Asked by: Emma Lewell-Buck (Labour - South Shields)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, if he will publish the organisations and companies that received contracts from the Government to deliver food supplies to people considered clinically vulnerable during the covid-19 outbreak; and on what date each contract was entered into.
Answered by Victoria Prentis - Attorney General
Bidfood and Brakes both received Defra contracts to deliver food parcels to the clinically vulnerable. Contracts commenced on 27 March 2020 under letters of intent and formal contracts were signed on 24 April 2020.
Asked by: Emma Lewell-Buck (Labour - South Shields)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps his Department is taking to secure the food supply for key workers.
Answered by Victoria Prentis - Attorney General
The Government has well-established ways of working with the food industry during disruption to supply situations. Our retailers already have highly resilient supply chains and they have adapted quickly to these changes in demand to ensure people have the food and products they need. Food supply into and across the UK is resilient.
To help the industry to respond to this unprecedented demand we have introduced new measures to support businesses to keep food supply flowing on to shelves and into homes. These include temporary relaxation of competition laws to allow supermarkets to work together, extending delivery hours to supermarkets and flexing rules on drivers’ hours to allow a higher frequency of deliveries to stores to ensure shelves are being replenished more quickly.
Supermarkets are already protecting shopping time for certain key workers. For example, several supermarkets have priority shopping hours for NHS staff and social care workers. We remain in close contact with industry on how they can support keyworkers.
Asked by: Emma Lewell-Buck (Labour - South Shields)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how many people his Department estimates are in need of food assistance; and what proportion of those people (a) were vulnerable before the covid-19 outbreak and (b) are newly vulnerable.
Answered by Victoria Prentis - Attorney General
The Government has been and remains in close contact with representatives across the food supply chain and civil society to ensure that vulnerable groups have access to the food and products that they need.
We initially estimated that 1.5 million people would fall into the clinically extremely vulnerable group. We have put in place measures to ensure that those identified by the NHS as being extremely clinically vulnerable and who are without a support network of friends and family receive basic food and essential supplies when requested via the online NHS webportal or via the phone. Packages of essential supplies are being delivered across England within seven days of a request for support, as soon as their status as a shielded person is verified, and supermarkets are putting these customers at the front of the queue for online delivery slots.
Over 750,000 people across England signed up as NHS Volunteer Responders via the mobile app GoodSam. Over 600,000 volunteers have been verified as NHS Volunteer Responders via the Good Sam platform, and can now receive tasks to help those in their communities. These volunteers will help vulnerable people in England who are at most risk from coronavirus to stay well, including through shopping for vulnerable people for food and essential supplies.
We are working quickly to support people who do not fall into the category of being clinically vulnerable, but still need help getting essential food supplies. Government is working with industry, charities, other government departments and Devolved Administrations to ensure whatever support is needed is delivered in a coordinated and consistent manner. We welcome measures that supermarkets have put in place to support the elderly and other vulnerable groups.
We have been working closely with the third sector to understand the impacts the outbreak has had on food aid organisations, and how best to ensure that those who are financially vulnerable still have access to essential supplies. Food redistribution organisations across England are benefiting from £3.25 million of government funding to help them cut food waste and redistribute up to 14,000 tonnes of surplus stock.
Asked by: Emma Lewell-Buck (Labour - South Shields)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what plans she has to ensure that public services that (a) care homes, (b) schools, (c) hospitals and (d) prisons will have adequate supplies of food in the event that the UK leaves the EU without a deal.
Answered by Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park
We remain focused on ensuring our smooth and orderly withdrawal from the EU with a deal as soon as possible. As a responsible Government, for almost three years we have been undertaking extensive work to prepare for a no deal scenario and minimise disruption to ensure trade continues to operate smoothly from the day we leave.
The UK has a high degree of food security built on access to a range of sources, including strong domestic production and imports from other countries. This will not change whether we leave the EU with or without a deal. Defra, as the lead Government department for food supply, has long established relationships with industry, and we are working closely with key stakeholders to prepare for all scenarios.
Public sector food provision for specific sectors including hospitals, prisons, schools and care settings is led by the relevant Government departments. However, Defra has been working closely with lead departments (DfE, DHSC, MOJ, MOD) to support their contingency planning for food supply to public services. Defra is providing advice and support to these departments especially to support their engagement with the food industry. Lead Government departments are engaging with key suppliers for schools, hospitals and prisons to ensure the supply chain is prepared and supply is maintained.
Asked by: Emma Lewell-Buck (Labour - South Shields)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether the provisions of the Wild Animals in Circuses (No.2) Act 2019 applies to wild animals used in public parades.
Answered by Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park
The Wild Animals in Circuses Act 2019 prohibits the use of wild animals as part of a travelling circus in England. A wild animal is used in a travelling circus if the animal performs or is exhibited as part of the circus. The Government has committed to issue guidance covering, amongst other things, activities that it considers will and will not be prohibited by the Act.
Asked by: Emma Lewell-Buck (Labour - South Shields)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, with reference to the oral contribution of 4 March 2019 by the hon. Member for South Shields, Official Report, column 749, when he plans to make a statement on the Government's response to the Food Insecurity Bill.
Answered by David Rutley - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
The Honourable Member’s Bill is scheduled for Second Reading on Friday 22 March. It is not usual practice for the Government to make a statement on a Private Member’s Bill.
Asked by: Emma Lewell-Buck (Labour - South Shields)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, if he will include in his Department's Family Food publication the proportion of disposable income by household income decile required to follow the Eatwell Guide.
Answered by George Eustice
Under the Code of Practice for Official Statistics, departments are required to publish in full the results of official surveys, and the Family Food report and associated datasets fulfil this requirement. With a dataset as rich as Family Food there is a wide and substantial range of potential secondary analyses that could be produced with it, on its own or combined with other published official statistics data. The raw Family Food survey dataset, as well as many other government survey data, is made available on the UK Data Service to researchers wanting to carry out their own analysis. An Eatwell Guide analysis was recently produced by the Food Foundation in this way.
Asked by: Emma Lewell-Buck (Labour - South Shields)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, pursuant to the Answer of 6 July 2018 to Question 160764 on Food Poverty: Surveys, if he will establish annual national measurements of food insecurity.
Answered by David Rutley - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
The underlying causes of food insecurity are complex and multi-faceted and it is not possible or practical to try and measure it with a single indicator. There are however, several established data sources which measure the level of food security in the UK.
The biennial FSA “Food and You” survey asks questions on household food insecurity. The ONS Living Cost of Food Survey (LCFS) includes questions on household spend on food, including that of the lowest 20% income households. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), “Voices of the Hungry” project developed the Food Insecurity Experience Scale (FIES), which also collects data on household food security in up to 150 countries worldwide, including the UK via the Gallup World Poll
Defra officials will continue to engage with colleagues from ONS and other Government Departments on the range of work being undertaken to measure household food insecurity and address the underlying factors.
Asked by: Emma Lewell-Buck (Labour - South Shields)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, if he will hold discussions with the Food Standards Agency on the potential merits of including questions that relate to child food insecurity in the next Food and You Survey.
Answered by George Eustice
The Food and You survey is a Food Standards Agency (FSA) survey. Whilst the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs works very collaboratively with the FSA, it is ultimately an FSA decision regarding what questions to include in the survey.
Asked by: Emma Lewell-Buck (Labour - South Shields)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether his Department is taking steps to include a measure on household food insecurity in the new harmonised living costs and living conditions survey.
Answered by George Eustice
Defra sponsors the Family Food module of the Living Costs and Food Survey which collects information on expenditure and purchased quantities of food. There are currently no plans to commission further questions within this module, as an experiential indicator of household food insecurity (based on US Department of Agriculture methodology) is already included in the Food Standards Agency’s (FSA) Food and You survey. The results are published on the FSA website (https://www.food.gov.uk/science/research-reports/ssresearch/foodandyou).
The Office for National Statistics is currently reconfiguring its Household Finance Surveys (Living Costs and Food Survey, Survey of Living Conditions, Wealth and Assets Survey). This involves, in part, some questionnaire improvements and harmonisation around a core set of questions, covering demographics, economic activity, income, pensions, education, tenure and health amongst others. The individual surveys continue to focus on their particular areas of inquiry. This is part of a series of planned methodological improvements.