Food Waste

Lord Krebs Excerpts

Wednesday 24th March 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con) [V]]

The noble Baroness makes an important point. We are supporting WRAP, which is our delivery partner, to help the hospitality sector to waste less food. WRAP has developed a new programme, called Guardians of Grub, to help the sector put food waste reduction, with all the associated cost savings, at the heart of its operations. As I mentioned, we are also supporting the redistribution sector to get more surplus food to those in need. In 2018, the hospitality industry provided more than 1,000 tonnes of surplus food—around 2% of its total—and since then we have invested significantly in redistribution, so we expect those positive trends to continue.

[Lord Krebs (CB) [V]]

My Lords, given that the global food system accounts for as much as 30% of greenhouse gas emissions, does the Minister agree that food, farming, dietary change and tackling food waste should form part of the Government’s commitments for COP 26? Does he also consider that it would be appropriate for England to join Scotland in signing the Glasgow food and climate declaration?

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con) [V]]

My Lords, it is remarkable that over the last 40 years food production has trebled, but that has come at a huge cost, in soil erosion, in the unsustainable use and pollution of water and in deforestation. Agriculture is responsible for about 80% of the world’s deforestation and deforestation is now the second biggest source of emissions. Meanwhile, efforts to produce cheaper meat have led to industrial-scale use of antibiotics, which in turn exacerbates issues around antimicrobial resistance. This absolutely is a central issue and much of the work that we are doing in the run-up to COP 26 in November is centred around the need to shift and change fundamentally the way in which we use land.