UK Food Shortages

Lord Krebs Excerpts

Thursday 23rd February 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Krebs (CB)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for that very helpful summary of the situation. I would like to ask him a few questions. There are photographs in the newspapers today of full shelves in Spain, France, Germany and the Netherlands; if the problem is bad weather causing a crisis in production in Spain and Morocco, how come these other countries, including other northern European countries, apparently have access to plenty of salad and fruit? That is question one—why are we different? I know the Republic of Ireland is also having problems, but why are we different from many other European countries?

My second question is more forward-looking. The Minister talked about meetings with the industry and what can be done to support them, and I have two points about that. First, the horticulture sector is very energy intensive in this country. Does the discussion that the Minister referred to include the possibility of crucial support for energy costs in the horticulture sector? Secondly, this raises the broader issue of the resilience of our own food system. Does the Minister think that this affects the conclusions of the Agriculture Act 2020 that we should be paying farmers public money for public goods, excluding food production, like farming butterflies and hedgerows, which I am all in favour of? Does it change the perspective we have on trying to increase food production in this country?

I should have declared an interest of mine that is in the register.