Oral Answers to Questions

Jim McMahon Excerpts

Thursday 23rd February 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Secretary of State, Jim McMahon.

[Jim McMahon (Oldham West and Royton) (Lab/Co-op)]

The Environment Secretary first said that it was not a priority to meet water bosses, and then she said that it was and that she really did care—or words to that effect. She then said that she would come forward with a plan and big fines, but there were no plans and no fines. She then said that there would be a plan, but that the water companies will do it, not the Government, and that there might be fines, but only if the water companies agree to that. We now discover that Ofwat has watered down the rules intended to hold water companies to account, actively removing any reference to the consideration of local communities and local economies. On a scale of one to 10, how does the Secretary of State rate her Government’s record on ending the Tory sewage scandal?

[Dr Coffey]

I have great confidence in the Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for Taunton Deane (Rebecca Pow), who continues to meet water companies, as do I. If the hon. Gentleman goes back and looks at the record of the Labour Government, he will see that they failed to deal with the urban waste water initiatives. The European Commission contacted them, took action against them, and took the Labour Government to court for failing to deal with sewage. That is what happened; that is the real history. When the Conservatives and the coalition Government came into power, we started working on leaks and making strategic policy statements, and we started the monitoring. None of that happened under a Labour Government. The hon. Gentleman can spew out as much rubbish as he wants, but the reality is that the Labour Government did nothing about it. This Conservative Government are fixing it, making it harder, and that is what we will continue to do.

[Jim McMahon]

Oh my God. I have confidence in the Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the hon. Member for Taunton Deane (Rebecca Pow), who is doing a good job in very difficult circumstances to try to make progress, but I do not agree with the Environment Secretary passing the buck to a junior Minister, which is not on. Ultimately, those at the top take responsibility. It is high time the Secretary of State did just that.

I am proud of the Labour Government’s record. We had the cleanest water and the cleanest air since the industrial revolution. That is the Labour record, and it is a scandal that it was not built on further. The abuse of water does not stop there. Let us hear from the North East Fishing Collective, which had the door slammed on it on the scandal of crustacean die-offs on Teesside. It is concerned that livelihoods, jobs and generational pride have been impacted by the Government’s indifference:

“The entire fishing fleet in Hartlepool is finished. There’s no business left. They failed us when we begged them to listen, so now we will have to fight”.

I ask the Secretary of State, for the second time, to rate her Government’s performance on the water scandal that is polluting our country.

[Dr Coffey]

The hon. Gentleman should withdraw his earlier comments, because he has, perhaps unintentionally, misled the House. I hope he has the grace to withdraw.

Leading scientific advisers reviewed the crustacean die-offs, and it was published to the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee and the House. We understand that a novel pathogen is the most likely explanation for what happened in the north-east. I continue to work with the Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for Taunton Deane, and I take this matter very seriously, but I am conscious that, unlike the Labour Government who in their responses to the European Commission denied that there was a problem and were successfully taken to court, this Government have continued to act and will continue to do so.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Secretary of State.

[Jim McMahon (Oldham West and Royton) (Lab/Co-op)]

Farmers from across the country met in Birmingham this week—the right hon. Gentleman and I sat on the same table for dinner—at an unprecedented time, with pressures seemingly coming from every direction to create a perfect storm. Although there might have been differences about the scale of the impact, there was consensus that the Environment Secretary had a pretty bad day at the office. Some described it as a “slow-motion tractor crash” or “calamity Coffey.” Joking aside, it was an insult to the very foundation of our food security and hard-working British farmers.

Everyone has the right to have a bad day at the office —I have had a fair few myself—but we have a responsibility to reflect on it and to right the wrong. Will the Environment Secretary, not the Farming Minister, use this opportunity to apologise?

[The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Dr Thérèse Coffey)]

You know I cannot respond now.

[Jim McMahon]

I am very happy for the Farming Minister to apologise on the Secretary of State’s behalf for her outrageous display at the NFU conference in Birmingham yesterday. Will he use this opportunity?

[Mark Spencer]

The hon. Gentleman will know that the Secretary of State cannot answer this question, because of parliamentary procedure; I am obliged to answer, because I am answering—

[Mark Spencer]

Thank you, Mr Speaker. The Secretary of State can speak for herself, but we had a successful meeting with farmers in Birmingham. There were some robust exchanges, but that is what we welcome and we engaged with. We continue to work with the NFU and other groups that represent the farming industry.

[Jim McMahon]

We are going to have the urgent question on food security a bit later, so I will not labour that at this point. I also thank you for granting the UQ, Mr Speaker. Will the Minister confirm whether the Government have convened a cross-government committee to look at food security in this country and, in particular, the levers they can deploy? I am referring to financial support for farmers, support for energy-intensive food producers, and dealing with labour shortages and all the other issues about which, as he would have heard in Birmingham, farmers feel very frustrated, as it does not feel as though progress is being made on them.

[Mark Spencer]

Of course, there are Cabinet Office committees that look at all these challenges, but we in the Department continue to meet retailers on a regular basis. We are convening a roundtable with supermarkets to see how we can assist with those supply chain challenges that we face. We are gripping the situation and trying to assist where we can. It is down to the market to supply where it can, but there are huge challenges, including those in Morocco and Spain that have caused disruptions to food supplies in the UK at this moment.

Water Company Performance

Jim McMahon Excerpts

Tuesday 21st February 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Secretary of State.

[Jim McMahon (Oldham West and Royton) (Lab/Co-op)]

I congratulate the right hon. Member for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes) on securing this urgent question. She, like many of us, is absolutely sick and tired of the impact that sewage discharges are having on our streams, rivers, seas and local economies. They are devastating whole regions and devastating our coastlines. Frankly, we are here again with the same old excuses and the same old promises for action getting drawn out, but there is no action behind it. The water companies know they can laugh all the way to the bank because the Government will not take action, and the regulators know that the Government will not take action because they have taken away the capacity to take action from the regulators.

All the while, it is local people who are suffering—whether that is people being able to enjoy their local beauty spots and to take a walk down the river, or that is coastal businesses that are reliant on seasonal tourism to provide jobs and livelihoods to people. They are affected, not the Government, and what do we see? This year alone, when the Bank of England and the Government are telling hard-working people to rein it in and stop asking for pay rises, the water bosses are asking for 20% increases in salary. There is not a single thing the Government have said—in the environmental improvement plan or in anything said at the Dispatch Box—that sends out the message that things will be any different, and the water companies know that. They have already banked £66 billion in dividend payments and more will follow.

Labour does not want to sit on the sidelines and witness our country being turned into an open sewer. We set out at the Labour party conference in September a position that would clean up the water industry in this country, deliver value for money for consumers and bill payers, and finally work in the national interest, so when on earth will the Government get on and deliver Labour’s plan?

[Rebecca Pow]

It is so easy to just stand there with no facts and no detailed information, and level an attack. I agree, as does the Secretary of State, that sewage in water, unacceptable leakage and so forth are not to be tolerated, and that is why we have set so many actions in train—more than ever before. We are taking more action than any Government have ever before on the water companies.

Do not forget that, since privatisation, the water companies have made a huge investment—billions of pounds of investment—in improving our water company infrastructure. Because of our new storm overflows discharge reduction plan, they are now committed to £56 billion of investment up to 2050, and £7.1 billion of that is already under way, including the Thames Tideway super sewer. A great deal of enforcement action is already taking place. Just in 2021, £121 million of fines were meted out to water companies. Because of the very detailed investigation now under way by Ofwat, the regulator, and the EA, we have more and more data and information to pinpoint where permits are being contravened and where water companies are not taking the actions they should be, and enforcement will follow. We are now consulting on a potential figure of £250 million to make sure we have a realistic and sensible fine that will really do the job in holding our water companies to account.

Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

Jim McMahon Excerpts

Monday 16th January 2023 Ministerial Corrections

[Rebecca Pow]

That is yet another measure that has been put in place. There is a requirement now for water companies to report all discharges from storm sewage overflows with dates and deadlines, but some water companies have gone over and above. They already have that in place and some companies, in particular around the coast, are reporting daily.

[Jim McMahon (Oldham West and Royton) (Lab/Co-op)]

I thank you, Mr Speaker, and your officers for allowing the time for this very important session; it is appreciated. When we met here in December, I asked the Environment Secretary if she had met water bosses to tackle the Tory sewage scandal that has had turned Britain into an open sewer. We are facing huge water leaks, drought and sewage pumping out across the country, and not a single English river free of pollution. Yet it was not seen as a priority that she clean up her own mess, because as a previous Environment Minister she literally opened the floodgates. Now she has finally met water bosses, can she say what firm commitments have been secured to finally end the Tory sewage scandal?

[Rebecca Pow]

I have been meeting regularly with water companies, as has the Secretary of State. In fact, we had a joint meeting just last week with the five poorest performing water companies. That was a very feisty meeting, as can be imagined. The water companies are being held to account. We now have the data we need, thanks to the monitoring and the programmes that this Government are putting in place, which were not in place under all those years of the Labour Government. It is no good standing up there and scare-mongering. At the end of last week I met South East Water, and this week it is South West Water.

[Official Report, 12 January 2023, Vol. 725, c. 687.]

Letter of correction from the Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the hon. Member for Taunton Deane (Rebecca Pow).

Errors have been identified in my response to the hon. Member for Oldham West and Royton (Jim McMahon).

The correct response should have been:

Oral Answers to Questions

Jim McMahon Excerpts

Thursday 12th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Secretary of State.

[Jim McMahon (Oldham West and Royton) (Lab/Co-op)]

I thank you, Mr Speaker, and your officers for allowing the time for this very important session; it is appreciated. When we met here in December, I asked the Environment Secretary if she had met water bosses to tackle the Tory sewage scandal that has had turned Britain into an open sewer. We are facing huge water leaks, drought and sewage pumping out across the country, and not a single English river free of pollution. Yet it was not seen as a priority that she clean up her own mess, because as a previous Environment Minister she literally opened the floodgates. Now she has finally met water bosses, can she say what firm commitments have been secured to finally end the Tory sewage scandal?

[Rebecca Pow]

I have been meeting regularly with water companies, as has the Secretary of State. In fact, we had a joint meeting just last week with the five poorest performing water companies. That was a very feisty meeting, as can be imagined. The water companies are being held to account. We now have the data we need, thanks to the monitoring and the programmes that this Government are putting in place, which were not in place under all those years of the Labour Government. It is no good standing up there and scaremongering. At the end of last week I met South East Water, and this week it is South West Water.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Secretary of State.

[Jim McMahon (Oldham West and Royton) (Lab/Co-op)]

In December, the Environment Secretary told the Select Committee that she did not believe it was the role of Government to feed people. All of us want to see a country where work pays fairly and, through that work, families can afford to feed themselves, but that is not the case after 13 years of this Tory Government, with food inflation at a 40-year high, a cost of living crisis and 7.3 million people in food poverty. It is the Secretary of State who is responsible for food security. Her Department has a legal obligation to publish the food security report, and it distributes the FareShare food grant. To show she is not completely out of touch, can she tell the House the price of a loaf of bread and the price of a pint of milk in her local supermarket today?

[Dr Coffey]

Mr Speaker, it depends on what brand you buy. A pint is 95p, and two pints £1.20. It depends on what type of bread you get, but the last loaf I bought was £1.25 for a seeded one from Tesco—I am sure there are other retailers as well.

It is quite clear to me that the hon. Gentleman probably has not read the food security report published in December 2021. However, I will say that in my time as Secretary of State for Work and Pensions we got more people into work and we provided an exceptional amount of funding through the household support fund, because we recognise that these times are really challenging. That is why we, as a Conservative Government, have made sure that the most vulnerable are protected, and it is why we will continue to do so as we move forward through this challenging time.

[Jim McMahon]

Is it not the truth that we have a Secretary of State overseeing a sewage scandal who did not believe that meeting water bosses was a priority; a Secretary of State responsible for food security in a cost of living crisis who does not think it is the Government’s job to make sure people have access to food; and a Secretary of State who has a lead role in climate change who, frankly, is clocking up more air miles than Father Christmas? Even when she is here, she is missing in action. Can she prove that she is finally getting a grip of this? It seems to the public that this Government have given up, have run out of ideas and have no plan, and in the end it is the people of this country who are paying the price. Is not now the time to just stand aside and let Labour get on with cleaning up their mess?

[Dr Coffey]

The hon. Gentleman is obviously taking lessons from other people on the Front Bench about talking complete and utter garbage. I could use stronger language, but it would be unparliamentary.

Let us just go back and remind ourselves that there was no monitoring of sewage under the Labour Government; that was introduced under a Conservative Government. That is why we have gone to a situation where we are recording more, and why we are in a position now to be challenging—using the price review we did, using our levers through Ofwat—to open up investment and get the storm overflows discharge reduction plan, so that by the end of this year we will actually have 100% monitoring right across the country. Conservatives do not shy away from problems; we open them up, put a spotlight on them, take action and get stuff done, as opposed to Labour, which just ignored it, did not want to know, looked the other way and now thinks it is all a new issue.

On my being missing in action, far from it: it is the hon. Gentleman. When I came back from Montreal after securing, with many other countries around the world, the global biodiversity framework, where was he for the statement? He was not here. God knows where he was. I then went to represent the United Kingdom at the inauguration of President Lula, and I think it was really important to do so to recognise how critical it is to improve the environment. Frankly, we will carry on to deliver action.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jim McMahon Excerpts

Thursday 17th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

We now come to the shadow Secretary of State, Jim McMahon.

[Jim McMahon (Oldham West and Royton) (Lab/Co-op)]

May I welcome the Secretary of State to her post? She has been in post for three weeks now, but the crisis of raw sewage turning England into an open sewer can be traced back to her time as an Environment Minister. To undo that damage, will she update the House on when she held a roundtable with all the water bosses and what the outcome of it was?

[Dr Coffey]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that warm welcome. It is great to be back at DEFRA, a Department in which I served for three years—I am pleased to be there. Let us be candid about this: we have seen some difficult situations with water companies. The Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for Taunton Deane (Rebecca Pow), is already on the case in that regard. I have not yet prioritised the water companies specifically, because other Ministers are doing so and I am prioritising my work to achieve environmental targets to satisfy the legislation set out by Parliament, as well as the preparation we are doing for the Montreal conference. My hon. Friend has already set out to the House some of the work that is under way. We are taking proactive action on sewage spillage.

[Jim McMahon]

The Secretary of State’s predecessor, the right hon. Member for North East Hampshire (Mr Jayawardena), may only have been in office for just over a month, but even he met the water bosses for a roundtable on his first day in office. Why, for one of the biggest scandals in her Department, has she not seen that as a priority?

Moving on, in a stunning turn of events, ahead of COP27, the Secretary of State announced that the Government will breach their own self-imposed legal obligations to publish targets on air quality, clean water and biodiversity. How does she expect other countries to take us seriously at COP15 when we cannot even get our own house in order?

[Dr Coffey]

I was at the last COP on the convention on biological diversity, COP14, in Sharm El-Sheikh. I just got home from Sharm, from the climate COP, to come back in time for orals today. I assure the hon. Member that we continue to work with countries around the world to ensure that our outcomes in Montreal are as ambitious as they can be, including signing people up to the 30 by 30 coalition, and indeed the 10-point plan for biodiversity financing. I assure him that we are working at pace in the Department on the Environment Act, and the subsequent targets from it that we need to put into legislation, and I hope to update the House in the near future.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jim McMahon Excerpts

Thursday 8th September 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I think there will be a lot of nervous lambs in Wales awaiting that visit. Let us come to the shadow Secretary of State, Jim McMahon.

[Jim McMahon (Oldham West and Royton) (Lab/Co-op)]

First, may I welcome the new Secretary of State, the hon. Member for North East Hampshire (Mr Jayawardena), 54and his Ministers to their place? I look forward to a constructive relationship, but it will be a testing relationship, as we work through the catalogue of failures left by his predecessor.

Rocketing food costs have pushed inflation to a 40-year high and, according to the Bank of England, households and food producers are set to face harder pressures yet. Last week, I received a letter from a family bakery who are extremely worried that their energy bills are increasing by 380%, potentially risking the viability of some of their stores. An energy crisis, a food security crisis, a labour crisis and an import cost crisis—how much worse is it going to get for businesses and the 7 million people already in food poverty?

[Mark Spencer]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question and look forward to working with the Opposition Front Bench. I would strongly push back at his comments about the previous Secretary of State. The work he did to support rural communities and UK agriculture was fantastic, and we should pay tribute to him for that. Of course, Vladimir’s invasion of Ukraine has caused massive ripples. It is a global challenge, but we are in a position where the UK economy is fit, and that puts us at an advantage compared with some of our competitors around the world. We will be able to intervene to try and assist people. We have already committed to £37 billion of support for consumers, and if the hon. Gentleman waits, he will be able to listen to the Prime Minister at the Dispatch Box later today setting out her plans to support those businesses and people across the country.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Secretary of State, Jim McMahon.

[Jim McMahon (Oldham West and Royton) (Lab/Co-op)]

Over the summer, the Government allowed water bosses to dump sewage on 90 beaches in our coastal hotspots—the foundation of those visitor economies—affecting already hard-squeezed businesses that are barely keeping their heads above water. We hear that the Secretary of State is satisfied by a telephone call with water bosses, but does he not realise that they are laughing at him? They are laughing at Ofwat, laughing at the Environment Agency, laughing at the country, and laughing all the way to the bank. Without tougher penalties to ensure that there is a bottom line, they will not change their behaviour. Does he agree that there must be tougher sanctions, including prison sentences?

[Mr Jayawardena]

I thought the hon. Gentleman was going to be constructive, but now he is playing politics. Clearly he was not listening when I set out my plan a moment ago. First, the water companies are reporting back in two weeks, and secondly we have legislated to issue unlimited fines through a criminal process, and we will not hesitate to do more.

Sewage Pollution

Jim McMahon Excerpts

Tuesday 6th September 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

We now come to the shadow Secretary of State, Jim McMahon.

[Jim McMahon (Oldham West and Royton) (Lab/Co-op)]

The scenes over the summer have shown us again that the country is awash with Conservative-approved filthy raw sewage. Over the last six years, there have been over 1 million sewage discharge spill events, which on average means a spill taking place every 2.5 minutes. Just in the time that we will be in this Chamber for this urgent question, 18 sewage discharges will take place. The water companies are laughing all the way to the bank and the Government are complicit in treating our country like an open sewer, allowing raw human waste to be dumped on our beaches and playing fields and into our streams and bathing waters, where families live and holiday and where their children play.

This is the record and the legacy of a decade of decline, including from the new Prime Minister, who slashed the enforcement budget by a quarter when she was in the right hon. Gentleman’s post. There might be a new Prime Minister, but it is the same old Tories. In the Environment Secretary’s own backyard, he has subjected his constituents to 581 sewage discharges in the last year alone. The very people who voted for him and put their trust in him have been let down by him. This could have been avoided had Conservative MPs not blocked changes that would have ended sewage discharges and finally held the water companies to account.

The Government’s plan is not worth the paper it is written on. It is business as usual, giving water bosses the green light to carry out another 4.8 million discharges through to 2035. When will the Government finally step up to eliminate the dumping of raw sewage into our environment? I have a message for whoever may be in the right hon. Gentleman’s post as early as this evening: the Labour party is putting you on notice. We are taking this fight, constituency by constituency, from Cumbria to Cornwall to turn those neglected filthy brown seats into bright red.

[George Eustice]

The hon. Gentleman’s contribution is characteristically political—[Interruption.] Let me say that this is the first Government to increase monitoring so that we knew there was a problem. This is the first Government to set out a £56 billion investment plan to tackle this. No previous Government, not even Labour Governments, ever prioritised this issue in the way that we have. The hon. Gentleman mentions cuts to the Environment Agency budget, but he misunderstands how that budget works. The cost of monitoring water companies’ permits for the management of combined storm overflows is cost-recovered through the permit, and there have been no cuts to that. They can to recover those costs, and we have increased the grant in aid budget to enable them to do further enforcement action. That is why we have seen record numbers of prosecutions being brought under this Government’s watch.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jim McMahon Excerpts

Thursday 23rd June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Secretary of State.

[Jim McMahon (Oldham West and Royton) (Lab/Co-op)]

Yesterday, inflation hit a new 40-year high at 9.1% amid the cost of living crisis. Things seem to be getting worse with each month that passes. Currently, 7.3 million people are living in food poverty, including 2.6 million children. What assessment have the Government made of the number of people who will be in food poverty by Christmas this year? If that assessment does exist, can it be published and put in the House of Commons Library?

[Victoria Prentis]

We continue to monitor very closely both the cost of food and the effect that this has on household budgets of those who are struggling. The Chancellor, as I have said, has recently added £15 billion to his total support package for struggling families—£37 billion in total. We know that food, while a very important part of household expenditure, is not the largest part in terms of cost for families. It is around 11% in the average family and 14% in more struggling families. We continue to work very closely with a wide range of organisations to make sure that we know what is happening on the ground and that we can intervene where necessary.

[Jim McMahon]

The Government’s own food security report relies on the existence of food banks to keep the UK fed. However, food banks cannot keep up today with the rocketing demand. Far from levelling up, what we see in reality is that our northern regions are the hardest hit with the highest levels of food insecurity. Is it not the truth that the Government’s record of low wages, low growth, record tax rises and out-of-control inflation is keeping people skint and hungry, and that the Government just do not have a plan to address it?

[Victoria Prentis]

I dispute that. We very much have a plan to continue to help people with the pressures on the cost of living. This is a very difficult and sensitive issue. Often, the higher costs are in the housing or the fuel sphere, but it is important that we continue to work with the Trussell Trust and others, with which we have an excellent working relationship after the pandemic. We have all learned to deal in a much more granular way with food supply chains and how to get food to people who need it. It is important that we dial down the political tone on this and continue to help people who need it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Speaker]

We now come to the shadow Secretary of State.

[Jim McMahon (Oldham West and Royton) (Lab/Co-op)]

Given the impact covid has had on mental health and wellbeing, for many, access to the outdoors was a vital escape, but the Secretary of State will know that access is not equal. Research by Wildlife and Countryside Link highlights that the poorest communities are twice as likely to live in a neighbourhood without access to nature. What are the Government doing to ensure that every neighbourhood in every corner of England finally has access to a green and pleasant land?

[George Eustice]

We have set out some detailed proposals on this, both in our response to the Glover review, but also under the Environment Act 2021. Local authorities will be required to have local nature recovery strategies in future, and that will include commitments around public access in particular locations. We have also opened a new farming and protected landscape scheme, which is all about supporting public access to the countryside.

Government Food Strategy

Jim McMahon Excerpts

Monday 13th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Jim McMahon (Oldham West and Royton) (Lab/Co-op)]

I thank the Secretary of State for advance sight of his statement. It certainly did not take long to read.

It is now nearly a year since the publication of Henry Dimbleby’s independent review of England’s food system, a review commissioned by the Secretary of State’s Department. On the back of the review, he promised a national food strategy White Paper by January. Not only is he six months late on his own deadline, but this is just a statement of vague intentions from the Government, with no concrete proposals to tackle the major issues facing this country.

Henry Dimbleby’s review consisted of almost 300 pages, yet the Secretary of State has responded with barely 10% of that. To call this a food strategy is farcical and, frankly, an insult to all who took the time to contribute to the review. There is no need to take my word for it, as we all saw the responses over the weekend from industry leaders and those involved in the review. They are aghast at the Government’s lack of ambition, as the Secretary of State will have seen as he watched the television and read the morning newspapers over his cornflakes. This is a missed opportunity.

We should be discussing a real plan for delivery, a plan to put right the Government’s record of failure: 7.3 million people, including 2.6 million children, are living in food poverty; 2.1 million food parcels were handed out last year alone; 64% of adults are obese, as are 40% of children; £2.6 billion of trade with the EU, our biggest trading partner, has been lost; a quarter of all exports to Ireland have been lost completely; 40,000 pigs have been culled because of the labour shortage; and food is rotting in farmers’ fields because it cannot be picked.

This should have been a plan for food security and ending food bank usage by ensuring every family has access to healthy, affordable and sustainable food. It should have been a plan to back our farmers rather than undercutting them through the Government’s trade deals. It should have been a plan to drive growth through investment in new enterprises, the food and drink sector and our thriving co-operative sector. It should have been a plan to ensure that we buy, sell and make more here in Britain by supporting our fantastic producers and entrenching Britain’s reputation as a beacon for quality food, high standards and ethical animal welfare.

This should have been a plan to ensure that our schools and hospitals are stocked with more locally sourced, excellent quality food. It should have been a radical plan to tackle the obesity scandal in this country by ensuring every family has access to the healthy food that we know too many are missing, and it should have been a plan to deal with today’s supply and cost-inflation crisis.

We know, for example, that fertiliser and carbon dioxide availability has had a direct impact on the price of household staples such a bread, milk and meat products. Alarmingly, the UK’s biggest producer of fertiliser and CO₂ closed one of its plants last week because of a lack of support from this Government. The Secretary of State has been warned repeatedly, but action never follows.

Where is the plan to address the real issues facing this country today? All we see in this document is more dither, more delay and absolutely no ideas to address the scale of the challenge from a Government who are, frankly, devoid of ideas. Cruelly, there is no support for British farmers who kept this country fed during one of our most difficult times. [Interruption.] I hear the growls from Conservative Members, but what I hear most are the calls from British farmers who, for all the Government’s warm words of encouragement, are left waiting for support whenever they go to the Government for help. They wait and wait, and nothing ever comes. This is not a plan but a missed opportunity when the country can least afford it. Britain deserves better than this.

[George Eustice]

The hon. Gentleman refers to the length of my statement. I like to keep statements in this House as brief as possible, with them being a summary. I think my statement ran for about six or seven minutes, which is generally what Mr Speaker likes to see.

Clearly, if the hon. Gentleman wanted more detail, he could have read the full report, but it is clear from the list of issues he raised that perhaps he did not read it, because I simply cannot accept any of the criticisms he made. He raises the issue of obesity, and the report deals at length with it. We have already introduced a soft drinks levy that has driven reformulation. As I said in my statement, later this year we will introduce new point of sale regulations that will also drive reformulation.

The hon. Gentleman raises the issue of labour on farms. Had he read the report, he would know that we have increased the number of seasonal agricultural workers from 30,000 to 40,000, and we have worked closely with industry to understand precisely its needs. He says that we have no plan to increase spending on British agriculture by the public sector—by schools and hospitals—but we have set out a clear ambition to increase that spending by 50%. That is set out in great detail in the report.

On household spending on food, we absolutely recognise that with the sharp rise in energy bills there are households that are finding it difficult to afford food. That is why we have put in place a range of support mechanisms, the latest of which were announced by the Chancellor two weeks ago. We are talking about significant help for the most vulnerable families to help with those energy costs. We also know that although food prices have indeed risen, by about 0.2% in March and 1.5% in April, in the past 15 years or so, including during the last financial crisis, household spending on food remained fairly stable, even among the lowest income households, at about 16%.

Finally, the hon. Gentleman mentioned the important issue of fertilisers, and we are aware of that. It is important to note that the Billingham plant, run by the major producer of fertiliser here, is continuing to operate and has full order books until the end of this year, and that the price of ammonium nitrate has fallen back significantly from its peak in March and is now at a level that farmers are able to purchase at.

Food Price Inflation

Jim McMahon Excerpts

Thursday 19th May 2022 Commons Chamber

[Jim McMahon (Oldham West and Royton) (Lab/Co-op)]

(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs to make a statement on food price inflation.

[The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (George Eustice)]

The global spike in oil and gas prices has affected the price of agricultural commodities. Agricultural commodity prices have always been closely correlated with energy costs, since gas is used to manufacture fertiliser and fuel energy is needed throughout the food chain. Gas prices were rising as we emerged from the pandemic, but the invasion of Ukraine has caused some additional turbulence in international commodity markets. I have already set out measures to support farmers and growers in England ahead of the coming growing season. Those measures are not a silver bullet, but they will help farmers to manage some of their input costs from fertilisers.

The turbulence of the market has brought into focus again the importance of a resilient global supply chain and the importance to our national resilience of having strong domestic food production. In the UK, we have a high degree of food security. We are largely self-sufficient in wheat production, growing 88% of all the wheat that we need. We are 86% self-sufficient in beef and fully self-sufficient in liquid milk, and we produce more lamb than we consume. We are also close to 100% self-sufficient in poultry. Sectors such as soft fruit have seen a trend towards greater self-sufficiency in recent years because of the extended UK season.

As part of a global market, however, there have been pressures on input costs and prices. As a result of those rising input costs, there are of course also some pressures on households, predominantly as a result of the energy costs. There have also been some rises in food prices in recent months, although the ferocity of retail competition means that price pressures have been contained on certain product lines.

In March, overall food prices rose by 0.2%; the price of fruit actually fell in March by 1.2%. In April, however, food prices rose by 1.5%, which is a faster rise than we have seen in some years. If we look at the price of specific categories of food, in April, bread and cereals rose by 2.2%; sugar, jams and syrups rose by 2%; fish rose by 2%; meat rose by 1.9%; vegetables, including potatoes, rose at a lower level of 1.3%; fruit remained broadly stable; and oils and fats decreased slightly by 1.1%.

The single most important measure of household food security and the affordability of food remains the household food survey that the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has run for many decades. That shows that, among the poorest 20% of households, the amount spent on food consumption was relatively stable at around 16% of household income between 2008 and 2016. It then fell slightly to 14.5%, but with the recent price pressures, we can expect it to return to those higher levels of around 16% in the year ahead.

We are monitoring the situation. The Government have put in place an unprecedented package of support to help those who need it. That includes targeted cost of living support for households most in need through the household support fund, where the Government are providing an additional £500 million to help households with the cost of essentials.

[Jim McMahon]

I am staggered by that response. The Secretary of State speaks like a commentator or spectator on the sidelines, rather than the person responsible around the Cabinet table for food security. He seems oblivious to the cost of living crisis that people are facing. He can reel off the stats all he wants, but working people know that when they go to the supermarket, the price of almost everything they are buying is going up and up. All the Government do is spectate and commentate from the sidelines.

The Secretary of State says that the Government have made interventions, but to what end? He talks about a fertiliser shortage and an input costs crisis, but there is a fertiliser plant in the north-west that is completely closed and has been since September, and the fertiliser plant in the north-east is running at only 30% capacity. Let us also look at carbon dioxide, the labour shortage and distribution costs, and what they are doing to the cost of food.

Let us then look at the public sector. Bear in mind that the NHS serves 140 million meals a year, schools serve 600 million meals a year and prisons serve 90 million meals a year. Cost inflation has an impact on frontline services as well as on household budgets. For households, that is on top of inflation, on top of energy prices going up, on top of mortgage payments going up, on top of petrol and diesel going up, and on top of taxes going up.

What interventions have the Government actually made in practice? They have told people to ride the bus for the day to keep warm, to try to live off 30p a meal, or to just work that bit harder and they will be fine. Well, let me tell them: the number of working people in poverty is the highest since records began. Sixty-eight per cent. of people in poverty are in work. Working is not a route out of poverty after 12 years of this rotten Government.

I see it in Oldham. People who are coming for food parcels now are not in temporary crisis, but in permanent crisis. They are in debt. They are wearing NHS uniforms, coming to collect food parcels to put food on the table. But let us go from Oldham to Camborne, because I have visited the Secretary of State’s constituency. The food bank there is now giving out 10,000 meals a month—just one food bank in his constituency. It is a constant crisis. Will he commit, even at this late stage, to call an urgent cross-Government, industry and charity commission to get ahead of the food crisis? He knows that, if the Government do not get a grip by Christmas, it is going to be even worse.

[George Eustice]

I am sorry that the hon. Gentleman does not want to hear facts, but the urgent question is about food price inflation and the facts about that do matter. He is the one who wishes to spectate and commentate, rather than dealing with the facts before us. I absolutely acknowledged that food prices are rising, and faster than we have seen in recent years. Indeed, household spending among the poorest 20% may return to the levels it was when his party was last in power. However, it is also the case that, in April, overall food prices rose by 1.5%.

The hon. Gentleman asked about fertiliser prices. Here there has been more positive news this week. Fertiliser prices peaked at about £1,000 per tonne in March. This week they have fallen to about £620 per tonne—it was £290 per tonne a year ago. Farmers are purchasing at that level. He expressed concerns about carbon dioxide supply, but that is a by-product of the manufacture of ammonium nitrate, and now that the main fertiliser plants, including the one at Billingham, have reasonably full order books for the remainder of the summer and are manufacturing and selling ammonium nitrate, we do not foresee a problem when it comes to carbon dioxide.

The hon. Gentleman made a good point, which was that the cause of the pressure on household incomes has been the global spike in gas prices and the corresponding impacts on people’s energy bills—household electricity and gas bills have risen sharply. The Government have put in place some measures to try to mitigate and dampen that, but we have always been clear that we cannot remove the impact altogether. Of course, because people need to buy food every week, when there is pressure on the household budget, an inability to buy food is what they notice first, even if food prices have not changed dramatically from where they were previously.

The hon. Gentleman mentioned those in work. The Government have been very clear about that. Over the years, we have continued to raise the threshold before the lowest earners pay any tax at all and in April this year we increased the new national living wage to £9.50 an hour. Those on the lowest pay will have an additional £1,000 in their pay packets as a result.

Finally, I take this opportunity at the Dispatch Box to praise the work of Don Gardner and local volunteers, whom I meet regularly in my constituency of Camborne and Redruth. We often work in conjunction with them to help to ensure that people visiting that food bank can get access to the benefits and support that they need.