Food Security

Huw Irranca-Davies Excerpts

Thursday 27th November 2014 Westminster Hall

[Jim Fitzpatrick (Poplar and Limehouse) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mr Hood, and I am delighted to follow the Chair of the Select Committee on Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Miss McIntosh). She says that she represents one of the most rural constituencies, if not the most rural, in the country; I represent probably one of the most urban, with Canary Wharf in the south half and Tower Hamlets in the north. When I was appointed Minister at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, I was attacked in the Daily Mail and The Daily Telegraph as a veggie and a townie: “What does he know about the countryside?” Fortunately, the National Farmers Union was much more pragmatic and generous, and I think I can say that I built up a positive working relationship with it during my year in office. It is a pleasure to see the shadow Minister and the Minister in their places. I look forward to hearing their comments.

“Food security” conjures up three things for me: security of international supply, UK self-sufficiency, and the honesty and integrity of the food that we eat. The hon. Lady mentioned the reduction in the percentage of food produced in the UK. I do not think that that is a major problem. British farming should have opportunities and challenges to produce and sell more, but most important to feeding the nation is ensuring that international supply lines are strong and varied, and that our food has integrity. The horsemeat scandal has been mentioned, and I will return to it later. Internationally, hunger and death from starvation is still a major world scourge. There is food poverty within the UK as well, with a growing number of people dependent on food banks across the country.

Food security is not about self-sufficiency alone; it is about safeguarding against failing harvests, disease and climate change, all of which can disrupt supply. It is positive that the Government accept many of the recommendations from the EFRA Committee; there is much consensus about food, production and standards. If I may sound one discordant note, it is my disappointment that the Government dropped the Food 2030 strategy worked out by the last Government. It was well researched, science-based and evidence-led, and it was a medium to long-term map for how the UK could progress over the 20 years after it was produced. Obviously, however, the Government have their own programme to promote and follow.

I would like to mention two items before referring to some of the recommendations in the report; I do not intend to speak for very long. One is milk and dairy. The Committee is examining the issue in a short inquiry, and the all-party parliamentary group on dairy has been holding its own inquiry for the past three weeks, with two or three still to go. With world production at record levels, the price of milk is dropping, and Russian sanctions are affecting our ability to compete in the world market. Obviously, there is great concern in the dairy industry about the future of dairy, and it would be interesting if the Minister could comment on what the Government are doing to help the dairy sector get through this period of massive world production and difficulties with sanctions.

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

Does my hon. Friend agree that although retailers, distributors and processors have a duty to the bottom line, to shareholders and to consumers to put affordable milk and milk products on the shelves, they also have a duty to the integrity of the UK supply chain? Without the UK supply chain, they would not have milk and milk products to put on shelves. There should be transparency, but there should also be a fair deal for dairy producers.

[Jim Fitzpatrick]

My hon. Friend makes a strong point. As the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton said a few moments ago, UK retailers should show some solidarity and loyalty to UK producers. I will come to the transparency of prices in a moment when I cover recommendation 21.

The second issue that I will mention, which was also mentioned briefly by the hon. Lady, is the European sugar regime and the sugar quota. In east London we have Tate & Lyle, the biggest cane refinery in the world. Beet production is doing well, but the market might fluctuate. Tate & Lyle is struggling to deal with the unfairness of the new regime. I know that UKRep in Brussels has been lobbying, and that the Select Committee raised the matter when it met the commissioner and the appropriate officials last week. Does the Minister have any sight of how that discussion is going, and can he comment on any discussions that he has had with our officials in Brussels, or with Brussels officials, on the sugar quota and the sugar regime?

I will run briefly through a few of our recommendations. Recommendation 15 was mentioned by the hon. Lady. Any updates that the Minister can give us on greenhouse gases would be welcome. The Chair of the Select Committee recommended Professor Elliott’s report. Last week, when Professor Elliott gave evidence, was the first time that I had met him. He is a hugely impressive individual. To the Government’s credit, they accepted all the recommendations in his report, which is extremely welcome. It will furnish Government policy and the working of our Committee for a considerable time ahead. The hon. Lady mentioned the fact, which emerged in this week’s evidence session, that the statutory instrument on fines that the groceries code adjudicator could level against transgressors has not been laid before Parliament. If the Minister cannot say anything about that today, we would be delighted if he could do so on Tuesday when he comes before the Committee. He is bound to be asked about it, as the Secretary of State was yesterday.

On the point raised by my hon. Friend the shadow Minister about fairness and transparency, one issue that has come up several times in the all-party dairy group’s examination of dairy is the apparent lack of transparency and openness in pricing. Everybody knows what the farmer is being paid for their produce, and what the consumer is paying in our supermarkets and shops, but how we get from the farm-gate price to the retail price is still shrouded in mystery. There seems to be no direct relationship between the two. It would be interesting if the Minister had any comments on that, as numerous colleagues will be pressing him on that in the months ahead. The other issue raised was whether there might be a role for the adjudicator in initiating investigations rather than just responding to them, as she does at the moment. That will clearly require an amendment to the law. If the Minister has any comments on that, I would certainly be interested to hear them.

Lastly, recommendation 29 is on genetic modification, which the hon. Lady mentioned. The Committee recommendation asked questions about Government support for genetically modified food and whether there is an information campaign to create balance in the public’s mind about what GM can and cannot do. Comments in the report and the Government’s response ask whether the European Parliament will consider the matter in due course, and whether the Minister expects the European Parliament to agree to the Commission’s change of policy on GM; that is also of interest.

Food security is critical to the well-being of our species and the planet. It should be central to Government policy. As the hon. Lady said, the Minister here should be the Government lead on that policy. I look forward to the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for South Shields (Mrs Lewell-Buck), my hon. Friend the shadow Minister and the Minister. The Committee has produced an excellent report, if we say so ourselves. It has some excellent recommendations, of which the Government have accepted quite a number, and we are keen to hear what colleagues have to say about it.

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

As always, it is a delight to be under your stewardship, Mr Hood, and I am also delighted to take part in this important debate this afternoon. While we are relatively few in number here in Westminster Hall today, I am slightly overawed by the expertise displayed by all the Members who have already taken part in the debate—I mean that quite genuinely—and by their passion for this issue, because they get the importance of food and food security. So I begin by commending the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee for its report’s timely focus on food security and for prompting this debate.

As usual, within this detailed report—it is a quite comprehensive part one of two reports—there is a feast of recommendations and information. There is far too much for me to digest and reflect upon in a relatively short contribution.

Let me turn to some of the contributions from the members of the Select Committee who are here today. Its Chairman, the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Miss McIntosh), said early in her contribution that the Government must plan for food security. That point has resonated across all contributions today, and I will pick up on it as well. Such a plan needs coherence and not just vision, but action planning down to the detail, and there needs to be a cross-Government, cross-sectoral approach that ties in industry and other stakeholders and, crucially, the Government nationally and all the way down through the devolved Administrations, and so on.

The hon. Lady also picked up on the need for cross-Government leadership on food by a DEFRA Minister and said that the Minister here today should be the one doing it. I agree. In future, it might be somebody else—who knows?—but I agree that a DEFRA Minister is needed in there, arguing the case, championing it and doing that cross-Government collaboration, not in bits and pieces, but across the whole shooting match. That is exactly what is needed. My hon. Friends the Members for Poplar and Limehouse (Jim Fitzpatrick) and for South Shields (Mrs Lewell-Buck) touched on that, too. The hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton made many other detailed points that I will return to later.

My hon. Friend the Member for Poplar and Limehouse, with his great expertise, reminded us that when he was first put in post he was described by some out there, although not by all, as a townie vegetarian: “What does he know?” However, in his time in office, he rapidly proved them wrong and became trusted for the breadth of his knowledge of the area and the detail that he went into and for his ability to work collaboratively with all the people involved. He has taken his expertise on to the Select Committee. He outlined that although the report contains major challenges, it also speaks of the opportunities for farmers and food producers and for our big food industry—the biggest manufacturing industry employer in the UK—if we can get this right and if we have the willingness to do it.

My hon. Friend commented, as did my hon. Friend the Member for South Shields, on the rise of food banks as a measure of food insecurity on our own doorsteps, and we are certainly seeing that. He touched on the loss of Food 2030, although he was humble and did not discuss his pivotal role in producing that project. The loss of that strategy is much bemoaned by many people in the industry particularly, who liked the certainty, the cross-Government approach and not just the vision, but the fact that when we left government that was being translated into detailed action points. Initially, there was some criticism: “This big strategy is fantastic. We’ve never seen anything like this. It’s what we need, but where’s the real meat that follows it?” However, as we left government, we were starting to put that meat on.

[Jim Fitzpatrick]

My hon. Friend is being generous and I appreciate it. Does he agree that what happened to Food 2030 is disappointing because it was not a political draft, but a strategy for the Department, drafted with the advice of the chief scientist and others? That is why there was disappointment that the Government decided not to proceed with it as their framework.

[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.

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[George Eustice]

I understand that. I think that we do have that co-ordination, but I lead on food security. We also need co-ordination on science, because science will have many of the answers to the challenges we face.

Several hon. Members mentioned the Global Food Security programme, which was set up to co-ordinate food-related research. It is led by Tim Benton, whom the shadow Minister mentioned, and deals with joining up research in a number of areas, looking at how to improve resilience and the sustainable production and supply of food. It also considers nutrition, health and well-being. That programme is co-ordinating and joining up much of the specific, tailored research in this area. DEFRA is also looking more generally at whether we can co-ordinate more effectively all the various research bodies to reduce duplication and increase focus on research and its effectiveness.

My hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton mentioned the importance of waste, an issue that the second part of the Committee’s food security report considers. The Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for North Cornwall (Dan Rogerson), is present for the next debate and waste is generally an issue that he covers, but it is important to recognise that, through the Courtauld commitment and the work of organisations such as the Waste and Resources Action Programme, we have already made good progress on reducing food waste. Household waste is down by some 15%, and we have reduced waste in the supply chain by some 8% and aim to reduce that further.

I want to touch on the importance of technology. Together with the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, we have an agri-tech strategy and a £160 million fund, £90 million of which is a catalyst fund to support projects in order to accelerate the transfer of knowledge into farms. Another part of the fund is designed to create centres of excellence in science and food technology.

On long-range weather forecasts, I chair a farm resilience group that meets every six months and will be meeting again in the new year. The Met Office is represented in the group, and we regularly discuss how to improve weather forecasting for farmers. DEFRA has also funded a project to examine our flood resilience on the east coast, and, in addition to some other international collaboration, we are doing some work with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the US Government to understand the impact that extreme weather can have on global security. We are conscious of the weather’s impact and want to improve our forecasting.

My hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton and others mentioned the soft fruit industry’s success in extending its season. Our production-to-supply ratio for strawberries has increased from some 60% to 70% just in the past decade or so. I was in the soft fruit industry myself some 20 years ago, and some of these things are not as new as some people say. In Cornwall 20 years ago, I was producing strawberries in heated glasshouses from the end of March right through until Christmas. We used to pride ourselves on having strawberries from Easter to Christmas. The advent of Spanish and French-style polytunnels has given more protection to such crops and has enabled a more widespread extension of the season. My hon. Friend also mentioned apricots, which are indeed now grown in the UK under temporary polythene structures.

I agree with my hon. Friend on the importance of reforming the common agricultural policy. The Government argued against the greening measures in pillar one and were clear that it should be kept as simple as possible, and that the best way to deliver for the environment was through our highly successful agri-environment schemes and pillar two. I can confirm that the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change has written to new Commissioner Hogan, with whom I spoke last week. The European Commission is certainly open to the idea of reconsidering some of the greening requirements, and possibly even reconsidering in the mid-term review the idea of the three-crop rule or how it is applied. We have worked with our allies in the Stockholm group of countries, which argue for reform of the CAP and the European Union, to reach a common position to argue for the simplification of the CAP. We hope to make some progress on that next year.

My hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton mentioned soya beans, and I have already touched on the fact that the pig industry has been particularly successful in reducing the amount of soya bean that it uses. The other thing to note is that one possible impact of the greening of pillar one—of which, I repeat, we were critical—is that in order to reach the three-crop rule some arable farmers may grow leguminous crops such as broad beans to count towards both their third crop and their ecological focus areas. Potentially, we could see an increase in the production of broad beans and other leguminous crops, which might then displace soya imports.

My hon. Friend also mentioned soil protection. Under our cross-compliance regime, we will scrap the need for a soil protection review, which is only a paper-based exercise that people go through and tick boxes. It does not mean much and is simply an administrative task, and we are replacing it with something much more meaningful. Where we know about soil management challenges on farms or inappropriate management of the soil having an impact on water courses, for example, we want to put in place meaningful measures to deal with that. We are completely overhauling cross-compliance in that area.

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

The Minister is giving a comprehensive report,. Will he give us more idea of what “meaningful measures” might be? It is only one point in his overall plans, but this different approach is interesting—to say, “We are not doing a tick-box scheme, but we will target instead.” What might such measures be? Does he have any early indications?

[George Eustice]

Yes. We will shortly be publishing the detailed guidance on the cross-compliance, and the hon. Gentleman will be able to look at it then. In essence, it means farmers ensuring that they have vegetative cover on fields for the maximum possible amount of time; that they only plough when they need to, just ahead of sowing; or that, for example, if they have a problem with water running off their fields, they might consider ploughing them in a different way so that the water does not tunnel down the furrowed ploughed land. We can do a number of different things, and that is the kind of sensible measure that we will have in cross-compliance, rather than having a simple paper-based exercise.

On the groceries code adjudicator, my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton mentioned third-party complaints. I was on the Bill Committee that scrutinised the introduction of that adjudicator. Third parties may complain on behalf of other people, but she made a moot point about whether the adjudicator should be able to instigate investigations itself, without a complaint. In a year or two, a review by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, which is the sponsoring Department, might consider that, but at the moment it is too early to make such a judgment.

My hon. Friend also mentioned new entrants. I confirm that we are working on a plan to support new entrants into the industry through the rural development programme. It is a delight to be in the Chamber today, but were it not for this debate, I would have been speaking at the Farmers Weekly “Fertile Minds” conference in Cumbria, which is all about trying to engage new people into the industry. That is something that we are looking at, and I am working on a project about encouraging the use, for instance, of share farm or contract farm agreements to create alternative routes for new people into the industry.

We are already delivering on our commitment to increase exports. Through UK Trade & Investment, we have already helped 2,500 food and drink companies and, so far this year, we have opened more than 100 new international markets to animals and animal products. That includes countries such as the Cayman Islands, the Dominican Republic, Mongolia and, for dairy products, Cuba. We are leaving no stone unturned when it comes to opening new markets.

A number of hon. Members, including the hon. Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Jim Fitzpatrick) and the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Ogmore (Huw Irranca-Davies), mentioned the previous Government’s “Food 2030”. People can, however, get too hung up on particular reports. I have read the report and, where it talks about the importance of agricultural technology, I would argue that we have taken things forward in our agri-tech strategy and other things. The report mentions the importance of sustainable intensification—we have had our own green food project with various route maps. It talks about new entrants—I have just explained what we hope to do on that. There is a consistency of themes between what we are doing and what was identified in the report as a challenge.

In addition, we have asked the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board and its new chair, Peter Kendall, to put in place a plan for British agriculture and for how we can make it more competitive. That is a priority for that levy organisation.

[George Eustice]

There we go, we have an outbreak of consensus. As I said, we are taking forward many of the points.

The hon. Gentleman also mentioned the existing precarious condition of the dairy industry, which has seen sharp falls in prices. I will have the pleasure of appearing before the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee next week to discuss such issues in more detail. For now, I point out that last week we had a meeting of the dairy supply chain forum, which I chair. We looked at the issue of price volatility and at whether the industry can do more, or whether we can support it, to develop financial instruments that might help them to manage volatility in future. We have also had a review by Alex Fergusson MSP of how the dairy supply chain code is working.

On GM foods, which a number of hon. Members mentioned, our position is consistent. We believe in a science-based approach; if we get the regulation right, there could be a role for such crops. That remains our position. We have always sought allies to argue that case in the European Union.

The hon. Member for South Shields (Mrs Lewell-Buck) talked about food security and, in the context of food banks, people’s ability to afford food. I will not stray into areas that are the responsibility of the Department for Work and Pensions, which might be outside the scope of the debate, but I want to say that although there was a big spike in food prices in 2008, in the past year we have seen food prices fall for the first time since 2002. I chair AMIS, the Agricultural Market Information System, which monitors agricultural commodity markets, and most of the projections at the moment are that for the next couple of years there will be relative stability in cereal prices.

The hon. Member for Ogmore mentioned animal feeds. I want to touch on that, because animal feed costs are lower. Although prices are in some cases just as low for dairy farmers as they were two years ago, the fact that animal feed prices are lower means that farmers’ financial viability is not as compromised as it might have been. He also talked about local food networks, and we are keen to encourage and promote local food production. That is why we asked Peter Bonfield to put in place our new Government plan for procurement, which is all about encouraging the public sector locally—schools and hospitals—to buy and source its food locally, from local suppliers.

The hon. Member for Ogmore also mentioned the role of health. Public Health England regularly runs campaigns to encourage healthy eating, in particular the “eatwell plate”, through which people are encouraged to have their five a day, to moderate their meat consumption and so on.

The final thing that I wanted to mention was the point about meat production made by the hon. Gentleman. We are not going to lecture people on what they should or should not eat, but one of the things that emerged from an informal session that we had at the European Council recently was what might happen if we want to reduce our carbon footprint in meat production, which is perhaps a bit of a trend towards less intensive systems, predominantly using grassland production, the environmental impact of which is lower. The lamb and beef systems of production in this country have less impact on the environment than those of many other countries.

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

My intention is to come back only on that point, because a lot of good stuff is going on and there is a lot of continuity, which is great and which people want to see. The Minister mentioned procurement and diet, health and well-being, but with so many such areas involved, does he sit down with other Ministers and talk about the effect of X, Y and Z on the food industry, jobs, average earnings, food banks or the response to food aid, telling them what he would like them all to do?

[George Eustice]

The hon. Gentleman has been in government, and he knows that Ministers have regular meetings with other Ministers on a range of issues. I regularly meet the Health Minister with responsibility for those matters to discuss issues such as nutrition.

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

rose—

[George Eustice]

I will give the hon. Gentleman one more go.

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

I am trying to enhance the Minister’s position. I would like him to sit down in a cross-departmental way and say, “Health, you are doing great things. BIS, you are doing great things. All of you are doing great things, but it is within a context. We will deal with things, such as access to food within the UK, and we will do it in this manner, coherently.” I want him to do that. Will he do it?

[George Eustice]

As we said in our response to the report, DEFRA leads on food security. Ministers have many meetings with ministerial colleagues, and we have many cross-Government committees, some of which are chaired by Ian Boyd, DEFRA’s chief scientist, and some of which are chaired by officials. This is an important debate on a wide-ranging report that makes an important contribution to the debate on food security. Again, I congratulate the members of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee on their work.