Food Price Inflation

Lord Howell of Guildford Excerpts

Thursday 19th May 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

My Lords, as announced in the very recent Spring Budget, the Government are providing an additional £500 million to help households with the cost of household essentials from last month. That is on top of what we have already provided since October last year, bringing the total funding of this support to £1 billion. We have also increased the minimum wage to £9.50; we have announced a rebate on council tax; we have announced a rebate on energy bills; and, in England, £421 million will be provided to extend the existing household support fund. A lot is being done. I absolutely share the noble Baroness’s concern for those households that are in difficulty. The Government are monitoring this at every stage that they can and will continue to respond accordingly.

[Lord Howell of Guildford (Con)]

My Lords, there are not many forces working on food prices, but I think that it is generally agreed that soaring international prices for oil and gas are one of the main drivers. There seems to be a resigned view among Ministers that there is nothing much that we can do about this. That is not correct. Our ports at the moment are jammed with frozen gas ships ready to deliver gas into the system and bearing down on all gas prices, which ought to benefit consumers. Internationally, there is substantial spare capacity in oil production; if we have the right diplomatic initiatives and work with others, we can get that going as well. Both these things would have a far bigger effect on reducing the inflation of energy and food than any other single measure. Can the Minister encourage his colleagues in the Foreign Office to get on and focus on this major and central issue?

[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.