Agriculture Bill

Lord Adonis Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 3rd sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 3rd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 14th July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Thomas of Gresford (LD) [V]]

My Lords, perhaps I may repeat the words of the noble Lord, Lord Holmes of Richmond: technology produces excellence in food production.

I support Amendment 35 in particular in this group. I can think of no more important aim for food production than food security. The essential purpose of policy should be to maximise food production in the United Kingdom while at the same time reducing harmful emissions.

Ever since the Centre for Alternative Technology opened in in an old slate quarry near Machynlleth in 1973, Wales has led the way. As the centre pointed out last week, the panic buying and empty supermarket shelves that greeted the opening stages of the Covid-19 pandemic woke a lot of people up to the reality that our global food chains are increasingly vulnerable. In response to the crisis, the centre quickly set up a project called Planna Fwyd!, meaning Plant Food! It has an amazing variety of schemes to help the local area to feed itself in the coming years. For example, it brings together a land army of people who can help to work the land; it supports home-growers with the skills and knowledge that they might need; it provides family seed packs; and it distributes fresh produce and offers seed swaps. It is a great initiative.

I would like to draw attention to a scheme that is proposed on the outskirts of Wrexham by a Brighton-based organisation, Low Carbon Farming. The company has two pioneering projects taking shape at the moment, one in Bury St Edmunds and one elsewhere in East Anglia. Last week, I spoke of the paucity of Class 1 agricultural land in Wales. I told the House that 400 acres at Holt, close to my home in Gresford, comprises the whole of Class 1 land in the entire Principality. The new project near the Wrexham industrial estate is still at the planning stage. It is to construct two 7.6 hectare greenhouses and a packing facility on poor-quality land. On one side there is Berwyn prison, of which I have spoken many times, on another an abattoir, and on the third the Wrexham sewage works belonging to Dŵr Cymru. It answers the call made by my noble friend Lord Greaves in Amendment 53 to produce food in an urban area, and I hope it might even satisfy the noble Lord, Lord Rooker.

The Wrexham plan would capture waste heat and carbon emissions from the Dŵr Cymru facility and use them to grow tomatoes, cucumbers and peppers at the site. Britain imports from other countries 80% of its tomatoes and 90% of its peppers. The promoters think that their current projects in East Anglia can meet 5% of the national consumption of tomatoes. It will use less water than traditional agriculture: treated water emerges from the sewage plant at 25 degrees centigrade and, at the moment, that heat is entirely wasted. The quality of the soil at the site is completely immaterial. The system could be hydroponic or it could use a suitable growing medium.

The Wrexham project proposes the creation of 150 new jobs. The Home Secretary should surely support it, since with 2,000 prisoners doing nothing very much next door there will be no need for the east European agricultural workers who she does not seem to like very much. There are shades of Norman Stanley Fletcher in “Porridge”. Access to such labour would also deal with the concerns that the noble Lord, Lord Northbrook, expressed at the beginning of this debate. The idea behind the project is that waste heat from the sewage works would be used to provide heat to the greenhouses through a heat exchanger; any carbon emissions would be directed into the greenhouses to be absorbed by the growing plants. Plants absorb carbon dioxide and give out oxygen. It is obviously win-win all the way round.

I am addressing your Lordships from a passive house which we built five years ago. It relies upon a heat exchanger air pump, which greatly reduces our heating costs and provides an even flow of warm air throughout the year. It was a novel idea in these parts at the time, but planning permission was granted after some scratching of heads. I hope that schemes similar to the Wrexham Five Fords project relying on heat pumps can be developed throughout the country. That may require some modern thinking in planning departments but they are surely one important way forward. Does the Minister not agree that projects of this nature should be explicitly added to the aims set out in Clause 1, as highlighted by the amendments in this group, and that to promote sustainable food security they deserve full government support and investment?

[Lord Adonis (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, my speech has been made by the noble Lord, Lord Inglewood, who made the critical point that the fundamental interest of the state is to be able to intervene to see that people have enough to eat at affordable prices. The issue of food security is, therefore, to the fore. My question to the Minister is the obvious one that comes from this debate: do the Government have the power they need to maintain food security if that is required?

The noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, proposes to add food security as an item in Clause 1(1). That is clearly sensible if the Government do not already have those powers. I look to the Minister to give the Committee chapter and verse on whether the state already has powers to intervene to maintain food security by providing subsidies as and when required. It can clearly secure those powers extremely quickly, probably within 24 hours, if needed in the event of a crisis. Before we go off on a long meander through amendments on Report, it would be helpful to know whether this power already exists and, if so, where. If not, why do the Government not think this an appropriate moment to take that power since, where food security is not being maintained, it is clearly a fundamental duty of the state?

[Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville [V]]

My Lords, I have put my name to Amendments 35 and 70, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering, Amendment 36, from the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch, Amendment 71 from the noble Earl, Lord Devon, and Amendment 75 from the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, all of whom have spoken passionately. Health and sustainability are important to all families. Protecting food security so that citizens have access to good quality food will ensure healthier outcomes. The extremely large number of speakers on this group indicates the strength of feeling and concern about this subject. The noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, gave the statistic showing that children being admitted to hospital with malnutrition had risen by 25%. This statistic is scandalous in a country as rich as ours. My noble friend Lord Campbell of Pittenweem referred to children living in poverty.

In recent weeks, there have been a number of Oral Questions about the quality of food eaten in our families and whether it is healthy. Most people want to eat a healthy diet but some do not completely understand what constitutes one. For many it is sufficient that it fills them up. We must move away from this and promote healthy eating at all levels. This is not just an issue for agriculture. As has been said, diabetes is on the increase. In the three years to 2018, 170 limb amputations took place each week on those suffering from the severer effects of diabetes. While we may all know these figures, and understand the horror caused by them, many of those eating unhealthy diets have no idea what may lie in store for them.

Exercise is of course key to remaining healthy but for those on low incomes, there are implications of healthy eating. It is estimated that eating more fruit and vegetables could cost some families as much as £15 extra per week. This is simply not affordable for them. Many families managed before the Covid epidemic but after its outbreak were forced to use food banks to survive. Food banks saw the number of people applying to them rise dramatically during the first stage of the crisis. It is vital that people are fed—but fed with nutritious food. The noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, made a vital contribution on this issue.

Amendments 35 and 63, in the names of my noble friend Lord Greaves and the noble Earl, Lord Dundee, respectively, promote the growth of food production in urban areas. I note the cautious comments of the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, on this. Growing food in urban areas has somewhat fallen out of fashion. As a child, I was brought up in Bristol when it was not uncommon for homes to have a pigsty in the garden, as well as a plentiful supply of home-grown vegetables. There was also a large section of allotments in the city. The keeping of pigs at home fell out of favour with the first outbreak of foot and mouth, but it is still possible for vegetables and fruit to be grown in and around urban areas. Councils should set aside more land for allotments, especially for those living in blocks of flats. My noble friend Lord Greaves spoke at length on the importance of allotments. The Happold Foundation says that:

“Cities the size of London will never be able to grow enough food to feed the population … However, it still seems desirable to get food production closer to the consumer to make it more sustainable, and to reduce the food miles of what we consume and we release less CO2 into the atmosphere.”


Perhaps the vertical indoor growing method, raised by the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, will help with this.