Food Waste and Food Distribution

Debate between Sharon Hodgson and Jim Shannon

Tuesday 16th April 2024 Westminster Hall

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I thank the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Jo Gideon) for leading today’s debate. It is estimated that total food waste in the UK amounted to 10.7 million tonnes in 2021. Most food waste comes from households, equating to some 60%, followed by farms, at 15%, manufacturing, at 13%, and retail, at 2%. It is clear that we need to do more as a collective to tackle our food waste statistics, so it is good to be here to discuss the issue. It is not just something that the Minister gives us the solutions for; it is something that we, as elected representatives, and communities must work together on.

I was shocked to read that the edible parts of household waste amounted to £17 billion. That is the equivalent of £250 per person per year, or £1,000 for a family of four. In Northern Ireland in 2021, Minister Lyons called for a crackdown on food waste. It was estimated that Northern Ireland accounted for 25% of the content of our non-recycling bins.

I want to give a couple of examples to illustrate what has been done in my community. At the end of the day, major shopkeepers, including Asda and Tesco, give perishable goods to community groups, which in turn give them to needy families and elderly people. What they do is incredible. I never knew this until I went to see the local warehouse just before Christmas, but Jude Bailey, the lady in charge of it, also does great work by collecting chicken and ready-made meals. The companies keep that food for 24 hours, but after that time they give it to the warehouse group, which freezes it and in turn makes meals. I was really impressed by what it does. Its volunteers make a free meal for the community every day so that the food is not wasted. That is similar to what the hon. Member for Glasgow North East (Anne McLaughlin) described. People are incredibly kind. Jude and her team of committed Christians show their faith through helping others.

We waste not only food but a large amount energy, and there are carbon emissions associated with growing and transporting food. In Northern Ireland, we have successfully diverted 1 million tonnes of biodegradable waste from landfill since 2015, but there is still an excessive amount of waste to be addressed. We are all guilty of throwing out too much food and not making use of what we have in our kitchens, but we do not realise the full extent of the environmental damage that that can cause.

This will be a trip down memory lane for you, Ms Vaz. In the ’60s, when I was a child, nothing was lost in our house—and I mean nothing. We owned a shop, and the family home got what we did not sell. That was not because the food was bad—I am a pensioner now, so it did not affect me in any way. I have held on to my health for many years, so that indicates that the food was okay. When the cheese went a bit blue, we cut off the blue bit and ate the rest, and it did not do us any harm. In this day and age, that probably would not happen, but we did it. Everything was used, and the collie dog got whatever we did not eat. My goodness me: as children in the ’60s with a very capable family, we were examples of using everything in the house.

[Mrs Hodgson]

The hon. Gentleman is making a very good point that I did not make in my speech. He brought this figure to my mind: although we all think that waste in this country comes from supermarkets and restaurants, 70% is from households. Does he agree that we need to start in our own households, exactly as he is describing, if we want to solve the problem of food waste?

[Jim Shannon]

Absolutely, and that is the point that I am trying to make. I said to the Minister before the sitting that I do not expect him to give us all the answers. We have the answers individually and in our communities.

I am thankful that I have a very frugal wife who is careful with our grocery and shopping lists, but I understand the pressure on young families, who are busier now than I could ever imagine. Both parents work, and when they come home they carry out homework and take the kids to football or to Boys’ Brigade or Girls’ Brigade. When do they make meals? They have to rinse out containers for the recycling bin. They may envisage making dinner six times that week and buying groceries, but when the timings are changed for football or the school choir, or the kids need to be dropped off, it is hard for them to do that.

We have rightly moved away from girls-only home economics classes. I am impressed when I go to schools and see equal numbers of young boys in the same class, doing the same work and learning how to cook. Before I was married, it was bacon butties—toast and bacon under the grill. I will not say how often I used the grill and how often it was cleaned. I think I survived well as a single man, but when I got married, life changed. I thank the Lord it did.

It is clear from the figures that have been cited today that we need to take action. I am a great believer in education not simply changing our generation but equipping future generations with the tools to do better than we are currently doing, and I will finish with this comment. Households on low budgets need help to know how best to use their food, but households with higher budgets need the same lessons, because this is not a tale of income; it is a tale of mindset, as the hon. Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson) said. We all must change our mindsets to be better stewards of our resources, food, money and, of course, time.

Diabetes: Tailored Prevention Messaging

Debate between Sharon Hodgson and Jim Shannon

Thursday 24th October 2019 Westminster Hall

[Mrs Sharon Hodgson (Washington and Sunderland West) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Buck. In my long tenure as shadow Minister for Public Health, it has been a pleasure to speak in many debates with the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), on all sorts of health issues. I congratulate him on securing this debate and on his excellent speech. I know that diabetes is an important issue to him and I thank him for speaking so honestly about his own journey with diabetes. In the past, I have spoken about my own journey, but I do not plan to dwell on that too much today.

I thank other hon. Members for their excellent contributions: my hon. Friend the Member for Heywood and Middleton (Liz McInnes), my right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz) and the SNP spokesperson, the hon. Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk (Martyn Day). Although there are not many of us in attendance, we have heard some excellent contributions and the debate has been full, detailed and excellent. I also thank charities such as Diabetes UK for the work that they do, both to support people with diabetes and to prevent diabetes.

Like the Secretary of State and, I am sure, the Minister, we all believe that prevention is better than cure. We all say that, and I honestly think that we all believe it. As hon. Members have said, however, the Government repeat that mantra but have cut public health funding to the tune of £700 million since 2013. Those cuts have had a serious impact on the nation’s health, but they have hit those in low-income areas the most, as we have heard. That is particularly concerning, given that children and adults living in deprived areas are substantially more likely to be obese, and obesity is a risk factor for diabetes—particularly type 2 diabetes, as my hon. Friend the Member for Heywood and Middleton made clear.

According to NHS Digital, one quarter of people living with type 2 diabetes in England are from the most deprived fifth of society, compared with 15% from the least deprived. We have had that knowledge for a long time, so it really is time that the Government used the knowledge and took action to tackle both the obesity and the diabetes epidemic, both of which disproportionately affect those in the most deprived areas.

Opposition Members have been clear that there is no silver bullet to fix the issue. However, we support the proposal to introduce a 9 pm watershed on the advertising of food that is high in fat, salt and sugar. We also support a restriction on the sale of energy drinks to under-16s and clearer labelling on food and drink—that would help us all. Those are all policies on which the Government have consulted, but we have yet to see anything from the Government setting out whether they will be implemented. Can the Minister update us on the consultations when she responds?

[Jim Shannon]

I congratulate the hon. Lady on her contribution and her comments. I was sitting here thinking about families and diabetes. In a family of four or five, there may be one diabetic member of the household. I believe that the whole family—mum and dad, brothers and sisters; whoever it may be—need to give consideration to the person with diabetes to ensure that their battle with diabetes is one that the whole family fights together. That is difficult to do, but it is important that families realise that they have a job to do.

[Mrs Hodgson]

I am not sure whether there is a hereditary aspect to it, but I am aware that sometimes there can be a number of people with diabetes in the same family. I am the only one I know of in my family with the condition, but then again I do not know my father’s side. My mam always says that I take after my dad with regard to my size, so perhaps there is a link and I am just not aware of it. The eating habits of members of a family can be very similar. If eating habits have led someone to get diabetes, the condition could have affected others in the same family, so the hon. Gentleman makes a valid point.

The evidence shows that the policies proposed by the Government, if they are fully and quickly implemented, could help us to make real progress towards reducing childhood obesity by 2030. Will the Minister tell us what the delay is? Instead of just window-dressing with the childhood obesity plan chapters 1 and 2 and the former chief medical officer’s special report on childhood obesity, which we had in the past couple of weeks, the Government must now take bold action and implement all the policies in the reports. The time for reports and consultations is over. We all know what needs to be done, and now we need urgent action.

According to NHS England, managing the growing incidence of diabetes in England is set to become one of the major clinical challenges of the 21st century, as we have heard expressed clearly in this debate. Estimates suggest that the number of people with diabetes is expected to rise to 4.2 million by 2030, affecting almost 9% of the population, with all the associated costs.

More than half of all cases of type 2 diabetes could be prevented or delayed. The hon. Member for Strangford and my right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester East both spoke about that in detail. By reducing the number of people who are overweight or obese, we can reduce the number of people who develop type 2 diabetes and live with the life-changing complications that are associated with it. Like the hon. Gentleman, I wish I had known much sooner the irreversible damage that I was doing to myself. I have done a detailed blog post about it, which is available online, if anyone is interested in my thoughts—I will go into them no further in this debate. Steps that the Government take today will benefit people greatly tomorrow, so will the Minister please outline the Government’s plans to prevent further incidence of diabetes?

There is no one-size-fits-all approach to diabetes, which is why targeted messaging and support is so important, alongside societal and environmental changes to tackle obesity, as I have mentioned. Interventions such as NHS health checks, weight management programmes and the NHS diabetes prevention programme should therefore be offered and taken up more often in order to identify risk and to prevent diabetes. Many people who are eligible for the NHS health checks are not invited to them or do not attend.

What will the Government do to encourage people to attend their NHS health check and to ensure that everyone who is eligible is definitely invited for a check? About 1 million people live with undiagnosed type 2 diabetes, and one in three people already have diabetes complications by the time they are diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, so that service could be invaluable in preventing further incidence of diabetes and of the complications that sufferers experience.

Those who have diabetes know that it is possible to put type 2 diabetes into remission through substantial weight loss. As the hon. Member for Strangford mentioned, my hon. Friend the Member for West Bromwich East (Tom Watson) has been incredibly vocal about his very visible journey. He has been an inspiration to many. We need to make sure that when people go into diabetes remission, they continue to get support, access to diabetes monitoring and, where necessary, care, because, as I was told, “You are never cured.” Even if someone with diabetes is in remission through diet, they will still forever be a diabetic—we have broken our bodies, basically.

People who wish to go into remission must have continued support. There is still a need for more research to understand the long-term impact of remission on reducing complications, but for now the future in that regard looks positive. This debate has been excellent, and it has demonstrated that there are clearly steps that the Government can and should take to prevent diabetes. I hope that the Minister will take them on board. I look forward to her response.

In closing, I thank and congratulate—on behalf of all us who are living with diabetes—Professor Ian Shanks, the inventor of the blood glucose monitor some 40 years ago. I was so pleased to hear the news overnight that he is to be paid a small award. I say “small” because, although it is £2 million, I understand that most of it will be eaten up by the legal costs of a 13-year battle. He might not be a rich man after he has paid all his legal bills, but he will be rich in terms of gratitude for the millions of lives he has saved, and no doubt improved, with his invention.

Environment Agency: Enforcement Action

Debate between Sharon Hodgson and Jim Shannon

Monday 14th May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Sharon Hodgson (Washington and Sunderland West) (Lab)]

This is my first end of day Adjournment debate in a very long time; however, I am glad to have secured it as it gives me the chance to raise an ongoing issue in my constituency that has been a source of great consternation to me and many of the residents of Teal Farm and the areas adjacent to the Pattinson Road waste processing sites cluster, which I will refer to collectively as Teal Farm, as that is quite a mouthful.

For more than two years now, or perhaps even longer, residents and local councillors—especially Councillor Tony Taylor, who has been vigilant and tenacious on this matter—have raised concerns about the activity going on in Teal Farm, especially on the industrial estates that neighbour the residential area. It has been going on for so long that I have been applying for this debate for months now, and my former researcher, Daniel Tye, who helped me prepare this speech, moved on months ago. I wish that the issue had as well, but alas it has not. That is what brings me here.

Let me give some context. Washington new town was built in the 1960s as one of a few new towns across the country to help with overcrowding and population growth in local urban areas. In Washington’s case, that means the neighbouring cities of Sunderland, Durham and Newcastle. Part of the planning was meant to allow it to be a town with residential estates and industrial estates that were side by side but did not interfere with each other’s daily lives. Although the planning was meant to reduce interference between the two, that has become more of a problem as the town has grown and more residents have moved into the area, making the luxury of quiet residential living more difficult than when the town was first founded in the 1960s.

Sadly, the situation in Teal Farm in Washington is a microcosm of that situation; the original idea of residential and industrial being in close proximity but not bothering each other has been thrown out of the window. That has led to tensions between residents and businesses alike, which have extended to organisations such as the local council and the regional branch of the Environment Agency. Unfortunately and annoyingly for the residents of Teal Farm, there seem to be endless cases of problems arising, and local residents have kept me abreast of all the issues through the residents association and the dedicated team of local councillors.

As I just set out, the reason I am speaking today is to document this officially on the record and to prise out of the Minister what more can be done to address the issues of industrial mismanagement that has blighted the lives of many of my constituents in Washington, especially when it comes to environmental issues.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I congratulate the hon. Lady on bringing this issue forward; these are always very important debates. Does she agree that it is essential that fines given by the Environment Agency should fit the crime, that legislation should also reflect that, and that the council and the Government need to act accordingly?

Water Safety

Debate between Sharon Hodgson and Jim Shannon

Tuesday 17th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Sharon Hodgson (Washington and Sunderland West) (Lab)]

Just under a year ago at the start of the six-week summer holiday on 23 July 2013, 15-year-old Tonibeth Purvis from Barmston in Washington in my constituency, and her friend Chloe Fowler who was 14—she was from the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Houghton and Sunderland South (Bridget Phillipson)—tragically died after drowning in the River Wear at Fatfield in Washington. It was a lovely hot sunny day, much like we saw last week and will hopefully see again this summer. To cool off, Chloe jumped into the river. Unfortunately, that particular stretch of the River Wear has a fast current and is up to six metres deep in the middle. It is full of hidden hazards, as many rivers are. It was not long, therefore, before Chloe sadly got into difficulty. Seeing her friend in trouble, Tonibeth immediately jumped in to help her, along with a number of other friends they were with. They quickly found themselves in trouble as well, Tonibeth to the point where she was also overcome. The emergency services were called immediately, shortly before 3 pm. Unfortunately, by then it was already too late. Tonibeth was not located until 8.49 pm, and it took a huge team of emergency service workers—who by all accounts were fantastic—another hour to find Chloe.

The only saving grace of this terrible tragedy is that more young people did not die that afternoon. As her friends said in paying tribute to her in the days following the tragedy, Tonibeth died a hero, trying her best to rescue her friend. She was quite rightly recognised for that heroism as the winner of the editor’s choice award at the Sunderland Echo’s Pride of Wearside awards in November last year. As a mother myself, I do not know if that brings much comfort to her family. I sincerely hope it does.

The parents of Tonibeth and Chloe are not the only ones currently living through the nightmare of losing a child to drowning. Drowning is the third most common cause of accidental death among children in the UK. According to the response I received from the Office for National Statistics to a parliamentary question I tabled in September last year, between July 2008 and December 2012 coroners recorded 48 accidental deaths of children and young people aged under 20 in natural water. That is 48 individual tragedies, 48 families devastated and 48 schools, colleges and wider communities affected—and one persistent problem. Those figures may not tell the whole story, as coroners figures only record the primary cause of death.

The figures for deaths in water—the water incident database, or WAID, statistics compiled by the National Water Safety Forum—were put at 47 for under-20s in 2011 alone and another 42 in 2012. Those figures show that this is primarily an issue for boys, who account for 78 of the 89 deaths in those two years. None of these figures, of course, include Tonibeth and Chloe or any other young people who lost their lives last summer or since. I understand that in the six-week hot spell we had last summer there were 36 deaths. Of course, many other children and young people have come close to losing their lives. Some have suffered serious injuries or been left traumatised by getting into trouble in the water. When we take all age groups into account, there are some 400 deaths a year, which is the equivalent of one every 20 hours.

The fact is that the vast majority of these individual tragedies can be avoided if people possess a basic understanding of how to look after themselves and know what to do in an emergency, whether it happens to them or others.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I congratulate the hon. Lady on bringing this subject to the House for consideration. In my constituency, unfortunately, we have had similar experiences, usually during warm spells of weather. Does she think that advertisements and warnings should be sent out through local press and local government to ensure that people are aware of the dangers in quarries, rivers and the sea? Those are the danger spots whenever the weather is warm.

[Mrs Hodgson]

I will come on to prevention shortly.

The Royal Life Saving Society was, opportunely, in Parliament today, hosted by the hon. Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Nadhim Zahawi), who had hoped to attend the debate. It held a briefing session for MPs and peers on this very subject ahead of drowning prevention week, which begins on Monday 23 June and runs until 29 June. It conducted research last year that found that 68% of people said they would not know what to do if they saw someone drowning, or how to treat them even if they were able to recover them safely from the water. However, in spite of that self-awareness of lack of capability, 63% of those people said they would still jump in to try to save a family member who was drowning, and 37% said they would even do so to try to save a stranger.

Most victims of drowning are alone, but it is little wonder that the kind of selflessness and heroism that was displayed by Tonibeth can so often lead to an even deeper tragedy. In the hope of preventing such tragedies, the RLSS has made a number of demands in its “manifesto for water safety”, which I think require close consideration by the Minister and, indeed, other members of the Government.

The RLSS argues that schools should ensure that every child is taught the basic principles of water safety, and personal survival skills. That means that children should understand the risks involved in various water environments such as currents, loose banks and vegetation, and should know how best to enter and exit water, which includes what it is best for them to do if they fall in. It means that they should be able to orientate and contort their bodies in the water, especially if they are caught in a current and need to turn to face the direction in which it is taking them so that they avoid hurting themselves and do not miss opportunities to grab something. It means being familiar with the typical survival skills that would generally occur to us, such as treading water, making ourselves buoyant, and swimming in clothing. Swimming itself is, of course, a very important skill, but it is also important to be taught the techniques that make it possible to rescue other people safely, which include keeping their heads back and above water.

The current school curriculum mentions safety, but the target of being able to swim 25 metres by the end of primary school is the real priority for most schools. Being able to swim 25 metres would certainly help, but doing so in a warm, clear swimming pool with lifeguards at hand is completely different from having to swim 25 metres, or even 5 metres, in a cold lake or a river with a strong current and hidden hazards.

Postal Services Bill

Debate between Sharon Hodgson and Jim Shannon

Wednesday 27th October 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Sharon Hodgson (Washington and Sunderland West) (Lab)]

Reform of the UK's postal services was in the manifesto of both the Conservative party and the Liberal Democrats, so it should come as no surprise to anyone in the Chamber that we are considering this Bill so early into the coalition's temporary tenure on the Government Benches. What will be a surprise to voters is that, rather than merely allowing for an injection of private investment, the Bill paves the way for a complete sell-off of that vital public service. That goes way beyond what the Liberal Democrats were elected on; they proposed selling 49% to private investors, which is too high for my personal tastes, but at least not a dominant stake.

I have had a look through the Tory manifesto, which is imaginatively named “Invitation to Join the Government of Britain”. I think that the public were led to believe that that was an invitation to them, but as it turned out it was just to a dozen or so Liberal Democrats. From glancing through that fascinating read, it appears that “the post” got lost in it. I see references to Ministers taking posts, to first past the post, and even to the “Post-Bureaucratic Age”, whatever that is. What I do not see is a commitment to postal services, or a pledge to allow the complete sell-off of Royal Mail. Indeed, the majority of voters for both branches of the current Conservative party on the Government Benches do not support the sell-off of Royal Mail. As both parties have already shown, however, pre-election promises and pledges are not worth the paper they are written on. Therefore, I am sure that their electorates will be getting used to being treated with contempt.

As the now Business Secretary once said about the last Labour Government's vital bail-out of the financial sector, this proposal looks like the Government are intending to privatise the profits of a public business and nationalise the losses. I know that many of his colleagues in the yellow branch of the Conservative Party agree with me on that. I am also concerned that once the Royal Mail is privatised it will be another institution that is deemed too big to fail. In the event of a potential investor running out of cash in what remains a fairly unstable worldwide economy, will the Government be forced to step back in and assume control of Royal Mail, thus soaking up a second tranche of liabilities? Of course, I am not saying that the Royal Mail should ever be allowed to fail, but the Government can guarantee that that never becomes an issue only by ensuring that a significant majority stake remains in public ownership.

On the separation of Royal Mail and the Post Office, there is no international precedent for separating a national main mail operator from its retail arm. Therefore, the Government are in effect taking a stab in the dark—the latest in what looks like a long line of gambles with the future of our country.

Clause 33 gives Ofcom the power to review the universal service obligation. In the event of complete privatisation, the large private company or consortium of companies would undoubtedly have a slick and well-funded lobbying operation, which they could deploy to press Ofcom to change the terms of the USO, potentially resulting in the loss of a delivery day.

[Jim Shannon]

Does the hon. Lady agree that our current six-day service, with the delivery tomorrow of first-class post that is posted today, might change under the new regime, meaning that on a cold, wet, windy day people in Kilmood, Cloughey or Buckna would not get their delivery?

[Mrs Hodgson]

I do agree. A lot of things that we now take for granted would be under threat, including that.

Several members of the new Government were fairly open prior to the election about their contempt for Ofcom. It is not for me to speculate as to why that might be, but it appeared to coincide with the acquisition by the Tories of a certain powerful new patron who shares that contempt. At any rate, the chances of No. 10 backing Ofcom on maintaining the six-day delivery week, or of even imploring Ofcom to maintain it, seem fairly slim. Can the Minister today give a guarantee to the House that Ofcom will not be leant on from any quarter—or, better still, will he undertake to remove the flexibility entirely at a later stage of the Bill’s proceedings?

I realise that many other Members wish to speak, so I will limit the length of my remarks. The majority of Members recognise that reform of postal services is needed to secure the long-term future of Royal Mail and to maintain the universal service obligation, but the Government have no mandate to introduce the Bill as currently drafted. Allowing the sell-off of Royal Mail is not wanted by my constituents and nor is it wanted by many Members on both sides of the House or the wider public. It is certainly not wanted by the employees, even with the promise of bunging them a few shares as a sweetener. The only people who do want it are the potential investors and their friends on the Treasury Bench. The interests of this narrow constituency do not justify the Government’s taking an ideological sledgehammer to a nut that does not necessarily need to be cracked.