Agriculture Bill

Lord Krebs Excerpts

Consideration of Commons amendments & Ping Pong (Hansard) & Ping Pong (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 20th October 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Krebs (CB)]

My Lords, I will speak very briefly in support of Amendment 17B in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch. She referred to the government response to the Climate Change Committee’s latest annual report, published earlier this month. I took a close look at it this morning to understand what the Government said about reducing emissions in agriculture. It comes in two parts. In the main body of the report there is helpful reference to various strategies and plans—for example the ELMs, the clean growth strategy, the 25-year environment plan, Henry Dimbleby’s national food strategy and the clean air strategy. That all looks very promising: plans are in place to tackle the problem of reducing greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture. However, I am afraid that the annexe, containing the detail of Defra’s response on agriculture and greenhouse gas emissions, looks as though it was drafted by Sir Humphrey Appleby. Let me quote a few phrases. The Government are: “looking at ways”; “considering a broad range” of options; “investigating mechanisms”; and “establishing expert groups”.

The noble Baroness, Lady Jones, said she hoped that the can was not being kicked down the road. The brief example I have just quoted from the Government’s response to the Climate Change Committee’s report highlights the danger that we will always be setting up groups and considering options. As far as I can see, the response does not give a single example of a concrete thing that the Government will do right now to meet the 2050 net-zero target, including the contribution from agriculture.

[The Deputy Speaker (Lord Russell of Liverpool) (CB)]

Does anyone else in the Chamber wish to speak? No? I call the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott.

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Moved by

[Lord Krebs]

At end insert “but do propose Amendment 9B in lieu—

9B: Insert the following new Clause—
“National Food Strategy
Within 18 months of the day on which this Act is passed, the Secretary of State must publish a strategy that will set out proposals that will aim to ensure that the UK food system delivers healthy, sustainable and affordable food for all.””

[Lord Krebs (CB)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his introduction to this debate and for two very helpful meetings that we have had during the past few days. I also thank the Defra officials who attended along with the Minister and the Secretary of State, who was at one of the two meetings.

On this matter, I think that we are landing in a good place. My original amendment on Report, Amendment 58, which passed with a majority of 62, set out in detail what a national food strategy should include. The much shorter version which we are debating today simply sets out the key aims of the strategy, which are to ensure that, through the functioning of the UK food system, everyone in this country has access to a healthy, sustainable, affordable diet. The Minister has accepted these aims by repeating them in his introduction, so I am delighted with that and thank him for it.

Such a strategy, if implemented, will put an end to food poverty in this country, ensuring that the poorest people are able to eat healthily, which at the moment they are not. It will ensure that the shocking burden of dietary ill health, including heart disease, type 2 diabetes and obesity, is reduced or perhaps even eliminated. It will ensure that our food system is environmentally sustainable, so that we can enjoy our food knowing that its production has not silenced the song of the skylark, destroyed wildflower meadows, polluted rivers and heated the planet.

Of course, the devil will be in the detail. Will the food strategy really deliver the rosy vision that I have just painted? I do not expect the Minister at this stage to be able to commit to any detail, but I want to flag up three questions for him to consider. First, we already have a good idea about things that work and things that do not. We know, for instance, that healthy eating messages on their own are not enough. The 5 A Day campaign has not altered fruit and vegetable consumption one iota over the last decade. On the other hand, the soft drinks industry levy has had a dramatic effect on altering consumption of sugar in soft drinks. I hope that when the strategy is published it will learn from past failures and successes and not shy away from tough interventions where they are appropriate.

Secondly—and the Minister referred to this—the strategy will require co-ordination across many government departments. Past experience indicates that this will work only if led by a high-level ministerial group. The Minister said that the cross-departmental group would be led by a director-general from Defra, who I am sure will be an outstanding individual who will do his or her very best, but the Government should recognise that, if this is really going to happen and if there really is to be cross-departmental collaboration to deliver a national food strategy, it needs a ministerial lead.

My third and final point for the Minister’s consideration is on how we are to scrutinise and assess progress in delivering the national food strategy. I think that we would all agree that the Government should not simply mark their own homework, so they should in due course lay out exactly how we will be able to judge whether the food strategy is doing what it claims to do to deliver healthy, environmentally sustainable, affordable food for everyone. One possibility, for example, would be for the Government to produce an annual report debated in Parliament; another might be to give the job of scrutiny, assessment and making recommendations to an independent body as does the Committee on Climate Change in relation to the Climate Change Act. With those thoughts for the Minister to ponder on, I beg to move.

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[The Deputy Speaker (Baroness Pitkeathley) (Lab)]

I have received no requests to speak after the Minister so I call the noble Lord, Lord Krebs.

[Lord Krebs (CB)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his helpful response in summing up. I thank all noble Lords who contributed to this short debate. I will be brief; I want to make a small number of points.

First, I apologise for putting 18 months in the amendment; clearly everybody thought that I was being too generous. This arose because the noble Lord, Lord Gardiner, said on Report that 12 months was too short. I thought that I would give him a bit of extra time but clearly I was wrong, so I apologise for that.

The noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch, spoke about Henry Dimbleby’s report. As everybody has said in this debate, the amendment builds on the fantastic work that Henry Dimbleby is doing. As the noble Baroness does, I hope that today’s debate and the Minister’s response have ensured that Henry Dimbleby’s final report will not gather dust in a filing cabinet, as so many reports of this kind have done. Now we have a firm commitment from the Government to develop a food strategy based on Dimbleby’s work.

On leadership, referred to by the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, and my noble friend Lady Boycott, I was very pleased to hear the Minister say that although the DG in Defra is leading the preparatory work, the Government and the Minister recognise that this will need ministerial oomph to get the thing done and deliver results.

Finally, on the review, the news that after 12 months Henry Dimbleby will mark the Government’s homework on his exam, so to speak, is very welcome. However, I hope that the review process will carry on beyond 12 months because rethinking our national food system will not be completed by then. I hope that we will see early signs and green shoots of something new coming up, but I hope also that the Government will think seriously about how they can ensure that, on a long-term and regular basis, those of us who are concerned about the food system—not just people in the Chamber and Members taking part remotely but a large proportion of the population—can repeat the review process and have transparency on the progress being made.

With those comments, I thank the Minister and the noble Lords who took part in the debate, and I beg leave to withdraw.

Motion B1 withdrawn.