Government Food Strategy

Neil Hudson Excerpts

Monday 13th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[George Eustice]

As I said, we have a range of policies in place, including the holiday activities and food programme and the work we do through FareShare. We also have the household support fund, and we are working with local authorities to identify where the needs are to ensure that that support can be directed to the right places.

[Dr Neil Hudson (Penrith and The Border) (Con)]

I welcome this statement that the Government are bolstering food production and food security. Producing food sustainably and looking after the environment go hand in hand, and our fantastic UK farmers are best placed to do that as they have been doing it for generations. The pandemic and the war in Ukraine have brought food security into sharp relief, and farmers are faced with the challenges of rising costs of fuel, animal feed and fertiliser, the supply of which is more uncertain with the announced closure of one of the UK’s fertiliser and CO₂ plants. Can my right hon. Friend reassure farmers in Cumbria and across the UK that the Government will support them through these challenges in the shared endeavour to produce more local food?

[George Eustice]

My hon. Friend raises some important points. We are watching the situation closely on fertiliser supply. Our current assessment is that production at the Billingham plant, which has the lion’s share of UK production, is continuing. We understand that it has had strong orders during the course of the year and farmers are managing to source their fertiliser by that route. We are also successfully continuing to import fertiliser from countries such as Norway. However, we monitor that closely because it is important that we ensure that farmers can get access to fertiliser, particularly for next year’s winter wheat crop.