Elliott Review and Food Crime
Debate between Laura Sandys and Lord Field of Birkenhead(10 years, 7 months ago)
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Laura Sandys
Yes. It is an incredibly important message, and I am happy to accept any invitation to have a cottage pie cooked by my hon. Friend.
Mr Frank Field (Birkenhead) (Lab)
Before the hon. Lady accepts the cottage pie from the hon. Member for Hexham (Guy Opperman), she might draw attention to a point that she has made before. It is all very well if someone has a kitchen and knowledge of how to make a cottage pie, but if housing benefit rules are such that a household can have the rent paid in full but no kitchen, it can be difficult to cook a cottage pie, or anything else.
Laura Sandys
The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right, and he is doing extremely important work on the whole issue of food poverty. In my constituency, we have certain areas where accommodation does not have cookers. Families are supplied with microwaves, which confines them to buying expensive food that is frequently not of the greatest quality. That does not allow families to be resilient, as my hon. Friend the Member for Hexham (Guy Opperman) would like everyone to be. We have to look at the overall system; that is the crucial point. We need a system-based approach and policy that understands the food system in its totality.
On the early warning signs of food crime, we have to look at where the disconnects happen. We had rising commodity prices, but food prices were rising only a little in the shops, so something had to give. Different products were substituted and food crime entered the system. I know that the Minister is concerned about food security, but I hope it is now of much greater importance to DEFRA as a whole, because trust, food integrity and access to resources are all part of the wider security nexus. I hope that food security has moved up the agenda. The National Security Council regard it as important: food security is one of its nine key priorities.
Food crime is not going away. In 2007, the Food Standards Agency recorded 49 cases of food fraud, and by 2013 there were 1,500 cases. While horsemeat has been a real problem, other forms of food crime have come to the FSA’s attention: dyes in children’s sweets, illegal and toxic vodka and dangerous health substitutes that amplify diabetes. Our system in this country is particularly vulnerable because we import a lot and have long supply chains.