Food Price Inflation

Lord Berkeley Excerpts

Thursday 19th May 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

Rewilding Britain is the campaigning organisation promoting rewilding and I think it has a target of 5% of the United Kingdom by the end of this century, which will not have an impact on food prices. It will, because of the change in the way we are supporting farmers, be bits of land that most farms can make available for ecological use rather than food production, without at all impacting on the food we eat. However, the right reverend Prelate raises a very important point about the way that some of the trillions of dollars of so-called ESG money is being spent in certain areas. The Government are taking this very seriously, because the S in ESG matters; the social dimension of how this money is spent, in what is called green finance, is really important. We need to protect our food security in the future and we are looking at this—not just ourselves in England but working with the devolved Governments to make sure that ESG money is being spent in a way that is honest, is not greenwash and does not curtail our ability to continue to feed ourselves.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, the Statement said nothing about Ukraine, although other noble Lords have mentioned it. Is the Minister not aware that the production of corn, fertiliser and oil from Ukraine is a very significant part of world production? Is that not going to affect not only prices and availability here, but maybe a greater movement towards famine in other parts of the world? I think many noble Lords agree that it is very unlikely that the material will be got out of Ukraine in the volumes necessary unless the ports get opened—which they probably will not.