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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps his Department is taking to increase the proportion of British-grown food procured by the public sector.

The Government is open to considering all lawful means of achieving its ambition that half of all food purchased across the public sector should be locally produced or certified to higher environmental standards. The new national procurement policy statement sets expectations that government contracts will favour the purchase of food certified to higher environmental standards, which we believe British producers operating to the highest standards will be well-placed to meet.