Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what information his Department holds on the retail price of a basket of food goods (a) in cash terms and (b) as a proportion of average family income spent on food goods in (i) the UK and (b) comparable countries.

The Office for National Statistics reports the average weekly household expenditure on food and non-alcoholic beverages in the UK, which is collected via ONS’s Living Costs and Food Survey and published in Family Spending in the UK.

OECD Data Explorer publishes annual household final consumption expenditure on food and non-alcoholic beverages, as well as total expenditure, in the G7 countries. Using this data, it is possible to calculate the proportion of expenditure spent on food and non-alcoholic beverages. The UK data is taken from the Office for National Statistics’ Consumer Trends publication.