go ahead and why the Government are failing to deliver on their commitment to manage flood risk?
Elizabeth Truss
Seven schemes in the hon. Lady’s constituency have now been identified within the six-year programme between now and 2020-21, with a total investment value of £4.3 million. We are also raising money from partnership funding and the private sector, which enables us to protect more homes and more communities.
Food Security
Emma Lewell-Buck Excerpts(9 years, 5 months ago)
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Mrs Emma Lewell-Buck (South Shields) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hood, and to follow our very knowledgeable Select Committee Chair, the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Miss McIntosh), and my hon. Friend the Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Jim Fitzpatrick), who is also a fount of knowledge on all things farming and environmental.
I am grateful to have the opportunity to speak in today’s debate. The Committee’s food security inquiry was wide-ranging and there are a number of important points to discuss. In fact, once the inquiry was under way, we quickly realised that there are so many issues at play in this debate that considering them all within one report would be a huge task, so we decided to split the report into two parts. Today we are discussing issues around food supply, but I hope that we will also have an opportunity to debate the second report once it is published.
As a member of the all-party inquiry into hunger and food poverty, I have taken part in a number of evidence sessions and visits this year, speaking to food bank charities and to those people who rely on food aid. That aspect of food security is vital to understanding the full picture, since those people are the ones most affected by changing food prices.
As our inquiry heard, falling incomes, benefit cuts and a cruel sanctions regime imposed by this Government are leaving more people at the mercy of rising living costs. It is also fair to say that general public awareness about how we source our food is higher than it has been for some time, not only because of the rise in food poverty and the attention that that has received in the press, but because of the horsemeat scandal and the review by Professor Elliott that followed.
I will make a few points about that review, since it was published after our Committee’s report. It highlighted the lack of co-ordination between different bodies on food fraud, and the confusion of responsibilities when the scandal first came to the public’s attention. The creation of a new cross-departmental committee and the new food crime unit are designed to address that situation. However, as Professor Elliott said in his evidence to the Committee last week, it is essential that that unit has the resources that it needs, and that there are systems in place to ensure that it can co-operate fully with our police forces.
Professor Elliott also stressed the need to clarify the responsibilities of the Food Standards Agency and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, although he stopped short of repeating his interim recommendation that food authenticity be brought under the FSA’s remit. That disappointed many people, including Labour Members. It is true that, as the professor told us in his evidence, this point had become politicised, but I would argue that it was politicised even at the time of his interim report, and I would not be surprised to learn that Government pressure had something to do with the changes in the final report.
However, there are also positives to take from the final report. Professor Elliott reports significant improvements in the way that both the industry and local authorities inspect food. He also reported on a positive change of culture that has made food safety and authenticity a higher priority at all levels, from Government right down to the consumer. Those changes are all very welcome. Before the horsemeat scandal, food safety and authenticity were not issues that were high on many people’s list of priorities. That is not the case any more, and there is a genuine will out there to tackle these issues. What is important now is to make sure that we have the resources and the infrastructure that are necessary to monitor food fraud effectively. Our Committee made clear recommendations about the need to maintain capacity in public laboratories. I hope that, in his response to the debate, the Minister can explain briefly what action the Government are taking in this area.
I now turn back to the Committee’s food security report. It was surprising that the Government did not accept the case for appointing a food security co-ordinator with clear responsibility for food security. If we apply the lessons of the horsemeat scandal, we can see that this kind of leadership really matters. If nobody has clear responsibility for food security, it is likely to become a secondary concern, at least until something goes wrong. Having such a co-ordinator is particularly important when it comes to food security because, as our Committee has seen, the food security picture is incredibly complex, with a huge number of factors affecting both supply and demand. Food security is not something that we can address in a piecemeal way. It needs a joined-up approach that runs throughout our environmental, trade and science policy. I hope that, in his response, the Minister can go into a bit more detail on why the Government did not feel it was necessary to appoint a dedicated co-ordinator for food security policy.
Another point I wanted to raise briefly was about climate change and resilience. Last winter’s floods showed the damaging effects of extreme weather, and although much of the media coverage focused on residential areas, agriculture was a big victim too. As the climate continues to change, the risk to farmers will increase, and that is why our Committee has called for DEFRA to reconsider the way it allocates resources for flood management, so that farmland does not lose out to residential areas when it comes to flood protection.
We know that climate change is happening. Just this morning, it was reported that the impact of flooding is likely to be four times higher in the next century than it is now, so we can anticipate the kind of challenges that we will face in future. Last winter was the warmest in centuries, and it is predicted that what is currently a one-in-20-year rainfall event will be happening every 10 years by 2050.
The emergency funding that the Government provided after last winter’s floods did a lot of good, but we should not just wait for extreme weather to come along and then pay for the damage. We need the Government to be proactive in strengthening our flood defences. That is why I remain concerned that funding for flood defence has gone backwards under this Government, receiving a boost only after the events of last winter. Until that wake-up call, funding for flood protection had been cut by nearly £100 million per year. The Committee on Climate Change has warned that the Government’s spending plans will mean that an extra 330,000 properties will be at risk of flooding by 2035.
We also need to recognise that, whatever action we take to protect our harvest, extreme weather abroad can have a dramatic effect on food prices and our food supply. We also have to be aware that rising temperatures globally mean that some farmers will see their yields decrease at a time when global population is increasing, which means there is even more pressure on our food supply. In a globalised food system, it is impossible to escape the effects of climate change, which underlines just how important reducing emissions and mitigating the effects of extreme weather will be to our security in the decades to come.
This Government need to show that they have a serious, joined-up plan for the future of Britain’s food supply. The last Labour Administration had such a plan. That is why this Government’s decision to scrap Labour’s Food 2030 strategy causes concern. The Government’s willingness to compromise long-term goals, such as improving our flood defences and tackling climate change, in the name of short-term savings will create problems for our food supply in the future. I hope that this report and this debate will encourage the Government to take a more strategic and long-term view on food security. Appointing a food security co-ordinator, as the Committee recommended, would have been a start.
As I mentioned, the Committee had originally planned to publish a single report on food security, before the complexity of the issue made it clear that a single inquiry could not do the topic justice. However, this means that the House has the opportunity to discuss in much greater detail the factors that contribute to our food security, which I think all Members will welcome. I look forward to the Minister’s response to this debate, and to debating the second part of the inquiry with my hon. Friends next year.
Huw Irranca-Davies
Yes, indeed. My hon. Friend is right. The project was so well worked-up and had the most wide-ranging group of stakeholders possible, from farmers, distributors, retailers, producers, non-governmental organisations: everybody was involved. There were disagreements—that was a tricky enterprise to embark upon and to get agreement on—but, my goodness, there was agreement that that was the right way forward. I will compliment the Government on some good initiatives, but they are not a substitute for that real, coherent, cross-sectoral, binding strategy that says that we are serious about food security, nutrition for children, international development issues and climate change. We would say strongly to the Minister that, if he introduced his own version of a strategy that looked like that—Food 2050, perhaps—we would support him in doing that. However, it needs to bind together all these critical things, because if we get it right for schoolchildren and local supply chains, and so on, it will also be good for producers in the UK. I will mention that in a moment.
It is unarguable that food security is now an imperative, globally and for individual nations, including the UK. As such, it is worth reminding ourselves that food security was defined by the world food summit way back in 1996 as existing
“when all people at all times have access to sufficient, safe, nutritious food to maintain a healthy and active life”.
It was redefined subsequently by the United Nations food and agriculture committee to include, rightly,
“dietary needs and food preferences”.
That definition remains sound, but the context has changed, not least in the scale and urgency of the challenges, summed up so well by Professor John Beddington in 2009, at a sustainable development conference, when he described the
“perfect storm”
that was coming:
“Our food reserves are at a 50 year low, but by 2030 we need to be producing 50% more food. At the same time, we will need 50% more energy, and 30% more fresh water."
This was reinforced by the Foresight report, “The Future of Food and Farming”, led by Professor Beddington, which Professor Tim Benton of the university of Leeds drew upon when he told the Committee in evidence that
“Wars are likely to happen”
in the competition for land and water and scarce resources.
The Enough Food for Everyone IF campaign, which ended earlier this year, brought together more than 200 organisations campaigning to end global hunger. Interestingly, they focused not simply on the efficient production and distribution of food, but on aid, land, tax and transparency. Food security, as my hon. Friend the Member for South Shields mentioned, is complex and international, but it is very personal for the 3 million children who die of malnutrition each year, in this modern world, or the 1 billion who go to bed hungry every night.
Here at home in the UK, we have seen the hugely accelerated growth in food banks and other types of food aid. I do not want to dwell on this, but I want to state two simple facts, which are both unarguable. Fact one: there has long been volunteer-led informal food aid in this country, going years back, in the shape of the distribution of emergency food, kitchens, and so on. The leading food bank organisation, the Trussell Trust, was providing just over 40,000 allocations of three-day emergency food packages in 2009-10, under the previous Labour Government. It has been there; it was there. That is a fact. However, the second fact is that last year the Trussell Trust provided over 913,000 three-day emergency food allocations. That is, by my rough calculation—and I am not great on maths—a twenty-two-fold increase.
Last February, a much-delayed report commissioned by DEFRA itself into the growth in food aid in the UK found that food aid providers ascribed the food insecurity to problems that have led to sudden reduction in household income, such as job losses, problems associated with social security payments and ongoing underpinning circumstances, such as continual low household income and indebtedness that can no longer support purchase of sufficient food to meet household needs. This analysis has been reinforced by many other analyses of this growing poverty and cost-of-living crisis.
Mrs Lewell-Buck
Is my hon. Friend aware that there has been a 60% increase in sanctions since welfare reform, as we heard in the all-party group on hunger and food poverty, and that is driving people, out of necessity and in their hundreds, to food banks?
Huw Irranca-Davies
Yes, indeed, and that illustrates the point that there is no simple international or domestic solution to food security and related food insecurity; it is very much a function not simply of food production and distribution and waste, but of social and economic policy. That is why we need to get the whole package right, including welfare reforms. Certainly, in my constituency of Ogmore, the delays following the move to personal independence payments mean that, out of a population of some 60,000 on the electoral register—mine is a relatively small constituency—I have 920 cases waiting for PIP outcomes at the moment, with delays in payment, assessment, and so on. So getting this right is a real issue.
I mention that because, as we debate this useful report, it is worth reminding ourselves of two important points arising from food security at home and overseas. First, the causes of food insecurity are many and complex and so are the solutions, involving wider social and economic solutions, as well as food production, storage, distribution, and so on.
Secondly, food insecurity is not an abstract construct, but a deeply personal matter that can devastate lives, families, communities and even nations. It is in our gift as policy makers to fashion adequate responses and on that note, I turn to the report and the Government response.
We note that the Committee and the Government draw on much that was achieved or initiated under the previous Labour Government and my hon. Friend the Member for Poplar and Limehouse. The comprehensive food security analysis in 2009, which the Select Committee report refers to, bolstered such groundbreaking work as the Food Matters strategy and the Foresight report on land use and how to resolve conflicts on land use, which were drawn together in the landmark Food 2030 strategy. That strategy was being worked up into detailed action plans when we left government. Simply put, it was the most ambitious, comprehensive approach to food strategy, taking in not only food security domestically and globally, but diet and nutrition, climate change and carbon reduction, land-use conflict and resolution and so much more. It looked at how we can encourage people to eat a healthy, sustainable diet; ensure a resilient, profitable and competitive food system; increase food production sustainably; reduce the food system’s greenhouse gas emissions; reduce, re-use and reprocess waste within the sector; and increase the impact of skills, knowledge, research and technology. It brought all that together in a streamlined, joined-up way of thinking across Government, industry and non-governmental organisations.
The industry, NGOs and others are still asking why the Government scrapped that strategy and retreated into government by silos, with DEFRA doing its things on food production, the Department of Health doing its things and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office doing its things. What happened to the cross-Government, cross-sectoral working?
However, there have been some welcome developments. The green food project was good and well-intentioned, but even participants in it described it as too narrow and under-resourced, and it eventually ran into the sand. People were looking for what came next. The Foresight report, “The Future of Food and Farming”, adds usefully to the field of knowledge and to previous Foresight reports, including its “Land Use Futures” report under Labour.
The groceries code adjudicator, which was referred to by the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton, is a step forward in ensuring fair play in parts of the supply chain and had cross-party support, although we are still curious about why the Government resisted attempts by Labour and others, from all parties and all sectors, to strengthen the Bill with financial penalties until the Government were backed against the wall and facing defeat in Committee. As the hon. Lady asked, where does the GCA go now?
The fruit and vegetable taskforce action plan, which aims to increase the production and consumption of fresh fruit and vegetables in the UK, is commendable and recognises the huge potential of the sector to benefit the economy and health and well-being. It builds on the work of the previous Labour Government, who established—I think it was under my hon. Friend the Member for Poplar and Limehouse—the fruit and vegetable taskforce. I am getting a little worried that I am praising him too much.
The agri-tech strategy is welcome, as it applies that collaborative approach to innovation and research and development across industry, academia, NGOs and Government. That was pioneered by Labour in such programmes as the marine science strategy. The agri-technology strategy needs to ensure that productivity gains and genuine environmental sustainability are simultaneously achieved and that there is full buy-in, not only from the UK, but from global partners—that is the nature of the beast—but it is the right approach. We are glad to see the Government taking forward and building on some of the pioneering achievements of the previous Labour Government, to help build food security and to introduce some logical additional programmes to help deliver some of the wider benefits of a sustainable and resilient food sector, but their piecemeal and disjointed approach is not a substitute for a coherent cross-Government, cross-sectoral plan of action. I am delighted that that point was echoed today by Government and Opposition Members in their different views.
I will ask the Minister some questions that arise directly from this Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee report—this is part one of two—and on which the Government response is still unclear. Specifically, does he believe that the increased costs, including the environmental costs, and the global demand for meat protein mean that we will consume less but higher-quality meat in the future? If so, how do we get there? Does he believe that UK farming is increasingly vulnerable to the rising costs of animal feed, and what is he doing to bring forward specific measures to deal with that? That might involve alternative modes of farming.
What measures can the Minister take to extend the access of food producers, including small farmers, to the highest quality of meteorological prediction as part of our climate change adaptation programme? Does he agree that horticulture has the greatest potential to improve diets, boost food production sustainably and create employment? If so, what more can the Government do to accelerate growth in the sector? What specific measures does he have to promote social enterprises in horticultural growing and food distribution and in local food networks, as well as to promote greater links among people, communities and the food we eat and grow? What measureable, tangible progress has been made on increasing the production and consumption of fruit and vegetables since 2010 and on the taskforce established under Labour?
In the light of the decision by EU Environment Ministers to enable member-state decision making on genetically modified organisms within an EU framework, when will the first commercial applications for GM cultivation in the UK take place and for what products? Why, if the Government agree that pillar two is the better use of common agricultural policy money than pillar one, as they state in their response to the Select Committee report, did they retreat from that position and not ensure 15% modulation? Why, if they see direct payments to farmers under pillar one as an ineffective use of public money and a distortion of the market, did they see fit to place no additional demands on innovation, farm entry, public benefits or environmental benefits on the largest recipients of direct payments, who receive in excess of £150,000 a year or even £300,000 a year? Over the last couple of years, the Government have appeared in statements from the very top of DEFRA to be a little gung-ho in their advocacy of GM. How will the Minister take forward a balanced argument to the public, based on science and evidence, robust safety controls and labelling for consumer transparency?
Those are just some of the questions, and I suspect we will have to return to them in future debates. I thank the Select Committee for a well-informed and excellently argued first part of a two-part contribution to this essential debate on food security. I thank all members of the Committee for their expertise and for asking questions, as well as proposing some possible answers. We look forward to the second part of their report, where we can examine other issues in more detail, just as we now look forward to the Minister’s response.
Oral Answers to Questions
Emma Lewell-Buck Excerpts(9 years, 11 months ago)
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George Eustice
That is an important point and we must ensure that dog owners are aware of those proposals. We are working with veterinary practices across the country to ensure that they know about them and are passing the information on to dog owners. We will also run a communications exercise in the press to raise the issue.
Mrs Emma Lewell-Buck (South Shields) (Lab)
3. What steps the Government have taken to respond to recent flooding.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Dan Rogerson)
The Government have committed more than £560 million in support of those affected by the recent flooding. That includes an extra £270 million to repair and maintain critical defences that were damaged in the winter storms, targeted help for households through the repair and renew grant and council tax relief, and help for farmers and fishermen with funding for repairs through existing schemes. We have also provided businesses with business rate relief and a £10 million hardship fund.
Mrs Lewell-Buck
I thank the Minister for his response. Despite the lessons of this winter, the Environment Agency is still set to lose hundreds of front-line staff because of DEFRA budget cuts. The agency’s chief executive has admitted that that will mean fewer resources for maintenance work. Does the Minister think it is responsible to cut the agency’s resources at a time when flood risk is increasing?
Dan Rogerson
The Secretary of State and I work closely with the Environment Agency and talk to it about its key responsibilities. I met the chief executive yesterday to discuss issues of waste crime, and so on. He was clear that front-line vital services provided by the agency are protected, and it will use the expertise of more than 10,000 staff who will be in place throughout this year to do their work. They do a fine job.
Oral Answers to Questions
Emma Lewell-Buck Excerpts(10 years, 1 month ago)
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Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)
1. What steps he is taking to reduce the effect of rises in water bills on the cost of living.
Mrs Emma Lewell-Buck (South Shields) (Lab)
7. What steps he is taking to reduce the effect of rises in water bills on the cost of living.
Mr Paterson
We believe this is an issue that should be decided locally by local companies consulting local consumers, and I am very pleased at the progress being made by companies in the current review.
Mrs Lewell-Buck
The WaterSure scheme helps vulnerable households to pay their water bills, so will the Minister explain why he did not support Labour’s amendments to the Water Bill, which would have made information about WaterSure prominent on customers’ bills?
Mr Paterson
We are absolutely clear that this issue should be decided locally by local companies. There is already a huge amount of information on bills, and there is a limit to the amount that can be given on one particular document.
Water Bill
Emma Lewell-Buck Excerpts(10 years, 5 months ago)
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Mrs Emma Lewell-Buck (South Shields) (Lab)
The Bill does not excite people or generate much interest outside the House. Right hon. and hon. Members who have been involved in previous debates on this issue have shown that they have a depth of knowledge that spans time frames that go back much longer than I have been in the House. However, my constituents have concerns about their rising water bills, and because of their worries and sleepless nights, I am speaking in this debate.
The Bill provides an opportunity to introduce measures to help those who are struggling to pay their water bills and measures to toughen the regulatory regime under Ofwat. In announcing the draft Bill, the previous Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Meriden (Mrs Spelman), said that it would ensure
“that the water industry continues to provide an affordable and clean water supply”.
Earlier this month, a spokesperson for No. 10 said that the Prime Minister takes the price of household bills seriously:
“The Prime Minister wants to see household costs across the piece being reduced as low as possible. The intention is to try to reduce the burdens on hard-pressed families.”
It is therefore reasonable to ask why the Bill delivers so little for those people. It will not help families who are faced with rising water costs; nor will it empower Ofwat to become the champion for the consumer that it needs to be.
For those who, like me, are new to Parliament, I will remind the House of some of the history of water affordability. The only time when water charges have been reduced was under the last Labour Government. The average water bill in my constituency is now £359 per year and has increased nationally by almost 50% since privatisation was introduced by the Conservative Government in 1989. At the same time, regional water companies made £1.9 billion profit last year. I and my colleagues in the Labour party have been campaigning hard on energy prices, but the situation with water bills is no better—indeed, some would say that it is worse.
Although households spend less on water as a flat figure, the proportion of a water bill that goes towards company profits is three times higher than for an energy bill. As with energy prices, the rising cost of water far outstrips both earnings and inflation. Water is a natural resource; it is essentially free; and it is essential for our survival. Management of that natural resource therefore needs to be conducted with some kind of social responsibility.
During a cost of living crisis, affordability must be the absolute priority, and the Bill must do more to ensure that water companies’ profits are not put before the needs of consumers. The coalition agreement clearly stated that the Government would
“examine the conclusions of the Cave and Walker Reviews, and reform the water industry to ensure more efficient use of water and the protection of poorer households”.
That is one statement that they have not been able to delete.
In 2009, the Consumer Council for Water stated that
“many low income customers continue to pay their water bills even where it becomes unaffordable to do so”.
It claimed that people tend to
“cut back on water usage or sacrifice other essentials such as food or heating in order to ensure their bill is paid”.
The problem now in my constituency is that people are already cutting back on food, heating and water. Since the Government continue to legislate in a way that exacerbates poverty, what are my constituents supposed to do? What should they cut back on next—fresh air perhaps? They have nowhere left to go.
Miss McIntosh
I am following the hon. Lady’s contribution with great interest, and she is a leading member of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee. Water, however, is not free. Drinking water must be processed, as must the foul water that comes from every home. I hope that she will take the opportunity to go to a waste water treatment plant and see the full gamut of where a lot of the costs come from.
Mrs Lewell-Buck
I thank the hon. Lady for that intervention and I will take up that offer. I was being glib when I said that water is free. I meant that to most people, including my constituents, water falls from the sky and is therefore free, but I understand the hon. Lady’s point.
People in my constituency are clear in the knowledge that water bills are likely to rise in the future due to a growing population, climate change, the replacement of water infrastructure and additional environmental standards. Under the previous Labour Government, the Walker review, which was published in 2009, advocated affordability and made a number of recommendations to ensure that water remains affordable for all. Two years later, the current Government published a consultation on those proposals and rejected universal discounts, which they cited as “unaffordable”, for people on low incomes and minimum discounts for low-income households with children. Instead, the Government opted for WaterSure and social tariffs, and repeated that intention in the “Water for Life” White Paper.
WaterSure intends to cut costs for households that have a water meter and more than three children under 19 years old and that claim a range of benefits including council tax benefit, housing benefit and employment and support allowance. The scheme ensures that those families pay only the average for their region, so adding approximately 40p to the bills of those customers not on the scheme. Water Direct is another scheme whereby the Department for Work and Pensions subtracts money from the benefits of those who are in debt to their regional water company and sends it direct to that water company. What is not clear, however, is how such schemes are likely to be affected by the introduction of universal credit, and that creates uncertainty for a number of families.
Social tariffs allow water companies to develop tariffs in consultation with customers, with the intention of helping the most vulnerable. However, the Government’s implementation of those tariffs falls a long way short of dealing with the scale of the problem. In evidence to the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, the Consumer Council for Water estimated that to “effectively address the problem” of affordability would cost anywhere between £162 million and £447 million. The Walker review’s estimate was £340 million, yet it predicted that social tariffs would generate only £36 million a year, adding that that was
“significantly short of what is needed to address affordability”.
Even that limited impact may not be felt in the majority of regions.
Rather than take strong action to ensure that companies have a duty of affordability, the Government introduced tariffs on a voluntary basis from April this year. So far, only three companies have taken that up. Northumbrian Water—my local provider—certainly found little appetite among customers for the implementation of a social tariff. That is hardly surprising when so many people are already struggling to afford bills with stagnating wages. In constituencies such as mine, such a tariff would make water less affordable for even more people.
It is no surprise that the Government’s light-touch solutions have done little to help consumers. Citizens Advice has expressed disappointment that the Government’s guidance for social tariffs is “lacking in detail” and that water companies have been given freedom to ignore it completely with little or no justification. It is no coincidence that Citizens Advice has reported increasing numbers of people coming to it with inquiries about water debt. It is not only Citizens Advice that recognises the problem. This afternoon, I spoke with Northumbrian Water, which is anticipating a rise in debt over the next year, linked to the severity of public sector cuts in our region. It now works closely with Citizens Advice, recognising that if someone is struggling with their water bill, they are likely to be struggling with other bills as well. In short, it is a wider problem than just water bills—it is a cost of living crisis.
The Government clearly do not recognise the need for decisive action. Last week at DEFRA questions, the Secretary of State said that he had written to water companies, calling on them to consider the pressure on household incomes and advising that the Government encourage water companies to introduce social tariffs. As Secretary of State, should he not be doing more than just encouraging and advising? Is simply writing to the water companies the best he can do?
The United Nations recognises water as a basic human right that should be
“available, accessible, safe, acceptable and affordable for all without discrimination”.
Why then are the Government not committed to ensuring just that—that water is affordable for all?
Oral Answers to Questions
Emma Lewell-Buck Excerpts(10 years, 7 months ago)
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Mr Paterson
Policing issues are not for me. There will be legitimate protests because we live in a democracy and we respect that, but there is a grey line and we do not support obstruction of a policy that was endorsed by both parties in opposition and in government and has been endorsed by this House.
Mrs Emma Lewell-Buck (South Shields) (Lab)
3. What timetable he has set for the completion of the England coastal path.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Dan Rogerson)
We have not set a timetable for completion of the English coastal path. We will be implementing coastal access step by step by tailoring the amount of activity to the resources available. Natural England is currently working on a programme to deliver coastal access on a number of stretches of the English coast.
Mrs Lewell-Buck
At a cost of £1 per metre, the coastal path represents excellent value for money. However, the Minister’s predecessor showed little enthusiasm for the project, leading to fears that it would be shelved. Will the Minister confirm that the coastal path budget will be protected during deliberations on the Department’s future spending, and give a date for final completion?
Dan Rogerson
I thank the hon. Lady for her question: it was a pleasure to serve alongside her briefly on the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee following her election. The key issue for us is pushing forward this project, but we have to be honest about the fact that we are in a time of restricted resources. We must therefore be efficient in working with landowners and others to streamline the process and to deliver the coastal access that everyone in the House would like to see.