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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether he has made an assessment of the potential impact of only including one food producer on the Food Strategy Board on (a) policy and (b) strategy discussions on food production.

The Food Strategy Advisory Board is a deliberately small group of senior leaders representing important elements and a wealth of experience from across the food system. Its role is to act as a sounding board to stress test ideas and provide advice.

The establishment of the Food Strategy Advisory Board represents just one aspect of our engagement across the vast and complex food supply system. We will conduct a series of targeted stakeholder engagements that will include food producers. Alongside these, we will be using insights other Defra strategies, namely the Farming Roadmap, interconnected with the Land Use Framework and Circular Economy Taskforce. In addition, the Farming Profitability Review will include structured engagement to understand barriers to increasing profitability and make recommendations to Government.