Food Security

Victoria Prentis Excerpts

Thursday 31st March 2022 Westminster Hall

[Alyn Smith (Stirling) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone. I also pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh North and Leith (Deidre Brock) for securing this important debate, which has never been more timely.

The hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish) and I have been banging on about food security for the best part of two decades, as we were both Members of the European Parliament’s agriculture committee. I was looking through the always informative and excellent newspaper, The Scottish Farmer, and came across this quote:

“‘Last week’s events really brought home the fragility of the world we live in and our over-dependence on potentially disrupted…transport links,’ said Mr Smith”—

I am quoting myself here.

[The Minister for Farming, Fisheries and Food (Victoria Prentis)]

Has it really come to that?

[Alyn Smith]

It is great to see a fan of my early work.

“I believe the UK government authorities have been far too complacent about the security and stability of our food supplies…assuming that international transit networks and foreign sources of supply will never fail.

Last week was the mother of all wake-up calls.”

I said that in The Scottish Farmer on 29 April 2010, talking about the Icelandic volcano. However, I am afraid that the sentiment still applies and the lessons remain largely unlearned by the UK Government. I do not necessarily criticise our Minister in the Chamber but we all—all of us, collectively—must get food security far higher on our agenda. The lessons need to be learned.

I hope that I have proven over the years, that I am cross-party; I believe in consensus, and in working with other parties. I do not fabricate disagreement where there is none, but, damn sure, we disagree on food. We have a different sense of where we want to get to. We also have a food emergency on this Government’s watch, and we urgently need to change course. I implore the Minister to take my suggestions seriously, because they are made in good faith.

Things have got worse in the last 20 years. The latest figures show that the UK’s food self-sufficiency has gone from 80% to below 60%. Of course, we cannot and should not produce everything, but our food supply is under unprecedented strain. I believe that food security should be viewed as our national security is, and given the same urgency and priority within Government. Anything that undermines food production, however well intentioned, should be viewed with extreme scepticism.

Food production must be the basis of the rural economy. Only profitable food businesses can form the bedrock of our rural economy. No amount of tourism, birdwatching or tree planting can replace it. Those are all important, but they are add-ons, not the basis or bedrock of our rural economy.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister for Farming, Fisheries and Food (Victoria Prentis)]

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone, and to attend this important debate. There are familiar faces in the Chamber and, as always, it is good to see them. Some important points have been made from across the House. I thank the hon. Member for Edinburgh North and Leith (Deidre Brock), as others have, for securing the debate. It is important that the debate is part of a wider, general and national conversation about food and food security—hon. Members know that nothing is more important to me or the Department. If I do not answer every point—it has been a very wide-ranging debate—Members should get in touch with me, or come and chat, at any point. The issues raised today are difficult and significant, and often there are no simple answers.

I know that many of us felt that war in Ukraine was coming, but I do not think many of us were prepared for the actuality or the severity of what is happening on the ground in Ukraine today. The last month has been truly horrific to witness, and we can only say how very sorry we are and how much the Ukrainian people are in our thoughts. The Government have sent £220 million of humanitarian aid, but we should all be aware that getting that aid to the people in those cellars in Mariupol is not automatic; it is very dangerous and difficult. We must continue to work globally with other nations to facilitate that where we can.

I agree with the points that many Members have made about the situation with planting in Ukraine. I was fortunate to meet the Ukrainian ambassador a week ago, and he spoke to me and the Secretary of State about direct interventions to help with the planting season this year, and we are doing our best to facilitate that. As my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish) said, the planting season starts in the next couple of weeks. The Ukrainians are a very brave people and they deserve our support.

It is also right that we lean into the difficulties that the war in Ukraine will cause for the global food supply. In some of the countries that have been mentioned there will be real shortages of food as a result of the war, given those countries’ reliance on imports from Ukraine. That is a significant concern for the Government. I assure Members across the House that we will very much play our part in the global response to those issues.

[Neil Parish]

I know the Minister is passionate about getting enough food supplies. Are the Government really looking at the amount of food we produce? We are now not only feeding ourselves but feeding the world. We cannot feed the whole world, but if we do not import so much food then there is more food for others who can ill-afford to get it. Where are the fertiliser plants that the Opposition have asked for? I questioned the Prime Minister yesterday, and said that we should open them. If we get ammonium nitrate out there, we can produce more vegetables, beef, sheep, dairy and cereal. It has to be ammonium nitrate, because that is the only quick fix to get us where we need to be.

[Victoria Prentis]

I will come to fertilisers in a moment. I hope that my hon. Friend has a useful and productive recess planting his crops—I am sure he will. Food is what farmers produce; it is our job. I should have drawn attention to my own farming interests at the beginning of this speech. It is right that we continue to support farmers—be in no doubt about that. The Government have committed to support farmers in the Budget year on year. I think that is very important.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton and Honiton knows, it is my view that food is uppermost in what farmers think about and do. The Government have two other goals—what the EU used to call pillars—bedded into our future farming policies: nature recovery, which I think the whole House agrees is important; and carbon capture. Several hon. Members have referenced that we are going to have to adapt to climate change. Those three factors are bedded into our future farming policies, which are very much about supporting farmers to produce efficiently and productively, and to make the food that we need.

Having said all that, we need to be careful about our tone. There are going to be real problems elsewhere in the world with food supply this year; we are very fortunate in this country in that our import dependency on that area in eastern Europe is low and that we have strong domestic production of food such as wheat, maize and rapeseed. Other nations depend much more heavily on Ukraine and the area around it for those products than we do. We have to be quite careful in the way we have this discussion. What the war does directly contribute to in this country is rising costs, notably energy costs, and wider supply chain disruption. We should not gloss over those facts.

We know that the wider disruption is having a real impact on the supply and the cost of feed and fertiliser. I was very glad to chair our first meeting this morning of the fertiliser group—it was a useful meeting, in which we focused very much on practical solutions. We agreed—my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton and Honiton will be glad to know—that we do need to use fertiliser to produce our crop and we need to make sure that there is enough fertiliser for all sorts of farmers, including livestock farmers, who need to produce the forage crops for next winter and in order to bump the wheat up to milling wheat status. We agreed that we did have confidence in our supply and we will be putting out a statement later today agreed by those at the group this morning—the real experts in this field—that we have sufficient supply and, while there is a cost implication, farmers should not be frightened to buy or to use fertiliser this year.

I would never refer to my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton and Honiton in the terms the Prime Minister used yesterday, as an “old muckspreader”—I believe he is quite happy to be referred to as a muckspreader, but not an old one. I thank him and my hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham (Greg Smith) for their remarks on the changes on urea in the farming rules for water statutory guidance, which I think are sensible and welcome, and on the supercharging of our efforts on new supplies of biofertilisers rather than chemical fertilisers. That is all welcome; none of it is a complete solution, and we should not pretend for one minute that it is, but it is all good work that needs to be done and I am glad that that is recognised.

On the role of supermarkets, in the last week or so I have met all the major supermarkets to understand the issues they face and to discuss with them what they can do to pass production costs to the primary producers.

On food poverty, we learned during the pandemic—we saw once again—that targeted interventions are the way forward here. From April, the Government are providing an additional £500 million to help households with the costs of essentials. That brings the total funding for that support to £1 billion, which is very welcome. Although only half of food insecurity is in households with children, it is worth referencing the £220 million in our holiday activities and food programme, which goes directly to children.

[Neil Parish]

I know the Secretary of State has met with FareShare to discuss further funding. I hope that has been successful.

[Victoria Prentis]

My hon. Friend has discussed that many times with me and the Secretary of State. On food waste, in which WRAP and FareShare have played such a big part, I would like to recommit the spending that DEFRA has given in the past. We have spent about £3 million on that work and it is really important.

I think we all agree that food poverty needs to be addressed. Where we differ is how we support farmers to do that. The Government are committed to phasing out area-based payments, whereby 50% of the payment has gone to 10% of farmers in the past, and the bottom 20% of claimants get 2% of the total budget.

I listened to what the hon. Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy) said about pulse farmers. I agree that pulses, pigs, horticulture and poultry have all done badly out of subsidy regimes in the past, and we are keen to put that right. It has never been more critical that we stick with the agricultural transition, because we need to incentivise efficient and productive farming. The new schemes are all about that as well as embedding nature and climate change in the way we incentivise farmers. Food is at the very heart of what we do, and food security is of course a critical national priority. I thank all those who have taken part in this important debate.