Oral Answers to Questions

Huw Irranca-Davies Excerpts

Thursday 13th February 2014 Commons Chamber

[George Eustice]

My right hon. Friend highlights an important point, which is that this issue around food banks touches on many different Government Departments. It is why, at the debate before Christmas, my hon. Friend in the Cabinet Office responded to that report. My right hon. Friend is right that a number of Government Departments have a role in this matter, but, focusing on the bit that is relevant to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, it is important to recognise that food price inflation is now falling. It was 1.9% in December, and that was below the average level of inflation, and food is now 4.8% cheaper in the UK than in France, 14% cheaper than in Germany and 18% cheaper than in Ireland. On food prices, the UK is in a better position than most other European countries.

[Huw Irranca-Davies (Ogmore) (Lab)]

That is extraordinary complacency. In December, a group of doctors and leading academics from the Medical Research Council wrote to the British Medical Journal with concerns over the surge in the numbers of people requiring emergency food aid, the decrease in the calorific intake of families and the doubling of malnutrition cases presenting at English hospitals. The Government are presiding over a national scandal in public health as well as a failure of social economic policy. When will the Minister publish that delayed report on food aid? Publish and be damned!

[George Eustice]

Let us look at the facts on food price affordability. In 2008, the poorest 20% of households were spending 16.8% of household income on food. In 2012, they were spending 16.6%, so the truth is that the poorest households are spending roughly the same amount of their household income now as they were under the previous Government. The Government have a number of projects to help them. Through the healthy start scheme, the Government are providing a nutritional safety net in a way that encourages healthy eating, which has helped more than half a million pregnant women and children under four years old who are disadvantaged and come from households on very low incomes. We also have a number of other projects under way.