Food Security Strategy

Debate between Jim Shannon and James Paice

Tuesday 5th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Mr James Paice)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for South Thanet (Laura Sandys) on securing this debate. In many ways, it deserves a longer time span than she has achieved, because this subject is hugely important, and I congratulate her on choosing it. I hope that in the next few minutes I can reassure her on a number of her points, and in passing I also thank her for her kind personal remarks to me.

The Government believe that food security is a vital strategic issue for this country, so the opportunity to spend a few minutes discussing it is very welcome. My hon. Friend will be aware that a few weeks ago the Government’s chief scientific adviser published the final report of the Foresight future of food and farming project, and it identified the scale of the challenge that food security poses—the very points that my hon. Friend made. The food system in this country is consuming the world’s natural resources at an unsustainable rate, and the report also highlighted the most important challenges that we face if we are to balance the competing pressures and demands on the global food system in order to ensure that we can feed ourselves.

My hon. Friend also referred quite rightly to our domestic food industry, and I want to reassure her that we believe that farming and food are very important to the UK economy. The whole food chain contributes some £88 billion per annum, or 7% of GDP, and 3.7 million jobs—no small contribution on anybody’s measurement. As a sector, it contributes to the delivery of the Government’s long-term economic objectives on trade, green jobs, and growth and development, and, slightly contrary to my hon. Friend’s remarks, the UK food and drink industry was highlighted in phase one of the Government’s growth review as an important area for growth. I passionately believe that that is the right place for it to be.

[Jim Shannon]

I understand that in the United Kingdom 20% of agricultural land is not in agricultural use today. Does the Minister have any intention of using that land for agriculture and food production?

[Mr Paice]

I am afraid that I have no idea where the hon. Gentleman has got his statistics from; they are completely strange to me. I will certainly look into them after this debate, but I have no knowledge of a significant area of land having been taken out of agricultural production in the United Kingdom.

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs worked very closely, and continues to work, with the industry to ensure that our views are captured by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, and I assure my hon. Friend the Member that we certainly intend that to continue.

We will concentrate—particularly within the growth review—on the rural economy, and one of our main themes will be realising the value of natural capital. That includes a strand concentrating on the potential to increase competitiveness in the agri-food sector. We will ensure also that food and drink is included in other areas of the review, such as logistics, skills and mid-sized businesses.

The Government are also taking action to support British farming and to encourage sustainable food production by helping to enhance the competitiveness and, as my hon. Friend said, the resilience of the whole food chain while minimising our impact on natural capital. The Government have been keen to lead, and on the sustainable procurement of food, for example, our recently announced Government buying standards will help to ensure that food procured by central Government meets sustainable standards of production equivalent to the UK’s requirements, when that does not lead to an overall increase in costs. Full details were provided in the recent announcement.

Steps have also been taken to improve market information and transparency by establishing an agriculture market information system to promote greater shared understanding of food price developments. My hon. Friend rightly said that UK food security cannot be delivered merely by a narrow, self-interested national protectionist stance or by recommending self-sufficiency. She rightly reminded us that that is not unique to the UK but should apply to every country. Several countries around the world have adopted protectionist measures. Argentina did so a few years ago with the beef sector, as did the Russians, more recently, with grain, although they have recently relaxed their measures, and there are several other examples. I firmly believe that they are doing their own consumers down by taking that approach, which, in the long term, does not help the global market.

International trade has an important role to play in providing food security not only in the UK but elsewhere. We are a trading nation in a global market. The UK is a significant exporter of wheat, lamb, dairy products, breakfast cereals and beef. Our food security depends on access to the world market, and it is important to emphasise that our domestic food industry needs to be able to compete on the world stage. In 2010, 25 countries together accounted for 90% of our food supply, and 49% of it was supplied from within the UK; we could not produce some products because they are not suitable for our climate. Currently the UK produces the equivalent of 72% of our indigenous foods and 59% of our food overall; we then export 10% of it, hence the 49% I mentioned. Supporting exports of UK food and food products will contribute to rebalancing our trade position. Reform, not subsidy, will achieve these goals.

In the recently published natural environment White Paper to which my hon. Friend referred, the Government made a commitment to bring together Government, industry and the environmental partners to reconcile how we will achieve our goals of improving the environment and increasing food production. I assure her that I believe passionately that that is possible. I do not believe—some farmers challenge me about this—that it is an either/or situation; we can do both.

My hon. Friend referred to food waste, and she was right to do so. We recognise that addressing that across the entire food chain will be critical in building a sustainable food supply. As part of our commitment to a “zero waste” agenda, three weeks ago DEFRA published a review of waste policy that highlighted various actions to be taken to reduce food waste, including developing a responsibility to deal with the hospitality and food service sector, with a strong focus on preventing food waste; tackling food waste across the public sector; and exploring further the role of incentives in reducing food waste and ensuring that it is managed in the most sustainable way possible.

We will also continue to work with the food industry and others in areas such as improved supply chain management; improved product design, including simple things such as resealable packaging; and providing the right advice and information to help consumers, including clear information on matters such as portion sizes, freezing food and using leftovers. We believe that through these actions, we will help industry and consumers to waste less food and save money—but I must emphasise that this is not something that Government can do on their own.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Jim Shannon and James Paice

Thursday 12th May 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Paice]

The Government strongly support the Red Tractor initiative, and I am sorry that I could not attend yesterday’s event, as I was at an event elsewhere in the country. However, I understand that it was a great success. As my hon. Friend well knows, we have distributed a circular, and we hope to introduce Government buying standards, as we will require all parts of central Government to buy food produced to British standards which, in most cases, will mean Little Red Tractor standards.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

In the past, there has been exceptional pressure on the fishing industry at sea, which has spread to food production on land. In particular, the problems are coming from China, which is buying up a lot of food products. Has the Minister had discussions with Ministers in other regions, particularly the most recent Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development in Northern Ireland, to agree a strategy and policy to address that issue?

Larch Disease

Debate between Jim Shannon and James Paice

Tuesday 3rd May 2011 Westminster Hall

[The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Mr James Paice)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish) on bringing this important issue to the attention of the House. I am happy to confirm that when I took responsibility as the forestry Minister almost a year ago and was apprised of the issue, I quickly realised its importance and the potential severity of its impact on the UK’s forests. It is right that a year on, we should be having a debate, albeit a short one, about Phytophthora ramorum, particularly in the south-west.

As my hon. Friend said, the disease was first identified in rhododendrons in this country in about 2002. It was not until 2009 that it appeared to jump species into the Japanese larch. It has appeared in other species—in Ireland it has been found in Sitka spruce—but apparently, in all such instances, the individual tree has been surrounded by highly infected rhododendron, which shows the impact of the spores. Touch wood—perhaps that is an unfortunate phrase—there is no sign that the disease is openly jumping to other species, but that is clearly the big worry.

As my hon. Friend rightly said, the matter does not affect only state forests. The vast majority of England’s forests, 80%, are not state-owned, so private forests have a serious role to play. I am sure that he will pass on my thanks to those in his constituency for how private landowners have joined the Forestry Commission and the Food and Environment Research Agency to combat the threat of Phytophthora ramorum.

My hon. Friend asked what we are doing in the widest context. I will try to address that first. DEFRA’s chief scientific adviser, Professor Bob Watson, is advising us on the issues, opportunities and priorities for new research, working with others to ensure that outputs have maximum impact on what we can do and working with the Forestry Commission, FERA and the wider scientific community to develop further our strategic approach to existing and emerging plant pests and diseases, which are not unique to this country. There is an international perspective as well.

That work is setting out an agenda wider than Phytophthora ramorum to minimise the risk of new threats entering the UK, to enable us to understand more about the threats that we face, to work with society to make it more aware of threats, pathways and the risks of bringing in infection and to identify positive actions that those who manage our trees, woodlands and forests can take to improve their resilience. In addition, Forest Research, the research agency of the Forestry Commission, is, like every other public body, going through its own spending review. It has decided, rightly, to reprioritise its research work. As part of that, programmes such as biosecurity will be increased and the budget maintained.

As my hon. Friend has said, Phytophthora ramorum is not unique to this country. We do not know exactly how it came in, but it is believed to have probably come from some infected plant importation. It exists in 15 European Union member states and, as he has pointed out, the United States. In the UK, it was initially in rhododendron and the whole of that species, and it then jumped into Japanese larch. It is not so much that this is a disease of the south-west, but it appears to be a disease of larch, which is a particularly common species in the south-west—particularly Japanese larch—for the commercial reasons to which my hon. Friend has referred. Larch is an important forestry species in the south-west and in parts of Wales and the rest of England. The disease has, as my hon. Friend has said, also been found in European larch in Cornwall. I have asked whether that indicates that European larch is any more resistant, but we just do not know. It is probably because there are far more Japanese larch than European larch in the south-west.

On the Government’s strategy, whether it relates to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs or the Forestry Commission, to deal with Phytophthora ramorum, our overall strategy on the fungal pathogen, which is the disease under discussion, is to reduce the pathogen inoculum—in other words, the spores that are produced—to an epidemiologically insignificant level by removing sporulating host plants from high-risk areas. The aim is to reduce the risk of significant tree death and other impacts. In plain English, our policy is to cut them down as quickly as possible. The point is that, while the tree is alive and standing in the wind, the fungus is sporulating and the spores spread considerably. The sooner the tree is cut down and dies, the less risk. Although the tree being on the ground and dead does not remove all risk, it dramatically reduces it. That is the fundamental objective—cut them down as soon as possible.

I should say that the timber from such trees is perfectly okay. The timber itself does not carry any disease. The bark and any foliage, however, are more risky. Bark can be burnt and used for incineration for power generation and heat and so on, but it cannot be used for mulch purposes, because of the risk that it contains disease. Small trees and useless stuff are left on the ground, because it is not cost-effective to remove them for the small risk. Once they are on the ground, the risk is much lower. That is the layman’s approach to what is happening, which is important.

[Jim Shannon]

Biosecurity precautions are important. Have their been any discussions with other regions in the United Kingdom and Great Britain—in other words, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales—where there have also been outbreaks, so that there is a co-ordinated plan to address the issue across the whole of the United Kingdom?

[Mr Paice]

I am happy to confirm to the hon. Gentleman that we are talking to bodies not only throughout the United Kingdom, but beyond. As I have said, 15 EU member states have Phytophthora ramorum. Clearly, it would be pointless for everybody to enter into their own, unique research programmes, so we are working closely with all of them on research into the disease and, as he has indicated, on biosecurity.

I have responded to my hon. Friend about our practical solutions to reduce the incidence of sporulation of the fungus, to reduce the risk of further infection. It is a massive challenge and he is right to identify the need to find out more. The Forestry Commission and FERA, together with other organisations, such as the National Trust, the Royal Horticultural Society and Natural England, are delivering a five-year, £25 million programme in England and Wales against Phytophthora ramorum. This partnership is working together to implement the measures necessary to achieve the programme’s objectives. Some of those measures are obvious and my hon. Friend has referred to them. They include the use of aerial surveillance of more than 50,000 sq km to detect symptomatic trees and to monitor progress with felling. That aerial surveillance started again a couple of weeks ago, because larch, unlike most conifers, is deciduous and we do not know when it will come into leaf until it does.

The measures also include additional funding for woodland owners to use the services of qualified agents to arrange the felling and removal of infected timber, and there has been a moratorium on felling asymptomatic larch in winter. The Forestry Commission also has statutory powers to deal with the disease, and they require the felling of infected trees on up to 2,000 hectares of private land and the public forest estate. We are also issuing licences that allow the timber processing industry to transport infected timber and utilise it in an approved manner. My hon. Friend has rightly referred to the sad fact that that has led to a reduction in the value of larch timber. I gather that it has picked up again to about 75% of its price before the disease’s outbreak, but I recognise fully that it is an issue.

That brings me to our assistance with the restocking of infected sites, which includes enhanced rates of grant aid and advice on alternative species to larch. This relates to the point that both my hon. Friend and my hon. Friend the Member for Totnes (Dr Wollaston) made about planting on ancient woodland sites, a number of which have been infected. We will announce shortly the new rates of grants, so I cannot use this as an opportunity to speculate on what they may be, but I can say to both my hon. Friends that we are aware of the challenges of dealing with planted ancient woodland sites. On the one hand, there is the desire for an economic return, which is why larch was there in the first place, but, on the other hand, there is considerable pressure to return them to their ancient woodland origins by using, primarily, broadleaf trees. We are trying to work out a grant system that recognises that challenge.

The Forestry Commission and FERA have regular meetings with industry associations to alert them to the various threats of the pathogens. There have been a number of reports in the media about the disease, which is helpful, and the commission maintains a series of web pages. We have talked about the problem of a number of diseases, pathogens and pests that have found their way into the UK in recent years. There is little doubt that, with increased trade, transport and, possibly, climate change, we face a higher level of challenge from those various, newly arrived organisms. We recognise that many of them may have been introduced through the international trade in plants, and we are committed to finding ways of preventing entry through that route, which brings us back to biosecurity.

A review of the European Union’s plant health regime is well under way and a number of recommendations have been made and are being considered by both the Government and industry stakeholders. A number of improvements are likely to be implemented in 2013-14. However, our import controls can be targeted only at plants and plant products that are known to pose a risk. Owing to international law, we cannot put a blanket control on all plants and trees.

It is worth mentioning that the level of infection of Phytophthora ramorum in nurseries and garden centres has been reduced significantly. Last year, only 0.16% of inspections resulted in any positive findings, which is a reduction of more than 3% since 2003. It is clearly going in the right direction. However, we may—I hate to say this, but I think it is the reality—have to learn to live with some pests and diseases, which means that we have to learn to manage them and keep them under control rather than eliminate them entirely. It will require a co-ordinated approach from our forest owners and managers, as well as our scientists, forestry experts and policy makers. It may require any of a range of different approaches, but we have to put biosecurity at the centre.

I assure my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton and Honiton that the Government and I take this disease extremely seriously. I am pleased that he has used the opportunity of a short debate to talk about it, describe it and challenge the Government about it. We appreciate its importance. If he or anybody he knows feels that the Government are not taking it sufficiently seriously, or has any other suggestions, I would be interested to hear from them. I am grateful to him and hope that I have been able to reassure him about the seriousness that we attach to the issue.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Jim Shannon and James Paice

Thursday 9th December 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Paice]

The reassurance I can give is simply this. When we were in opposition, seeing how the previous Government made noises about reducing regulation but never did it convinced me that we had to find a new way. It is not just a question of abolishing regulations—although if they can be abolished, they should be—but how we implement and enforce them. We have become obsessed with requiring farmers to fill in countless forms, tick loads of boxes and read legions of guidance notes when what really matters is whether the benefit expected from the regulation is achieved. That is what we have to focus on now.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I thank the Minister for his responses. One big concern of many farmers and landowners over the years has been about red tape, particularly filling in grant forms such as for, among other things, single farm payments. Sometimes they inadvertently fail to tick a box. Can we have some flexibility in the system to ensure that those who qualify for the grants get them and do not lose out because of one small mistake?

[Mr Paice]

The hon. Member puts his finger on an extremely important point. I have studied many cases in which farmers have been penalised because, as he said, they omitted to put a figure in a particular box or something like that. Although I have pushed back hard on this front, we are unfortunately constrained very much by the European Commission’s Court of Auditors, which is very robust. The disallowances are completely out of proportion. We are working with the Commission, and I have chased up these matters with it to try to get a more proportionate sense of penalty. Hopefully, we will then be able to move forward.