Food Price Inflation

Lord Bilimoria Excerpts

Thursday 19th May 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

My noble friend is absolutely right that it is crucial that we create more stability and coherence in international supply chains. That is of course massively important in terms of energy. We are working with other countries; indeed, we very much took the lead in working with the World Bank to create an unprecedented amount of money to support those countries that depend in particular on food from countries from which we do not import much, such as Ukraine and Russia. It is about making sure that we ease those supply chains, right across the globe.

[Lord Bilimoria (CB)]

My Lords, yesterday, the CBI, of which I am president, had Ambassador Vadym Prystaiko at our annual dinner. He spoke movingly and explained that, at the moment, it would take five years to get the grain out of Ukraine using rail and road, unless the ports are unblocked. What can the Government do to lead the way in international efforts to unblock Odessa port so that the grain can get out? Otherwise, we have the danger of famine around the world. Secondly, with regard to what the Bank of England governor referred to as an “apocalyptic” rise in food prices, surely the best way to address that is to reduce taxes, which are at the highest level in 70 years. Consumers and businesses need help now.

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

To the noble Lord’s point about Odessa and getting grain out of Ukraine and on to the world market, it is of course a war zone. While this war ebbs and flows, there may be opportunities for the international community to get involved in precisely what he rightly points out is important. We do not know. However, I can assure him that we are working extremely hard with other countries and the Government of Ukraine to try to achieve this. There was talk earlier about trying to find some sort of land bridge to get some of this produce on to the world market, but that is more difficult. On his last point, of course the Chancellor deals with fiscal matters, but I point out that we have increased the threshold below which people pay income tax, which directly impacts many people on low or modest incomes. It is those sorts of things that have much more impact on household incomes than some of the suggestions that we have had to date.