Flooding

Stephen Doughty Excerpts

Wednesday 26th February 2014 Commons Chamber

[Maria Eagle]

My hon. Friend makes a strong point and perhaps in due course—either during this debate or thereafter—we can have a better understanding and, I hope, a shared understanding across the House about what has and has not been completed in respect of Pitt.

For weeks after this crisis arose, Ministers refused to accept the need for additional funding; they refused to accept the serious situation facing many farmers, who had seen their land submerged and their livestock displaced; they refused to accept that the Government had a duty to act regardless of whether official requests from councils had been received; they refused to countenance the mobilisation of the armed forces; they refused to act on council tax, having changed the law to abolish automatic exemptions; and they refused to accept the need to act on insurance payouts. Instead, despite meeting after meeting of Cobra, very little action seemed to result.

It is clear that that situation was not helped by the confusion about who has been in charge of the Government’s response. It is hardly the Environment Secretary’s fault that he was forced to step back from the front line, and I know that the whole House wishes him well as he continues on his road to recovery. However, we then faced a period of chaos as the Communities Secretary took charge for a few slightly misjudged and disastrous hours, before he was banned from the airwaves. The Defence Secretary was then dispatched to repair all the damage caused by the Communities Secretary’s blundering, and then the Transport Secretary appeared to become the fourth member of the Cabinet to be put in charge of the Government’s response. Then, in the past few days, we have finally seen a blitz of public relations initiatives and some welcome extra money as the Prime Minister, having woken up late to the impact of the severe floods, decided that he had better take charge of the response himself.

[Stephen Doughty (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)]

On that point, was my hon. Friend also confused, as I was, by the Prime Minister’s visit to Pembrokeshire, when it was not clear whether the funding that he announced there even applied to Wales? Also, will she join me in commending the work of the Welsh Labour Government in protecting flood defences, flood staff and flood funding?

Badger Cull

Stephen Doughty Excerpts

Wednesday 5th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Doughty (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)]

The Secretary of State is giving a lot of international examples, but I would like to know what lessons he is learning from the vaccination project in Wales, which shows that there clearly is an alternative. I have read the results of the project closely, and I would like to know what lessons he has learned.

[Mr Paterson]

The hon. Gentleman raises an important point, but I ask him to wait a few minutes because I am coming on to deal with it. Let me first finish off the international comparisons.

Dangerous Dogs and Jade Lomas Anderson

Stephen Doughty Excerpts

Wednesday 15th May 2013 Commons Chamber

[Julie Hilling]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. Since Jade’s death there have been thousands of further attacks on people, including one on a child in Bolton who had her eyelid ripped away and has terrible marks under her eye. Fortunately, the dog missed the eye altogether so her sight was saved. This is not an insignificant problem. It is an issue that affects the quality of life of millions of people and one that deserves the full attention of the Government, who should provide legislation that will really make a difference.

[Stephen Doughty (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)]

My hon. Friend is making a strong and passionate speech and paying a fitting tribute to Jade Lomas. My thoughts are with her family and friends. My hon. Friend will be aware that I recently witnessed a brutal attack by a Staffordshire bull terrier in which a cat was mauled to death in front of me and a man was injured—I only narrowly escaped injury myself. The family involved have been told that it would have been better if the dog had been running free in the street, because then something could have been done about it. That highlights again the issue of attacks taking place on private property. Does my hon. Friend agree that this simply has to change?

[Julie Hilling]

Absolutely. My hon. Friend has it absolutely right. I welcome the fact that the Government are going to extend the legislation to cover private property, but that in itself is not enough, because preventive measures are necessary, too.

Dog control notices would give the authorities the power to intervene if concern has been raised about a dog. They would be able to instruct the owner to take a range of actions that could include keeping the dog muzzled, keeping it on a lead or keeping it away from children. The owner and dog could be made to undertake training. I believe, although not everyone agrees with me, that we should be able to order the owner to reduce the number of dogs in a household if the home is not suitable for the number and size of the dogs.

Dog control notices are supported by a wide range of organisations, including the Kennel Club, the Dogs Trust, the RSPCA, the Royal College of Nursing, the British Veterinary Association, The Blue Cross, Battersea Dogs and Cats Home and the Communication Workers Union. They have already been introduced in Northern Ireland and Scotland, and they should be introduced across the UK. Their existence would provide a swift, flexible and proportionate way to deal with irresponsible dog owners. They would act as an early warning system and action could be taken to promote responsible ownership, rather than just prosecuting owners after a tragedy has taken place.

I welcome the Government’s intention to extend the legislation on out-of-control dogs to cover assistance dogs, but I do not understand why they have not included all protected animals. “Protected animals” are already defined under the Animal Welfare Act 2006, and that would deal with the increasing problem of attacks on livestock as well as dealing with attacks on cats, which can often be the first sign that a dog is dangerously out of control. Why should not a responsible owner walking a dog on a lead be protected by law from an attack by a dangerous dog?

My constituent Ryan came to see me when his dog was attacked in a park. He not only had to deal with the trauma of the attack, but then had a huge vet’s bill to pay. He did not need to describe the attacking dog to the vet; the vet could tell him about the dog, because a series of people had come to him with their injured dogs. Another constituent, Beryl, came to see me after her two cats were attacked by a dog in her own garden. After much pressure, the police did take action, but it would be so much easier if there were clear legislation.

Dog charities and local authorities are reporting an increase in the number of abandoned dogs. Some are abandoned because their owners can no longer afford to look after them, others because their owners can no longer control them. Battersea Dogs and Cats Home told me that 41% of the dogs that came to its shelter last year were what it calls “bull breeds”, and 32% of those were Staffordshire bull terriers. The home has also seen an increase in the number of Akitas—Japanese fighting dogs—and Rottweilers. Like other charities, Battersea finds it difficult to re-home such dogs. Indeed, it was unable to re-home 28% of the dogs of all breeds that came to it. It was keen to stress that it does not destroy any dogs that can be re-homed, and places no time limit on the length of stay. In fact, the longest stay was by a Staffordshire bull terrier, who stayed for two years until the charity found him a new home.

We do need to take action on the indiscriminate breeding of puppies. The Blue Cross says that it would like hobby breeders who are flooding an already saturated market with puppies to be stopped. That could be done by decreasing the number of litters a year that a person is allowed before having to become a licensed breeder. Many organisations think that the number should be reduced to two a year; others, including the former chief vet for the RSPCA, believe that anyone who breeds dogs—even if by accident—should be registered. The Government are proposing the compulsory microchipping of all dogs. Why can they not require a register of breeders at the same time?

If microchipping is to be effective, there needs to be an obligation for the dog’s owner to transfer ownership officially. My local police tell me that they sometimes take a dog back to the registered address, only to be told that the owner gave it away some time ago. The old slogan “A dog is for life, not just for Christmas” needs to be brought to life by proper controls of ownership. The issues of dog welfare and community safety cannot be separated.

Replying to an intervention by me in a debate last week, the Home Secretary told me that the Government had not included dog control notices in their Bill because they believed

“that the other powers and orders we are introducing under this antisocial behaviour Bill will give sufficient power to the police to be able to deal with dangerous dogs without needing to introduce a separate—and yet another—notice.”—[Official Report, 9 May 2013; Vol. 563, c. 170.]

I have to inform her that none of the experts agree with her.

Dogs that are used as weapons may come to the attention of the police, and the owners could become subject to the new antisocial behaviour orders, but dogs like those that killed Jade would never come to attention in that way. The only complaint about those dogs appears to have been a complaint about noise. If that could have been investigated with dog control notices in place, maybe—just maybe—action could have been taken; or maybe the people who were scared to walk past the garden would have felt it worth while to lodge a complaint because something could have been done.

Jade’s was not the first case of dog attack to arise in my constituency, and if the Government do not take action, it will definitely not be the last. We need holistic legislation to deal with both dog welfare and dangerous dogs, because the two issues are inextricably linked. A well-trained, well-socialised and well-looked-after dog is far less likely to be involved in an attack. However, we also need to educate people about both care and respect for dogs. Even the most well-mannered dog may behave differently around children.

Many owners have spoken to me in the past few weeks, and have told me that they would never leave their dog unattended with children. Why can we not support the voluntary sector in its efforts to train children and adults to care for dogs and take responsibility for them? Why can we not encourage secondary schools to make that part of personal, social, health and economic education, and encourage primary schools to educate their children about care for their pets? The current proposals will not protect our children, and they will not protect our communities from the blight of dangerous dogs.

I would be the last person to suggest that if we had had legislation in place, Jade would have been saved, but one thing is sure: if we do not take comprehensive action there will be more Jades, and more people’s lives will be ruined by out-of-control dogs. Jade’s parents, Michael and Shirley Anderson, are fighting for Justice for Jade. They are determined to campaign to change the law so that no other family has to suffer in the way in which they are suffering. The Minister has the power to listen to them, to the many hon. Members who have raised the issue, and to the experts, and introduce comprehensive legislation. Will he do so?

[The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Mr David Heath)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Bolton West (Julie Hilling) on securing the debate and on speaking with genuine eloquence and passion on behalf of her constituents. I salute her for doing so. Nothing I can say or do will fill the void in the lives of the family and friends of Jade Lomas Anderson, but I do want to send my condolences to them. The tragic circumstances of her death will, I hope, not be repeated, but they ought to make every Member mindful of whether we have the right legislation in place and what we can do. Such tragic incidents serve to remind us of the importance of responsible dog ownership and the far-reaching consequences of irresponsible dog ownership, which can affect all of us, regardless of whether we own a dog. I hope that that message will strike home.

The Government continue to take the matter of dangerous dogs extremely seriously, and the hon. Lady kindly set out some of the measures we have put in place. The previous legislation was passed in haste and was inadequate in many ways. It has been seen not to be fit for purpose and we must close some of the loopholes and gaps.

On 9 May, provisions amending the Dangerous Dogs Act 1991 were introduced into the House with the First Reading of the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Bill. That follows the announcement on 6 February of the intention to amend the 1991 Act. Our legislating in this directed way, having taken the advice of many people, makes it clear that the Government are serious about tackling the issue of dangerous dogs and irresponsible dog ownership.

The key element of the amendments addresses the issue of dog attacks on people. Sadly, such incidents are on the rise, and 15 people have died in this country as a result of dog attacks since 2005. That is totally unacceptable. To address that, and to toughen the laws in this area, we are giving the police more powers to deal with attacks that happen on private property—a specific lacuna in the law—in order to protect the thousands of children, postal workers, health visitors, social care workers and others who are attacked each year. That has been widely welcomed by key bodies such as the Association of Chief Police Officers and the Royal Mail, which recognise the danger to their employees. The message from the Government is clear: owners must be responsible for their dog at all times and in all places.

This Government recognise that there are many responsible dog owners, and we support them. It is for that reason that the clauses amending the 1991 Act contain an explicit exemption from prosecution for householders whose dog attacks a trespasser who is in, or is entering, a home, whether or not the householder is present. That reinforces the Government’s position that it is right that householders should not be at risk of prosecution for reasonable actions taken in self-defence or in defence of property.

We have also made sure that irresponsible owners have to face up to the consequences of their actions. Last year, the Sentencing Council published new guidelines for judges and magistrates on sentencing for dangerous dog offences, including increasing the recommended sentencing range for an offence of allowing a dog to be dangerously out of control and injuring someone from six to 18 months’ imprisonment. According to the Sentencing Council:

“The new guideline will mean more offenders will face jail sentences, more will get community orders and fewer will receive discharges.”

Those new guidelines came into effect in August 2012.

The change is too late for the hon. Lady’s constituents—I recognise that—but it will ensure that any future cases are treated as a criminal matter. In addition, there are existing powers available to deal with any dog that is dangerously out of control or being used to intimidate people. Those powers have been and are being used, but it is right to extend the protection to people in all places, including their homes, so that owners know they will be held accountable for the behaviour of their dogs, wherever those dogs may be. We therefore look forward to the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Bill moving through the House and being properly debated before it receives Royal Assent.

The Government consider that owning a dog is a serious undertaking and should not be done lightly. We are working closely with the animal welfare charities to encourage people to take more responsibility for their own actions and their pets. The hon. Lady made some very sensible points about education, because a lot of dog owners simply do not recognise what they should be doing. Whether through ignorance, neglect or malice, it is simply unacceptable for dogs to be kept in circumstances in which they remain a danger to other people. That is what we need to address.

Early intervention is vital in preventing poorly trained or poorly socialised dogs escalating to serious and ultimately dangerous attacks. As well as amending the Dangerous Dogs Act 1991, the Bill introduces six flexible tools designed to be used by local enforcement agencies, including the police and local authorities, to respond effectively to individual and local situations that may or may not involve dogs.

[Stephen Doughty]

I thank the Minister his assurances, particularly on increased police powers. One of the challenges I discovered when I engaged with the police over the incident I mentioned was that the police said that even if they had they been able to go on to private property to remove the dog, they had no facility in which to house the dog afterwards. The incident happened over an Easter weekend and no pounds were available—there was no place to take the dog. What assurances can he give about the facilities available to house dogs that are causing such distress?

[Mr Heath]

The hon. Gentleman makes an important point, and it is something we have been discussing with ACPO, because it is essential that if we give powers to the police, they can exercise them properly. A range of sanctions will be available to the police to deal with dogs. Some dogs, I am afraid, will have to be destroyed straight away—that is the reality—and others will be impounded, so it is important that there are facilities available to keep those dogs safely until they can be assessed or retrieved, as appropriate.

Returning to the proposals to amend the Dangerous Dogs Act, we hope that they will provide a set of flexible and effective tools and powers to enable the police and local authorities to tackle a wide range of antisocial behaviour, including dog-related incidents. The amendments to the Act, bolstered by the new antisocial behaviour measures, will provide the framework for tackling irresponsible dog ownership, from low-level incidents to more serious dog attacks. That will help to encourage a more responsible approach. The focus should also be on ensuring proper enforcement, which can only be helped by engaging local communities, who understand local problems and can report them, combined with educating owners on responsible behaviour, as the hon. Lady said.

Horsemeat

Stephen Doughty Excerpts

Wednesday 30th January 2013 Westminster Hall

[Huw Irranca-Davies (Ogmore) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon North (Steve Reed) on securing this debate, which is of vital concern not only for food production but for manufacturing and processing. It affects every constituency in the UK; I doubt that there is a single one that does not have jobs related to food manufacturing and processing. As the Minister will know, it is one of the largest employment areas in the UK economy, but is often overlooked. It is important to get food provenance and consumer confidence in the sector right, and to ensure that what is written on the label is accurate.

As my hon. Friend outlined in his contribution, this debate should focus on restoring confidence after a scare within the industry and among consumers, but in order to do so, we need complete and utter transparency. I agree with the comments made by the hon. Member for Brecon and Radnorshire (Roger Williams); in the past couple of decades, we have become increasingly rigorous in inspecting and testing meat, in terms of slaughter and processing. However, we also need candour, not only about the successes in the sector and in implementation across the EU but about potential failings. If we do not do so—if we try to conceal issues that might be of concern—we have learned nothing from previous scare stories that have caused a run on consumer confidence and hit the economy of the food processing sector. It is vital to be honest with consumers, ourselves and industry in order to restore and maintain confidence.

That might be uncomfortable, but before I begin, let me highlight, as I am sure the Minister will do in his speech, the importance of the sector. The meat processing and slaughter sector in the UK involves more than 300 businesses and contributes more than £4 billion in revenue and turnover. In the European Union, of which we are still a member nation at the moment, the meat processing sector employs 48 million people, and here in the UK it employs 1.25 million. It is economically important, but consumer confidence is equally important. People need to know that what they eat is what is described on the package.

[Stephen Doughty (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)]

I apologise for not being here at the start of the debate, and I thank my hon. Friend for giving way. His point about confidence is of the greatest concern to many Muslim and Jewish consumers in my constituency and across the country. Although, as we know, none of the products recalled was labelled as kosher or halal, the case has unfortunately eroded confidence more widely. Does he not think that it is crucial to rebuild confidence in the industry?

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

My hon. Friend makes a critical point. There are technical issues that we need to consider and ask the Minister to deal with, but fundamentally, consumers might overlook much of that technical detail. They want to know exactly what the Government, the Food Standards Agency, individual food processors and manufacturers and supermarkets are doing to give utter confidence to the nth degree, so that they know what they are purchasing, whether in a local takeaway or restaurant, a supermarket or elsewhere. In a moment I will mention some ways in which we might want to deal with that.

I should like to discuss some salient points that my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon North mentioned, including on the fragmentation of the labelling system between three different areas and the cuts to the FSA budget, from £143 million to £132 million by 2014-15. It will be interesting to hear the Minister’s comments about how he can avoid those cuts having any impact at all on front-line testing. The National Audit Office states that Government funding is falling substantially. Unison has some views on the matter, too.

I do not think that hon. Members have mentioned the detection of bute, or any other substance, whether in trace elements or otherwise—an issue that has recently emerged. The interesting response from the FSA, when this matter was pushed, was that it could provide reassurance that none of the animals slaughtered in which bute was identified were put into the human consumption chain within the UK. It is, of course, illegal to put such animals into the human food chain. However, five animals were identified later as having been subsumed into the food chain in another country in the EU. In light of comments made during this debate about integration and the fact that food now does not necessarily go straight from farm to fork—it could go through various stages of processing—it is interesting to note that food produced in this country that was tested and identified as containing bute, albeit with trace elements, entered the human food chain somewhere in the EU. Whether in respect of bute or any other substances, can we give consumers confidence that, in that spider’s web of food processing networks, nothing containing those substances is re-entering the UK for consumption?

Food Poverty

Stephen Doughty Excerpts

Wednesday 12th December 2012 Westminster Hall

[Luciana Berger]

I thank my hon. Friend for that example of the vital work done by Magic Breakfast. The fact that schoolchildren in our country are coming to school having not eaten any food, and are therefore less able to concentrate, is a very worrying and difficult state of affairs. I hope that the Minister will respond to that point.

Before the fantastic contributions of my hon. Friends, I was talking about the extent of the problem. It is worth expanding on that, because it is important that the Minister hears about many of the different studies that have been made. A recent report by Netmums found that one in five mums is regularly skipping meals to feed her children. Tesco did research recently, finding that 10% of people interviewed have suffered from some form of food poverty in the last 12 months. Tesco had some interesting and startling figures:

“Almost one in ten people in the UK have skipped meals, gone without food to feed their family or relied on family or friends for food in the last year.”

Nearly half of those who said they had skipped meals—48%—said they had done so

“for the first time this year.”

I would like the Minister to reflect on that in his response. More than 51% of people who had skipped meals said that they

“were forced to go without food for two days or more.”

I remind Members that we are in 21st-century Britain.

[Stephen Doughty (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship again, Sir Alan, and I thank my hon. Friend for securing this debate on a crucial subject. She was speaking about the impact of missing meals, but I am sure that she is also aware of the effect of families downgrading what they are eating. She may be familiar with the statistic that low-income families are eating 30% less fresh fruit and veg than they were in 2006. In his comments, I am sure that the Minister will want to address the hidden health costs to the whole population and to individual families.

[Luciana Berger]

I thank my hon. Friend for that important intervention about the quality of food that people are able to purchase. One reason for that is food inflation, which I will talk about in a moment. We need to acknowledge that it is a contributing factor. It is restrictive, particularly when the cost of fruit and veg has gone up significantly, and it means that people have less access to healthier food.

[Luciana Berger]

I hope that we will hear from the Minister in his response that he understands the extent of the problem. I will refer later to a debate that we held in January, when it is fair to say that the responses were pretty weak. I was able to ask the Chancellor about it yesterday and his response, which I will come to in a moment, was not very strong either. I hope that the Minister will acknowledge the responsibility of the Government to deal with this growing and exploding problem.

I want to extract one more point from the work done by Tesco. It looked at why people said they were skipping meals. The main reasons given—they are replicated by other organisations—were the rising cost of living or low income; 56% of people said that. Twenty per cent of people said it was because of an “unexpected bill or expense.” People just do not have the cushion if something comes up, perhaps damage to their property or if a landlord does not make some urgently needed repair; they have to fill in and they do not have the funds to pay for food. I am sure Members have anecdotal evidence from their visits to food banks, when they encounter people who have to access emergency food aid.

Other reasons were “paying off debts.” That was 15% of people. One thing that struck me was that 12% of people were skipping meals because of

“a reduction in working hours.”

What conversations has the Minister had with colleagues in the Department for Work and Pensions about the changing profile of work in this country? We know that people are increasingly moving to part-time work or they are on zero-hour contracts. From week to week, they cannot budget or plan. People are really struggling. From speaking to a trade union representative, I know that in one Tesco store alone, there have been 30 requests for an increase in hours, specifically as a result of the change in working tax credits. Those extra hours do not exist, so people are really struggling to get by.

[Stephen Doughty]

Is my hon. Friend aware that the Trussell Trust said that less than 5% of its clients are homeless—on the absolute breadline; in fact the vast majority are working families who are struggling to make ends meet.

[Luciana Berger]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention, as I was about to make the same point. It is not the profile of people that we would expect; as he said, only 5% of the people accessing emergency food aid are homeless. It is the 95% that people just do not know about, and the Government need seriously to address that problem, as well as those who are homeless.

The problem has grown and exploded; I use the word “exploded” because the Trussell Trust’s figures show that the problem has increased tenfold since 2008-09. As I mentioned, close to a quarter of a million people are expected to have accessed food aid through a Trussell Trust food bank by the end of this financial year. FareShare, which is an organisation that I will explain more about in a moment, distributes food to what they call community food members, which are not only food banks, but hostels, old people’s homes, and breakfast clubs. It reports an average increase of 59% in demand for its services this year alone. At some of its depots, the increase in demand was as much as 90% or 100%, which builds on a 40% increase in the previous year. The Salvation Army has doubled the number of food parcels that it is giving out from food centres over the last two years, and Magic Breakfast, which I will talk about in more detail, has delivered more than 1 million free breakfasts. It reports a sharp rise in pupil hunger, and that working families are running out of food.

A number of Opposition Members have come to contribute to the debate, and I acknowledge that there are two Government Members. The issue does not just affect “poor areas.” It is a national scandal, as we have seen from the number of food banks across the country. It is a national problem. An article in The Guardian said:

“Foodbanks are thriving not just in Britain’s most deprived areas but in some of its wealthiest areas, like Poole in Dorset. The seaside town boasts some of Britain’s most expensive property but in April its local foodbank supplied food parcels to nearly 300 people—more than twice as many as in April 2010.”

We know that there are many food banks in counties such as Berkshire, Oxfordshire and Warwickshire, where people would never normally expect food banks. I hope we shall hear contributions from Members on both sides.

[Luciana Berger]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. I use the word “explosion” again to reinforce the point. If we look at the figures, which I have in front of me too, there is an explosion in the numbers that have been created. I am not proud of the fact that 26,000 people accessed emergency food aid under a Labour Government—don’t get me wrong—but if we look at the figures now, it is 10 times as many in two and a half years. The Government need to take some responsibility for that and acknowledge that this is an explosion of the problem, and it is only set to get worse.

[Stephen Doughty]

I endorse what my hon. Friend is saying. There has certainly been an explosion in the use of the provision in my constituency. We would not expect there to be a 100% increase in the use of food banks month on month in Cardiff, the capital city of Wales.

In Penarth, the more affluent part of my constituency, I visited a food bank collection point in the local Tesco and asked whether the parcels were going to other, more deprived areas of Cardiff; in fact they were for the Penarth area. That is deeply shocking. I am concerned that the hon. Member for Gillingham and Rainham (Rehman Chishti) appears to be muddying the picture somewhat.

[Luciana Berger]

I will take an intervention from my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch.

--- Later in debate ---

[Luciana Berger]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. I was going to raise the point in my conclusion, but I will reflect on it now. A good trial is going on in her area, and we hope it will be replicated across the country when the results are complete. Yes, all supermarkets have a responsibility to do everything not only to minimise the food they waste but to ensure they waste none whatever so that people can benefit. That is a separate issue, which needs to be dealt with by itself, and it will not necessarily address all the issues of food poverty. However, I wholeheartedly support what my hon. Friend said, and I hope the Minister can respond.

I want to take a moment to share some stories about constituents who are in this predicament, because it is important that we personalise the issue, rather than just using figures. I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent South (Robert Flello) for referring to my film about food poverty, which I made because I was so distraught after January’s debate; indeed, now is perhaps a good time to reflect on what happened during that debate. The Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the hon. Member for Newbury (Richard Benyon), who has responsibility for the natural environment and fisheries, singled out myself and my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy)—I do not know whether my hon. Friend recalls this—saying

“it is ridiculous to say that the rise in the need for food banks is attributable to this Government”—[Official Report, 23 January 2012; Vol. 539, c. 80.]

I contest that 100%, and that is what motivated me to make my film, to carry on campaigning and to have this debate, although I should add that several other Members also called for it.

I want to reflect on people’s stories about why they have to access emergency food aid. In my film, I spoke to Patricia, who had been employed her whole life after leaving school. In her last job, she had worked for 22 years as a bookkeeper. She has only ever contributed and only ever wanted to play her part and to work. Having been in her post for 22 years, however, she was made redundant because of the cuts to local authorities. Of the past 13 months, she has worked for just two, despite making literally hundreds of applications. She cannot afford the internet, but she is in the library every day trying to seek employment, and she goes for interviews and all the rest of it. I went to Patricia’s small flat, and I saw at first hand that it was cold, that the cupboards were bare and that there was nothing in the fridge. She had £3.60 in her wallet to last her for the week. It is people such as Patricia—the strivers, who want to make a contribution and who have worked all their lives— who have to hang their heads in shame and go to a food bank.

I met a man who had been in hospital having heart surgery when his benefits were stopped. When he came out, he found that his electricity pre-payment meter had run out; he had left a light on, but someone had burgled his home anyway. A district nurse issued him with a food voucher because he had no food in his stomach and had not eaten for two days. Although still recovering from heart surgery, he walked four miles in the freezing cold and rain to access emergency food aid.

In addition, I met a single father of three who was trying to do the best for his family. Someone had said, “Here’s a food voucher so you can feed your children.” He had gone without food for more than two days to feed his kids. That is the reality that too many of our constituents face. I hope the Minister will not give us a similar response to his colleague, who told us that it is “ridiculous” to say this problem is attributable to the Government. I do attribute the blame to this Government, and the fact is that all those charities have to step in and fill the gap.

I was looking through the press, and I want to mention some of the stories and headlines. In just the past three months, we have seen headlines such as “Desperate people facing 20-mile hike for food” in the Metro. The Sunday Express—these are papers we would not expect to talk about these stories—had the headline, “3m people starving in the UK: Parents having to choose between eating or heating.” In the Daily Mail, we saw the headline “Schools teach cookery on Fridays so hungry children from families too poor to eat have food for the weekend.” Another headline referred to the fact that 10% of families do not have enough food. Other headlines included, “Mum starves herself to feed kids—and re-wraps their toys as Christmas presents” and “Demand for food parcels explodes as welfare cuts and falling pay hit home.” The Yorkshire Post ran the headline, “Rising food prices raise fears of a ‘hidden hunger epidemic.’” The list goes on. It is a really sad indictment.

I have mentioned some of the organisations involved. FareShare does a fantastic job of providing food to 722 community food members. The Trussell Trust has 270 food banks, and there are other food banks that are not included in that figure. The trust provides three days’ worth of nutritionally balanced non-perishable foods, and 90% of the food given out by the food banks is donated by the public.

I reiterate that people cannot just turn up at a food bank and ask for food; they need a food voucher issued to them. I and a number of other MPs are in the difficult position of being able to issue food vouchers to our constituents if we feel that they are in need. It is a difficult and sensitive situation to broach; sometimes when I meet constituents I feel that I really have no choice but to softly ask whether they want food vouchers. I can tell that constituents are ashamed and embarrassed, but they take the voucher because it means they will get to eat properly.

[Stephen Doughty]

If I might reflect on what my hon. Friend has just said, food parcels are extremely basic: they include basic rice and basic pasta—there is nothing glamorous in them at all. Other charities are doing equally important work in offering hot, nutritionally balanced meals, with meat, veg and everything else, rather than just what we find in a food parcel. I note that the audience includes colleagues from the Salvation Army, which runs a fantastic community café in my constituency called Grub In A Tub. The café provides nutritionally balanced meals for £3, and people go there every day to get warm and to get a hot meal inside themselves. I commend the work that such organisations do on top of the work being done by the food banks.

[Luciana Berger]

I thank my hon. Friend for commending the work of the Salvation Army. I mentioned Magic Breakfast. He is right to suggest that the food from a food bank is non-perishable and not fresh; it is tinned fruit, vegetables, meat and fish, as well as pasta, cereal and UHT milk, so it is nothing glamorous. I also commend the work of FoodCycle, which provides fresh meals for people across the country. Its network of three cafés is growing, and it does a great job using food that would otherwise go to waste.

I know that supermarkets have to play their part, but I would like to take a moment to commend their recent work on making food collections, which several of us will have been involved in. At the start of October, Sainsbury’s, in partnership with FareShare, did a national collection, collecting 2 million meals from its customers. As customers came into its stores, they were given a list of things to collect, and they donated them afterwards. Six hundred volunteers helped in that exercise. Only last week, the Co-operative group teamed up with the ITV breakfast show “Daybreak” and the Salvation Army for the “You CAN Help” food campaign. I went to my local Co-op store and saw the cans being collected, and I made a contribution myself. The final figure for the collection is not known exactly, but it is expected that more than 110,000 cans will be redistributed across the country.

--- Later in debate ---

[Roger Williams]

All I can say is it was a bit of a surprise when I turned up to the debate and I was the only coalition Back-Bench Member who had come to make a speech; but let that be as it may.

We have heard about the Trussell Trust. Giving out food is not a simple thing; there are all the hygiene regulations that go along with it, and the trust does a lot of work to support the banks to ensure that their work is properly organised.

Poverty is distressing wherever we see it, and food poverty never goes alone. The question whether to eat or heat has been asked for many years, and Parliament has addressed fuel poverty since 2001, when I was first elected. Food poverty is not a new issue, either. In February 2009, I asked a parliamentary question about the proportion of income spent on food by the poorest 10%. The answer that came back on 5 February 2009, as published in column 1451W of Hansard, was that they spent 22% of their income on food. The hon. Member for Liverpool, Wavertree gave a figure of 15%, which may be the result of a different form of statistics; I am not trying to make a point of that. The point that I want to make is that the issue is a growing one, which has had to be addressed for many years.

From about 1995 to about 2005, we were in a halcyon period for food prices, which reduced in real terms, and the amount that families spent on food as a proportion of their income was reducing, but we have had a change since 2005 and food prices have gone up for many reasons. Other countries have become more economically capable and have achieved higher incomes. There has been greater demand for meat and dairy products, for instance, from countries that previously relied on grain and rice. That has had a huge effect on the price of food over the period in question. There has also been an increase in world population. According to the Foresight report, which is an excellent book about food and food prices, if we have a world population of 9 billion people by 2050, we can expect even more pressure on food prices.

The hon. Member for Liverpool, Wavertree set out today’s problem comprehensively, and she is right that it has two aspects, the first of which is obviously lower incomes in a time of economic problems. People are on lower wages and salaries. Many people’s salaries have been pegged for three, four or more years, and there have been problems with benefits as well; but I believe that we could also deal with rising prices. My speech, which will last just a few minutes, is mainly intended to tell the Minister that this country must play its part in ensuring that global food production can feed the world at a price that people can afford.

The period 1995 to 2005 was typified by low food prices, on the back of a huge amount of agricultural research done from the 1960s to the 1980s that gave us the capability to produce food. As food prices fell during that time, Governments and commercial organisations did not invest as much as they could or should in agricultural research. We have lost that driver, which would have ensured a secure supply of food to keep prices reasonably low and certainly affordable for the poor around the world as well as in this country. The Government need to play their part to establish such research once again.

I want to mention that the fluctuation of food prices can be very damaging for not only consumers but producers. The Foresight report states:

“High levels of volatility in global food markets are an issue because of the adverse effects they have on consumers and producers, because of the disruption they cause to the global food system, and, when particularly severe, because of the general economic and political instability that can occur. These effects will be most severe for low-income countries and the poor”—

in more developed countries—

“and spikes in food price can be a major cause of increased hunger.”

[Stephen Doughty]

The hon. Gentleman is making important points, which I welcome, about the wider challenges of food prices in the world. Does he have any thoughts about the impact of speculative commodity trading on food prices and biofuel targets driving up the price of certain foods both here and abroad?

[Roger Williams]

If I had more time, I could deal with those issues. I was going to speak briefly about speculation and food prices. Some people say that forward buying and hedging on foods may lead to more level prices, but others argue exactly the opposite. The Government need to find out the exact effect of speculation on food prices.

The Government should also consider, certainly in a global context, having strategic reserves of staple foods. For instance, the amount of wheat now in store has been greatly reduced from what it was 10 years ago. It is not surprising that wheat costs about £220 a tonne on the market today, whereas 10 years ago the cost was certainly less than £100. Huge spikes and fluctuations have caused real difficulty for people on low incomes.

I again congratulate the hon. Member for Liverpool, Wavertree on her speech. We must see food banks as a temporary measure—I hope that it is only temporary—to address food poverty in this country. In the longer term, we must look to more strategic approaches in playing a part to ensure that global food production is sufficient not only for this country, but for the whole world.

--- Later in debate ---

[Stephen Doughty (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)]

Thank you, Sir Alan. I thank my hon. Friends and hon. Members for allowing me to intervene. I do not want to go over the ground that I have already covered. I would appreciate it if colleagues noted my recent employment at Oxfam and my work with the Trussell Trust, FareShare and the Co-operative Group, which has been in the last six months.

I want to share a couple of brief personal reflections. In 2005, when I was working with the charity World Vision, I travelled to Malawi and saw the work of the UN world food programme. Supplies were being handed out to people in the famine-struck areas of southern Malawi and southern Africa.

I watched as women, who were literally skin and bone, and people suffering from HIV were queuing up to receive packets of rice and basic foodstuff. I have seen absolute poverty in the world. I did not expect to come here to talk about people in this country receiving parcels from food banks. Although the circumstances that the people in Malawi and the people in Cardiff South and Penarth find themselves in are qualitatively different, the same loss of hope and dignity and the stigma are absolutely there. I really want to press that point on the Minister so that he can reply to it in his speech.

I have met many families in my constituency. In Llanrumney, I met a family who have a severely disabled child with a health condition and who wrongly had the support for that child removed. As they had to budget very carefully, they had realised that they had no money that week to pay for electricity or food. They had called up for a crisis loan—many of my hon. Friends referred to the use of such loans—and were told that they could not have one. Where was the child benefit, they were asked, and why had it been spent.

The mother revealed that she had budgeted very carefully the week before and had bought a birthday present for her daughter. The crisis loan helpline told her that she should not have bought that present and was therefore not eligible for a crisis loan, which was why she had to go to a food bank. I really want to press that point about the stigma and the indignity of the situation that many families find themselves in.

We have heard about the perfect storm of rising prices, low and stagnating incomes and their effect on people. I do not want to rehash the statistics, but I want to press the point with the Minister that people do not understand why millionaires are getting tax cuts when so many are having to rely on food banks. People look at the priorities of this Government and simply do not understand them.

I also want to reiterate the point about the impact on health. I have talked about how low-income families were taking in less fruit and vegetables, because the prices of those items have gone up by about 30%. It is clear from the evidence that low-income families have a higher rate of diet-related disease. Will the Minister tell us whether he has had conversations with colleagues at the Department of Health and in the devolved Administrations about the hidden costs of those health impacts on people in Wales and across the UK?

Many of my colleagues talked about supermarkets. I commend Sainsbury’s, Tesco and the Co-op for supporting the food banks, but I ask them to look at their own pricing policies. Some of the smaller stores, such as Tesco Express, charge differentially higher prices on key items such as milk and bread. The prices are far higher than in the larger supermarkets, which people who cannot afford to drive a car cannot reach. I urge the supermarkets to look at that matter. Has the Minister had any conversations with them?

I commend the work of many organisations in my constituency. I have mentioned Grub in a Tub and the many day centres that are providing hot meals for elderly members of the constituency. Oxfam and the Co-operative Group in Wales have been working together to raise funds for the Seeds of Hope programme, which is funding co-operatives in Africa and in Newport in south Wales. I thank you for your indulgence, Sir Alan, and I hope that the Minister will be able to answer some of my points.