Government Food Strategy
Debate between George Eustice and Diana Johnson(1 year, 10 months ago)
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George Eustice
My hon. Friend highlights an important issue and I can assure him that we are not kicking it into the long grass. The soft drinks levy was indeed a tremendous success, but only because it was relatively easy to take sugar out of soft drinks, because it is only a sweetener and reformulation can be driven quite simply. With some other products, such as chocolate, cakes and so on, sugar is a different type of ingredient that is harder to reformulate and take out. Later this year, we are taking forward new point-of-sale restrictions on foods that are high in salt, fat or sugar. I can tell my hon. Friend that that is already driving reformulation and changes in retailer supply chains.
Dame Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)
May I press the Secretary of State on the issue of school food? Eighteen years ago, in 2004, Hull City Council pioneered free healthy school meals as a means of fighting food poverty, improving classroom attainment and tackling the problem of childhood poverty. The evidence is there that that works. If the Government accepted into the strategy the recommendation on that, it would help them fulfil their aims for healthy eating, easing the cost of living crisis and the levelling-up agenda. Will the Secretary of State think again about accepting the recommendation on free school meals?
George Eustice
We have to be mindful of some of the unintended consequences if we load too many of these things on to the universal credit system. As Members will know, one of the principles behind universal credit is its gradual, tapered withdrawal. If we have cliff-edge entitlements of that sort, that starts to undermine the principle that sits behind universal credit. Nevertheless, we recognise the value of free school meals—that is why we have always had them and why some changes were made permanent on 24 March. We are also more widely recognising the impact on households of the increase in energy costs, and that is why the Chancellor announced that package of measures two weeks ago.
Food Price Inflation
Debate between George Eustice and Diana Johnson(1 year, 11 months ago)
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George Eustice
Confidence among farmers to sow next year’s winter wheat crop and to continue to put down flocks of broiler chicken and so on really does matter. In the case of poultry and pigs, many of the contractual arrangements automatically pass on some of the costs—for instance, the costs of feed. With fertiliser prices easing down, I think we will see confidence returning, but my hon. Friend is absolutely right. In England we have chosen to bring forward 50% of the annual subsidy payment to July this year to help farmers with cash flow during a difficult time.
Dame Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)
Dennis Woods from Unity in Community in north Hull told me last week that demand at its food bank is soaring. This is a left-behind community, so donations are suffering, and every week the food bank’s stock is cleaned out. It seems to me that things will only get worse, so given that the Government are combining 1970s stagflation with attitudes from the 1870s about the working poor, what exactly will they do to help people in my constituency who are suffering from hunger and who cannot put food on their table?
George Eustice
As I said, we have doubled the funding in the household support fund, putting an extra £500 million into it to help the right hon. Member’s constituents and others. We also support food banks through projects such as FareShare.
Agricultural Transition Plan
Debate between George Eustice and Diana Johnson(3 years, 4 months ago)
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George Eustice
My hon. Friend makes an important point. We are looking at a number of different disciplines within regenerative farming, including methods such as mob grazing, the use of different types of leguminous nitrogen-fixing plant mix in grassland and reduced fertiliser use. If we manage grassland and soils correctly, they can be a really useful store of carbon and contribute to net zero.
Dame Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab) [V]
Food poverty in my Hull North constituency is already a huge issue. Will the Secretary of State guarantee that under the new agricultural transition policy we will not see higher food prices for working families who are only just managing?
George Eustice
We think that the policy will lead to stable food prices, but also to a situation in which we change the way we reward farmers. We will reward them not just for occupying land but for farming their land in a nature-sensitive way and a way that enhances animal welfare.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between George Eustice and Diana Johnson(3 years, 5 months ago)
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George Eustice
My hon. Friend and neighbour in Cornwall makes a very good point. As a fellow Cornish MP, of course I want to see the interests of the Cornish fishing industry prosper in the future. In many cases, we have had a profoundly unfair share of stocks in the Celtic sea, and that will now change.
Dame Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab) [V]
George Eustice
We are in discussions on this matter with ministerial colleagues in the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government. The hon. Lady will be aware that a planning Bill is coming forward, and one of the things we have already said we would like to do is strengthen the role of the Environment Agency as a statutory consultee on future planning developments.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between George Eustice and Diana Johnson(5 years, 3 months ago)
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Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)
The Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (George Eustice)
The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs continues to progress plans for our departure from the EU, including preparing a comprehensive set of statutory instruments under the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 to ensure we have a functioning statute book on day one. We are also progressing the Agriculture Bill and the Fisheries Bill, which have cleared Committee stage recently.
Diana Johnson
May I just say to the Minister that it is such a shame that his Government are not willing to rule out a no-deal scenario?
The EU pet travel scheme currently allows pet owners to travel between EU countries with their animals with minimal forward planning. That is especially important for guide dog owners. But the Government are now saying that, under a no-deal Brexit, guide dog owners will have to plan their travel at least four months in advance. This is totally unacceptable, so what are the Government doing to ensure that assistance dog owners do not see inferior travel arrangements in the event of a no-deal Brexit?
George Eustice
The guidance that the hon. Lady cites is obviously for a worst-case scenario, but the reality on pet travel schemes is that we would have the freedom to adopt a risk-based approach, and we would anticipate that the EU would do the same. We already have provisions with Norway, for instance, that enable a pet travel scheme to operate even though Norway is outside the European Union. We are in discussion with guide dog charities to address the issue.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between George Eustice and Diana Johnson(5 years, 6 months ago)
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George Eustice
I disagree with the hon. Gentleman. We still have free movement from the European Union at the moment, and most businesses are able to meet their labour needs from the EU. The pilot will be for non-EEA countries, and if it is successful, we shall be able to roll out a broader scheme.
Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between George Eustice and Diana Johnson(6 years ago)
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Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)
The Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (George Eustice)
On 19 March, the UK and the EU reached agreement on the nature and length of a transition period. Under the agreement, current fisheries rules will continue to apply until the end of 2020. However, in December 2020, we will negotiate fishing opportunities for 2021 as a third country and an independent coastal state outside the common fisheries policy.
Diana Johnson
The Secretary of State has admitted that the Government accepted a “sub-optimal outcome” for the UK’s fishing industry in the Brexit negotiations, although I think that people in Hull would call it something else. Can the Minister guarantee that, at the end of the transition period, our fishing rights will not be traded away for some other political or economic priority?
George Eustice
We have been absolutely clear that when we leave the European Union and at the end of the transition period, we will be an independent coastal state managing and controlling access to our own waters.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between George Eustice and Diana Johnson(9 years, 5 months ago)
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George Eustice
My hon. Friend has extended an invitation to me to visit the Isle of Wight. I look forward to a journey on the hovercraft—I think it is the last one we have operating in the UK—to meet his constituents. He has raised concerns about some of the proposed marine conservation zones around the Isle of Wight. I can assure him that socio-economic factors are taken into account when we assess MCZs, as set out in the 2009 Act. I hope to have the opportunity to visit the Isle of Wight in the months ahead.
Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)
4. What steps she is taking to ensure that communities affected by flooding recover.