30 Jun
2008 : Column 656
Food Security
Mr. Deputy Speaker
(Sir Alan Haselhurst): I have to inform the House
that Mr. Speaker has selected the amendment tabled in the name of the Prime
Minister. Will Members who are not staying for this debate please leave quickly
and quietly?
7.19 pm
Mr. James Paice
(South-East Cambridgeshire) (Con): I beg to
move,
That this House notes with concern current food shortages
which are believed to have pushed 100 million people into hunger worldwide;
recognises that rising food prices are putting household budgets under
increasing strain; believes that with rising global demand and pressure on
supply it is both a practical and moral imperative that Great Britain retains
the capacity to produce a significant proportion of its own food; notes that
UK self-sufficiency in food has declined considerably over the last decade;
regrets the Government’s failure to accept that domestic production is a
necessary condition for food security; and urges the Government to relieve
pressure on world markets and ensure the security of domestic food supply by
enabling British farmers to optimise food production while preserving the
natural environment.
At the outset, may
I remind the House of my entry in the Register of Members’ Interests?
A few weeks ago in
the Chamber, I challenged the Secretary of State on the subject of food
security. In his answer, he asked for a discussion on the right things to do in
response to the changing circumstances. I hope that he will use this debate to
make a contribution to those discussions.
Three years ago,
the most significant reform of the common agricultural policy since its
inception took effect. The so-called mid-term review began the process of
cutting the link between how much a farmer produced and how much public money he
or she received. In England, the Government quite rightly decoupled totally.
Many other countries did so only partially. It is ironic, however, that the
price of the two basic commodities at the heart of the present rise in food
prices - grain and milk - has risen because of global markets. So, far from having
cheaper food as a result of ending production subsidies, the market has
conspired to raise prices. The two aspect are not linked; it is a coincidence,
but it demonstrates that we should not make rash assumptions about something as
unique as food production. Farming cannot be switched on and off like a car
plant. That is why this debate is so important.
Why are we
concerned? First, we are concerned because of the considerable rise in global
food prices, to which I shall return. The second reason is the impact of those
price increases on consumers, both here and in the developing world. The price
of wheat has risen by up to 150 per cent., but that does not explain the rise in
retail prices. For example, in the past two years the price of an average 800g
loaf of bread has risen by almost 30p, but the rise in the price of wheat
accounts for less than 10p of that rise. We recognise that the rise in fuel
prices has hit everyone, but we have to ask how that total price rise is
justified. I suggest that if the price rise had been less than 10p, there would
have been much less fuss. The same applies to milk: in the past 12 months, the
retail price of a 4-pint bottle has risen by about 11p a litre, but the
farm-gate price has risen by just 7p a litre. So in his quite proper concern
about inflation, the Chancellor must look at the whole picture.
We all know the
basic reasons for the rise in commodity prices. They include the drought in
Australia, which has reduced the harvest by 60 per cent., and the increasing
demands of China and India, both for grain itself and for animal protein partly
raised on grain. In China, for example, meat consumption has risen by 150 per
cent. in 30 years. They also include biofuels. Views differ about the scale of
the impact of biofuel production. The United States Government claim that about
3 per cent. of the price rise is due to biofuels; the International Monetary
Fund puts it at nearer 30 per cent. The fact remains, however, that the United
States is pouring money into ethanol production, which is due to rise from 5
billion gallons in 2005 to 10 billion in 2009. That production is using corn
that would previously have been sold on the world markets.
Of course, some of
these factors could change. Australia could go back to full production, but I
have to say that the picture is not encouraging. If we take a medium to
long-term look at supply and demand, we see the world population rising by about
1 billion in the next 10 years, and by perhaps 3 billion by 2050.
We must also
consider climate change. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change estimates
that a 1 m rise in sea level would swamp a third of the world’s crop land. That
is possible before the end of this century. It is perfectly true to say that
there is unused land in the world. For example, some 20 million hectares in
Russia and Ukraine have been taken out of production since the end of the Soviet
Union. However, it is estimated that some 10 million hectares of farmland around
the world are lost each year to urbanisation, deforestation and desertification.
The background is not encouraging. World cereal stocks have gone down
consistently by 17 per cent. over the past five years.
I put it to the
House that we should take our future food supply - including the share of it
produced in this country - seriously. The question is: do the Government do so? In
December 2005, a joint policy document produced by the Treasury and the
Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs called “A Vision for the
Common Agricultural Policy” made the astonishing statement that
Let me be clear:
no one is suggesting that it is sufficient - we have not been self-sufficient for
many centuries - but surely we cannot suggest that it is not necessary. Are the
Government really suggesting that it does not matter whether there is any
domestic production at all? In the past six weeks, I have challenged the
Secretary of State and the Prime Minister in the House to disown that document.
Neither of them has done so. It is true that both have made noises about the
importance of British farming, but, as I shall show, they have done nothing of
significance.
Tim Farron
(Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD): Is the hon. Gentleman
aware that National England recently produced a manifesto for the countryside,
in which it stated that too much of Britain’s countryside was being farmed?
However, we now have the lowest milk yields in history and farmers are leaving
the fells because of their inability to make a living. Will the hon. Gentleman
seek to correct the Government’s perceptions, which are based on their quango’s
manifesto?
Mr. Paice: I hope that this debate will succeed in correcting
that impression, which has been given by the Government and by Natural
England.
Angela Browning
(Tiverton and Honiton) (Con): Is my hon. Friend aware
that a former permanent secretary at DEFRA volunteered the information to the
Public Accounts Committee that, following 9/11, officials approached Government
Ministers at the time when the right hon. Member for Derby, South (Margaret
Beckett) was Secretary of State to suggest to DEFRA officials that, in the light
of that event, the Department should consider the minimum amount of
self-sufficiency in this country? They were told by Ministers that that was not
necessary.
Mr. Paice: My hon. Friend is entirely right. I am very much
aware of that statement. Of course, it was the right hon. Member for Derby,
South (Margaret Beckett) who signed the statement to which I have just referred.
If the Secretary of State is to achieve anything tonight, I hope that he will
start by publicly stating that he has ditched that policy.
Of course, there
will be those who say that there is special pleading by farmers, but I want to
assure the House that there is not. There are many reasons why hon. Members want
to see a vibrant and productive agricultural industry, but the real reason - which
I hope the Secretary of State will agree with - is very important. In a world in
which supply and demand are now at best in balance, increasing demand will push
up prices. As part of the projected population rise to which I have referred, it
is predicted that Africa’s population will more than double by 2050. No matter
how much production in Africa can be increased by husbandry, political stability
and technology, that continent will still be buying vast quantities of food on
the world market. We, as a relatively rich country, might well be able to meet
our needs, but we will be competing head to head with the poorer countries.
Where is the morality in that? Increasing domestic production is not selfish; in
fact, it is quite the opposite.
Before turning to
what needs to be done, let us look at the recent past and the reality behind the
Government’s claims. In the past 10 years, there has been a steady trend:
production of all major food items has declined in this country. Cereal
production has declined by some 19 per cent., meat production by 17.5 per cent.
and milk production by 5 per cent. Overall, our contribution to indigenous food
in our market has fallen from 81.8 per cent. in 1997 to 73.9 per cent. last
year. That is the 74 per cent. to which the Government refer in their amendment
to our motion.
It is laughable
that the Government’s amendment claims that we are somehow okay because we are
doing better than we were in the 1950s. The Secretary of State - or whoever
drafted the amendment - seems to ignore the fact that the population of the world
has more than doubled since then, and that it has risen dramatically in Britain.
He might just as well have cited the 1930s, when we were really in a deep
depression. The figures were even worse then, and today’s figures would look
even better by comparison.
Mr. Stephen O'Brien
(Eddisbury) (Con): I am listening to my hon.
Friend’s excellent speech, which is putting our domestic production in context
and dealing with
30 Jun 2008 : Column
659
the problems faced not least by dairy farmers in my constituency.
Does he agree that whenever this country has most needed to be competitive and
to look to its strengths, it has recognised that food production is a strategic
industry, which makes it worth investing in to ensure that we remain competitive
as well as to contribute to a degree of sufficiency in our own land?
Mr. Paice: I entirely agree with my hon. Friend and I will come
on in a few moments to what needs to be done to achieve the status of food
security that I believe is necessary.
Overall, we
produce only about 60 per cent. of all our food, and the food, feed and drink
trade deficit has now widened to £14 billion. No doubt the Secretary of State
will point out that last year’s figure for self-sufficiency was marginally
higher than in 2006. Of course that is good, but unless he can assure us that it
marks the beginning of a completely new trend, it is pretty meaningless. If I
had used the 2006 figures in my calculations, the overall figure would have been
even worse than the one I have just given.
What is behind the
dramatic fall in our self-sufficiency? Essentially, it is all about
profitability. In the period 1998 to 2007, food prices rose by just 20 per cent.
against overall inflation of 32 per cent. This year, of course, it is different,
but throughout that decade, food prices failed to keep up even with inflation.
More importantly, the farmers’ share of the food pound - in other words, the
proportion of the retail price actually taken by the farmer - has declined by 20
per cent. over the decade. That has shown itself as a fall of 86,000 in the work
force over the same period.
Let me now turn to
what needs to be done if we are to halt and reverse the downward trend and to
achieve greater food security by ensuring that we have the capacity to produce
enough to meet the majority of our needs. Of course we will produce surpluses in
some products and we will trade them for those that we need to import. It has
been like that for many decades, and it will always be so. Unless we have that
strong domestic level of production, it will be to the detriment of the
developing world that we are buying our food.
There will be
those who believe I am about to seek a return to protectionism. Precisely the
opposite is the case. Those who advocate a protectionist regime and who want to
cling to subsidies, including some leading agriculturists in Europe, are wrong.
The real answer lies in fair and free competition - something that patently does
not exist at present. We need further reform of the common agricultural policy
to make it sustainable and stable. How can our farmers invest if they do not
know the shape of any future policy in what is now just four years ahead?
The health check
proposals on the table at the moment are, in our view, wholly inadequate. We
need a phased programme to shift all funding from direct payments to development
funds. We need to see full decoupling across all products in all member states.
We need a programme to dismantle all the remaining trade-distorting support; and
we need to see a programme of increasing co-financing by member states so that
those who want to increase expenditure pay for it. The sooner we can achieve
such a stable policy, the sooner our farmers will be in a position to make their
long-term plans.
In the meantime,
there are things that the Government should do or, in some cases, undo. First,
we have to lift the burden of regulations. We know the Government’s rhetoric and
I am sure that the Secretary of State will use it in his speech, but I have to
tell him that in the past five years we have seen a net increase in DEFRA
regulation of about 20 per cent. a year. Whereas in 2002, one regulation was
revoked for every two new ones, last year it was just one scrapped for eight new
ones. It is not just a matter of numbers. Some regulations are necessary, but
how they are applied is the important thing. There is no justification for the
continued gold-plating of EU regulations; it should be removed if we are to have
the free and fair competition that I mentioned.
The legion of
inspectors who turn up on our farms needs to be slashed and, in some cases,
merged. Even more importantly, however, it is the culture that has to change. In
France, a farm inspector sees his job as helping the farmer to meet the
regulations requirements; here, it seems that the inspectors are on commission
to see how many penalties they can impose.
While on the
subject of regulation, let me deal with two specific ones that are currently of
considerable importance. First, the nitrates directive, which applies at the
European level, is obsolete and far too prescriptive. There is no excuse at all
for DEFRA to go beyond the minimum necessary to comply with it, while hopefully
working to have it reformed. The idea of setting in statute what will
effectively be national muck-spreading day is ludicrous. It is compounded by the
Prime Minister’s decision when he was Chancellor to abolish the agricultural
buildings allowance, which would have been of some help in meeting the £50,000
or so estimated costs to the average dairy farmer.
Daniel Kawczynski
(Shrewsbury and Atcham) (Con): My hon. Friend is
talking about regulations. I can tell him that certain agricultural companies in
my constituency are sending employees to eastern Europe to undertake some
training because the regulations are so over-imposed in this country, but not in
other EU countries.
Mr. Paice: I am very much aware of my hon. Friend’s immense
support as chairman of the all-party dairy farmers group. I am not surprised to
hear what he has to say.
Let me refer to
the proposed pesticides strategy, which I understand the Secretary of State
spoke against last week. I am grateful that he did, but I understand that he did
not vote against it. No doubt he will wish to explain that. At its worst, this
strategy could reduce grain production by more than half, not just in the UK but
throughout Europe. So much for food security. I find it unbelievable, but some
pest control products that are to be banned on account of this strategy are
actually allowed by organic farmers. These pesticides - copper sulphate and the
natural pyrethroids, for example - are so safe that the organic movement allows
them, yet they are to banned by Europe.
Mr. Peter Atkinson
(Hexham) (Con): The pesticides directive would make
it difficult to grow many vegetables, including potatoes, carrots and other root
vegetables, quite apart from cereals. Indeed, they would be made virtually
uneconomic in this country.
Mr. Paice: What my hon. Friend says applies across the whole
sphere of what we might call horticulture and field-scale vegetable production,
as well as fruit. The size of the market is such that, in the absence of the
present products, it is very unlikely that any company will go to the expense of
developing replacement products.
Mr. Stephen
O'Brien: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for
giving way to me a second time. One of his examples was the NVZ - nitrate
vulnerable zone - regulations. Is he aware that the cost of gold-plating is met on
the ground, when farmers have to go to the expense of digging their pits and
fencing them to ensure that they are not a danger - even though someone falling in
would be trespassing on their land? The real issue is seen in my constituency,
where the river Weaver has for the last 12 years recorded reduced nitrate levels
in the water from the natural fall-off, yet the farmers have to meet this
enormous expense for a nitrate problem that does not exist.
Mr. Paice: My hon. Friend makes an important point. We all know
that nitrates in water can be caused from run-off of recently applied chemicals,
but we also know that they can have a very long historic lead-in. Some work has
been done in Rothwell in Lincolnshire to show that nitrate levels in water can
reflect actions taken decades or even centuries ago. It is therefore very
short-sighted to rely solely on the current situation.
Since my hon.
Friend has referred us back to the NVZ proposals, it is worth pointing out that
I challenged the Secretary of State only a couple of weeks ago about this
problem and the gold-plating issue. I heard various sotto voce comments to the
effect that there was no gold-plating in the proposals, but I have to tell the
Secretary of State that there is - [Interruption.] I would be delighted if
he intended to drop them, but let me give him one example - the requirement to
have cover crops on the land all through the winter. That is not in the
directive, and if the Government are going to drop it, I know that most farmers
would be very pleased to hear it, but let us not hear any profession that there
is somehow no gold-plating in the drafting.
I could add many
other issues to do with double-tagging of sheep, electronic identification and
many more, but unless there is a clear benefit to be gained from a regulation,
it is pointless. I question considerably the need for them, but the key point in
this debate is that all those things restrict farming’s ability to increase
production.
Let me move on to
animal welfare. We in this country rightly pride ourselves on having some of the
highest standards, but equally we must look hard at the standards used in food
production overseas. There is no point in raising standards at home only to
destroy our own producers by importing produce reared under less humane, and
therefore perhaps less expensive, standards.
In the long term, such issues could be, or should be, addressed in the world
trade talks, but in the short term we must ensure that the consumer knows the
full facts. However, food labelling law does not allow that. Apart from beef and
honey, there is no obligation for food to be labelled with the true country of
origin: that can either be avoided altogether or the label can merely represent
the place where the food was last processed. So, British ham or pork may not be
from a British pig. If that were to be corrected, our industry could properly
30 Jun 2008 : Column
662
market its strengths, but there is one customer whose buying power is
greater than that of any other - the Government.
About £2 billion
of taxpayers’ money is spent on food and drink by the Government and their
Departments and agencies, yet the proportion of it that is British is woeful.
Only 5 per cent. of NHS orchard fruit is British. The Ministry of Defence
sources absolutely no British bacon. There are many other pathetic examples. Of
course, Ministers will say that we are not allowed to insist on British
products. That is true, but there is nothing wrong whatever with insisting that
products are produced to British standards. What hypocrisy we have in a
Government whose Ministers regularly proclaim the little red tractor as a logo
demonstrating good-quality food, but who are complicit in spending taxpayers’
money on food that is not produced to those self-same standards.
On animal health,
the Government have consulted on sharing the cost of disease control. That is
not a bad idea at all until we realise that, in its current structure, it means
that farmers should pay the cost of DEFRA’s mistakes. It is no coincidence that
the proposal appeared just after last year’s foot and mouth chaos. True cost
sharing can work only if there is genuine sharing of decision making and
planning for disease control, and if the Government recognise their unique
responsibilities. They are the only organisation who can properly protect our
borders against illegal meat imports and the disease risk that they bring. It is
estimated that an average of some 12,000 tonnes of illegal meat comes in each
year.
The Government
must also deal with the crisis of bovine tuberculosis. After 11 years of almost
total inaction, there is no prospect of the disease coming under control.
Indeed, it is getting worse. On figures for this year so far, we could see that
40,000 cattle have been slaughtered compared with just 28,000 last year. What a
waste. What a tragedy for the farmers who see their breeding programmes
disrupted and their businesses driven to the wall.
The Government
know what has to be done: there must be a comprehensive programme, which we have
spelled out before, but it must include addressing the reservoir in wildlife. We
on the Conservative Benches want to see healthy wildlife alongside healthy
cattle, but in parts of the country we have neither, while we have a Secretary
of State who seems to want to compete with the Prime Minister as chief
ditherer.
Finally, the
Government have a responsibility -
Mr. Roger Williams
(Brecon and Radnorshire) (LD): I agree with the
hon. Gentleman that we have to deal with the reservoir in wildlife. The question
is how we deal with it. Perhaps he will give us his thoughts.
Mr. Paice: I recommend that the hon. Gentleman read the report
of the Select Committee of which he is a member. His own Committee has produced
part of the answer and I have spelt it out on many an occasion. I am happy to do
so again on some other occasion. Going through the whole programme would take a
long time -
The Parliamentary
Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Jonathan
Shaw): So that is a no, then.
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663
Mr. Paice: No, it is not a no at all. I strongly support the
Select Committee proposals, which demonstrate a way forward. The key thing is
that we must tackle the reservoir in wildlife. That, of course, is code for
badgers. There is no point in hiding that. We need to look at selectively
culling badgers in the hot spot areas. That is one of the proposals made by the
Committee of which the hon. Member for Brecon and Radnorshire (Mr. Williams) is
a member.
Mr. David Curry
(Skipton and Ripon) (Con): I sensed that my hon.
Friend was drawing to a conclusion when he used the word “finally”. There are
two issues that, up to now, he has not mentioned and I would be grateful for an
idea of his views on them.
First, the words
“genetically modified” have not yet crossed my hon. Friend’s lips. What scope
might there be to assist global production with that technology and should
British farmers have that piece of equipment in their toolkit? Secondly, the
Government will have to address the big issue of how environmental schemes will
continue to be funded at a time of rapidly rising commodity prices, which have
changed entirely the economics for farmers. For example, we no longer have
set-aside. What are his thoughts on that crucial issue? None of us wants to
return to the intensive production methods that are now a generation old.
Mr. Paice: I am grateful to my right hon. Friend, who will not
be surprised to hear that there are a lot of issues that I have not included in
my speech, which would then have been even longer, but I am happy to take him up
on those two points.
Our position on GM
is quite straightforward. First, it has to depend on consumer demand. The
ultimate decision must be taken by the consumer. We see the need for all GM
developments to be considered individually. It is wrong to lump the whole GM
debate into one because it depends on the merit or demerit of a particular
development. There must be proper testing for food safety and environmental
safety. We need to ensure that rules on crop separation, liability and such
things are sorted. Subject to those requirements, GM crops have a role to play.
Whether people want to grow those crops is up to them, as is whether they think
there is a market for such production.
Mr. David Drew
(Stroud) (Lab/Co-op): Should they be allowed to?
Mr. Paice: That is what I have just described. I will come back
to the issue of funding, which was mentioned by my right hon. Friend the Member
for Skipton and Ripon (Mr. Curry).
Rob Marris
(Wolverhampton, South-West) (Lab): I am grateful to the
hon. Gentleman, who is being generous in giving way. He is right about UK food
production being vital for the food security of our country - I certainly agree
with him there - and I am interested to hear what he says about GM foods. Will he
set out his party’s policies on the controversial issue of biofuels? What
policies should the Government pursue to adapt to the climate change to which he
referred - adapting in a way that builds and increases our food security? What
measures should be taken?
30 Jun 2008 : Column
664
Mr. Paice: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his support
for some of the things I have said. The issue of biofuels has to be based on
sustainability. It is clear in the Gallagher report of last week, or whenever it
was, that it is not sustainable. In fact, we do not yet have the report; I am
jumping the gun. I think we will find that the Gallagher report suggests that it
is not sustainable. If you want to know where the leak happened, Mr. Deputy
Speaker, it happened here. It is clear that sustainability is the key element,
which is why we voted against the renewable transport fuels obligation. We
believe that, at present, insufficient sustainability has been built in, but
biofuels have a role to play and they should not be ditched completely if they
can be made sustainable.
Andrew George (St.
Ives) (LD): Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Paice: I am conscious of having taken a lot of time, but I
give way to the hon. Gentleman.
Andrew George: The hon. Gentleman has been extremely generous
in giving way. He has mentioned buyer power, as well as the price of milk and
the fact that the retail price was not being passed on to the producers. No
doubt he will have followed the results of the Competition Commission report on
the grocery sector and will be aware that it recommended not only strengthening
the supermarket code of practice, but introducing a supermarket, rather than a
grocery sector, ombudsman. If such an ombudsman were introduced, that would
surely do a great deal to assist farmers and food producers in this country, and
surely it would help food security in the UK. Is that the policy of the
Conservatives?
Mr. Paice: If I had been able to return to my speech, my next
sentence would have dealt with that issue, and I will return to the second point
raised by my right hon. Friend the Member for Skipton and Ripon.
The Government
have the responsibility to ensure that the market works fairly. As the hon.
Member for St. Ives (Andrew George) has just pointed out, our supermarkets are
all-powerful. They sell the vast majority of our food, and they will continue to
do so. Those who think that if they shut their eyes the supermarkets will go
away are fooling themselves. However, I believe that the balance of power is
wrong. We are still awaiting the Government’s response to the Competition
Commission’s proposals, which the commission said were in the interests of both
farmers and consumers. Perhaps we are seeing even more dithering from the
Government.
As for the hon.
Gentleman’s idea about an ombudsman, self-regulation is closely involved in my
party’s approach to these matters. We are waiting to see whether the Government
endorse the idea, and whether they are prepared to say that if the industry
cannot set up its own regulatory system, they will set one up instead. In the
meantime, we are not making much progress.
Mr. Curry rose -
Mr. Paice: I have not yet answered my right hon. Friend’s other
question, but I am about to do so, if he will allow me.
Mr. Curry: My point is about milk.
30 Jun 2008 : Column
665
Mr. Paice: In that case, I will give way.
Mr. Curry: I refer to Members to my entry in the Register of
Members’ Interests.
Does my hon.
Friend accept that the Competition Commission’s intervention in the price
increase agreed by supermarkets for farmers some years ago has been entirely
counter-productive? Supermarkets are now generally reluctant to contemplate
increasing prices for farmers in case they are accused of complicity. The Food
Standards Agency is having to broker an agreement with the competition
authorities so that the dairy partnership can go ahead without the accusation
that it is basically a price-fixing cartel.
Mr. Paice: I can only agree with my right hon. Friend. I am well
aware of the situation that he has described, and I think that he is entirely
right. I know that the supermarkets were upset by the criticism, because they
thought that they were acting with the noblest of motives. It is a matter of
judgment whether they achieved their objective, but, as he says, that criticism
has seriously affected their willingness to do anything to help the industry in
the future.
Let me say
something about the environment, which is an important issue. Many people,
including farmers, see it as an either/or issue. Farmers say to me “Make up your
mind: do you want us to produce food or do you want us to be park keepers?” - and
use various other forms of vocabulary. I do not accept that interpretation. I
believe that modern, efficient food production can be achieved alongside
long-term care for our natural environment. There are many examples of good
practice. Work by the organisation LEAF - Linking Environment And Farming - the Game
and Wildlife Conservation Trust and the Royal Society for the Protection of
Birds, which has a demonstration farm on the edge of my constituency, shows that
it can be achieved.
Transferring
resources to environmental and development programmes in the second pillar of
the common agricultural policy will target funds on activities that yield no
market income for the farmer. That is the only way in which we can address the
important point made by my right hon. Friend. Payments for entry-level
stewardship at £30 a hectare were fine when wheat cost £60 a tonne, but
represent no form of compensational carrot now that it costs more than double
that. Nowhere is such action more essential than in our hills and uplands, where
the landscape has been fashioned by farmers. Tourists visit those areas and
biodiversity is considerable, yet economic and, indeed, social existence is
often exceptionally fragile in a market economy. The need to recognise the
contribution made in those areas is vital.
Domestic food
production has regained an importance that is unprecedented since the end of the
second world war. That approach has been taken not for selfish or protectionist
reasons, but to ensure that this country does its bit to increase world food
supplies and to help to restrain price rises for the countries and consumers who
can least afford them. That is what the people are increasingly asking for; it
is what farmers want to do; and - true - the Government say that it is what they
want to do. However, if the best the Government can do is say that we are doing
better than we were in the 1950s, they know in their heart that they have
failed.
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666
We will never
produce enough to meet all our needs, nor should we try, especially as concern
about total carbon footprints plays an increasing part in our lives, but there
is no reason why we cannot produce enough to meet the significant majority of
our needs. We have some of the best land in the world and some of the most
technically advanced farmers, but we also have a Government who seem obsessed
with regulation and centralisation, and who therefore hinder rather than help
those who want to get on with their business.
7.55 pm
The Secretary of
State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Hilary Benn): I beg to move, To leave out from “House” to the end
of the Question, and to add instead thereof:
“notes with concern current food shortages which are
believed to have pushed 100 million people into hunger worldwide; acknowledges
the steps taken by the Prime Minister to encourage coordinated international
action to address global food security; welcomes the additional UK
contribution to the World Food Programme; recognises that rising food prices
as a result of global pressures are affecting household food budgets; believes
that with rising global demand Great Britain needs a strong farming industry
able to produce a significant proportion of UK food; notes that UK self
sufficiency stands at 74 per cent. for food which can be grown in the UK,
which is higher than in the early 1950s; and commends the Government’s role in
helping to develop a domestic farming sector that produces what consumers want
in a way that preserves natural resources and enhances the valuable
environmental benefits that it provides to society.”.
I welcome the
opportunity to debate food security. I also welcome the context of what was said
by the hon. Member for South-East Cambridgeshire (Mr. Paice), if not all the
content. I will take his contribution in the spirit in which it was offered. I
think that we need both to understand what is happening and why it is happening,
and to agree what we should do in response, both internationally and at
home.
Let me begin with
the international aspect. As the hon. Gentleman said, the last 12 months has
seen a remarkable increase in food prices across the globe. Demand for food has
increased, one reason being the fact that more people in emerging economies are
becoming better off. The world’s population is growing: by 2050, there may be
another 2.5 billion mouths to feed on this planet of ours. Drought and changing
weather conditions have hit yields. High energy prices, poor harvests in some
places, speculation, biofuels and export bans have all pushed up prices. We have
seen food riots in Haiti, Cameroon and Mexico. The whole House will be concerned
about the fact that those price increases are pushing millions of people in the
developing world further into poverty and hunger.
Despite the
unprecedented prosperity in our world, it should weigh heavily on each and every
one of us that even before the recent increases in food prices 850 million
people on the planet did not have enough food to eat every day, and that a child
dies every five seconds somewhere in the world because it does not have enough
to eat. Lives are lost for want of enough food, yet there is enough food in the
world for everyone; it is just that the poorest cannot get enough of it, either
because they have not enough money to buy it or because other circumstances deny
them access to it. I shall say more later about the question of the future.
30 Jun 2008 : Column
667
It is not for
nothing that Josette Sheeran, who heads the World Food Programme, has described
what has been happening as “a silent tsunami”. The United Kingdom, along with
others, has responded, giving a further £30 million to the World Food
Programme’s emergency appeal. There is, however, a fundamental problem, which
was referred to by the hon. Member for South-East Cambridgeshire: the need to
increase production in the developing world. The Food and Agriculture
Organisation estimates that global food production needs to rise by 50 per cent.
by 2030 and to double by 2050 to meet the demands of a growing world
population.
Mr. Drew: It is good to hear that the World Food Programme
is putting more resources into Sudan, a country that my right hon. Friend and I
know very well. Sadly, what we do not hear is that before the latest increase,
the amount of resources given to the World Food Programme had been drastically
cut. There may be reasons for that, but we never hear those silent voices. It is
vital for us not only to play our part and make own contribution, but to ask
other countries to make their contributions too, in terms of not just words but
actions.
Hilary Benn: I agree. Like a number of other countries, the
United Kingdom has a long and honourable tradition of not just talking about
what needs to be done, but putting money into it. I can say from my long
experience of dealing with the World Food Programme that it is an outstanding
organisation which delivers the most practical assistance to our fellow human
beings in times of need. However, it deals with short-term emergencies. The
question is: how are we going to increase global food production in what is
literally a changing climate, because farmers throughout the world will have to
contend with unreliable water supplies and the increasing frequency of droughts
and floods? Food production will be affected by climate change, but it could
also contribute to climate change if the wrong agricultural policies are
adopted. The common agricultural policy, and agricultural support policies in
countries such as the United States of America, keep prices high domestically
and do not help poorer countries in the global economy; dumping subsidised
produce on local markets does not exactly encourage and help farmers in those
countries to produce. All of that is why we need a deal through the World Trade
Organisation Doha round, and it is why I agree 100 per cent. with what the hon.
Member for South-East Cambridgeshire says about reform of the CAP through the
health check. Indeed, at the recent meeting of the Agriculture Council I made
the point about what we in the UK have done in decoupling. I am grateful for the
hon. Gentleman’s support, but the problem is that there are others in the
European Union who have to be persuaded that the path of reform is the right one
to take.
On pesticides, the
UK, along with the Irish and one other country, appear to be the only nations
that have done the work and identified the potential problem, which is why I
spoke in the way that I did when this matter came up at the recent meeting of
the Agriculture Council, and we will return to it.
On nitrate vulnerable zones and the nitrates directive, I simply say to the
hon. Gentleman that I would not have started from here, and nor would he; I
suppose
30 Jun 2008 : Column
668
that this question should be addressed to those who agreed the
nitrates directive all those years ago, but I think that the Environment, Food
and Rural Affairs Committee, chaired by the right hon. Member for Fylde (Mr.
Jack), got it right in its recent report. On labelling, the upcoming new EU
proposals offer an opportunity to make progress on a number of points that hon.
Member for South-East Cambridgeshire raised.
Looking beyond the
recent price rises in global food commodities - which many commentators believe
will come down from their peak, but will not return to where they were
previously - we need to consider the future. Apart from giving more help to the
World Food Programme, the UK - in the spirit of the contribution of my hon. Friend
the Member for Stroud (Mr. Drew) - has committed £120 million a year to boost
agriculture in poor countries and £400 million over five years for international
agricultural research, and Ban Ki-moon has taken an initiative with the task
force, which is looking at a range of things that need to be done.
Let me make one
final observation on the international dimension: ultimately, good governance in
countries has a hugely important influence on whether markets work successfully.
Zimbabwe, for example, has in the space of 25 or 30 years gone from being the
bread basket of Africa to a country that is incapable of feeding itself, not
because of any factor except a monumental failure of governance.
Robert Key
(Salisbury) (Con): Looking to the future, does the
Secretary of State agree that we will depend on advances in science, technology
and agriculture to a greater degree than ever, and that it would be absolute
folly to reject GM technology both in Britain and in order to aid overseas
problems, and that we should be increasing research in such technology and
building confidence? We should, as my party spokesman has said, be careful not
to dry up resources for science and research in this important area, both in
terms of reducing insecticides and pesticides in our own crops and in producing
drought-resistant crops in the rest of the world?
Hilary Benn: In responding to the scale of the challenge facing
us in the fight against dangerous climate change and producing enough food for a
growing world population, my view is very simple: we should look at all the
means that are available, and we should not be afraid to ask questions. In
relation to GM, we have to be able to provide answers to two questions that the
public not unreasonably ask. First, they ask whether the product is safe to eat,
and there is no evidence that it is not. Secondly, they want to know about the
environmental impact of growing these crops. I recently gave approval to a trial
that the university of Leeds wanted to undertake with a variety of potato. I am
sorry to have to say that the trial has been trashed, and it is difficult to
know the answers to the questions in those circumstances.
One step that the
EU could take is to speed up approval for new varieties to come in. Imported
soya grown from GM sources is fed to a lot of livestock in this country, and
therefore becomes part of the food chain.
Mr. Atkinson: On the destroyed potato trial plot, it
would help if the Secretary of State changed the Government’s policy and did not
publicise the addresses of those trial plots.
30 Jun 2008 : Column
669
Hilary Benn: I intend to reflect upon that point. I think I am
right in saying that this was the first trial to which I have given approval
since taking up my current post. We need to find a way of answering the
question, which, legitimately, everybody asks, because we should not be afraid
of the answers, whatever they are; but those doing research into GM technology
also need to be able to demonstrate that it can deliver some of the things that
are sometimes claimed for it. That must be shown to be the case if GM is to be
increasingly taken up.
The question that
goes to the heart of this debate is this: what do we mean by “food security”? I
think the House would agree that it means people having, at all times, access to
enough safe and nutritious food at a price they can afford. It also means having
a food supply system that is reliable and resilient and able to withstand shocks
and crises. In other words, we need to think about availability, access and
affordability.
We in the UK are
not, of course, insulated from global price rises any more than anyone else is.
We have seen the oil price rise to unprecedented levels - now almost $140 dollars
a barrel, whereas a decade ago the price of a barrel was a tenth of today’s
price. We all feel the consequences of that in the shopping basket and on the
forecourt when we fill up the car, and this is particularly difficult for
households on low incomes, even though there has been a long-term decline in
this country in the proportion of household budgets spent on food. The average
household spends about 10 per cent. of its budget on food, whereas 10 years ago
it was nearer 11 per cent. and 20 years ago it was 13 per cent. - and further back
in time it was higher still. However, those averages hide the impact on those
with less money. Low-income households currently spend about 15 per cent. of
their household budget on food. The Government have been helping pregnant women
through the Healthy Start programme, which provides free vitamin supplements and
vouchers for essentials like milk, fruit and vegetables. We are spending about
£100 million on that programme in Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
I also know that
the supermarkets are acutely conscious of the pressures these price rises have
created on their customers’ budgets, and in the last week or so we have seen
signs of them responding. On a visit to any supermarket it is evident that our
major grocery chains have been very successful in providing consumers with
choice and a diversity of food products sourced from both this country and
elsewhere around the world. Consumers have become highly sophisticated in
choosing what to buy. There is also a growing network of farmers’ markets and
farm shops, as it is true that we as a society are becoming more interested in
where our food comes from; the year of food and farming is in part about trying
to educate more of our young people that food comes from farms, and does not
grow in supermarkets, and thereby informing the choices consumers make.
David Taylor
(North-West Leicestershire) (Lab/Co-op): The Secretary of
State will be aware that when addressing the National Farmers Union conference
in February, the Prime Minister stated that its members had a core
responsibility to grow and produce the majority of food consumed by the British
people. What proportion of food by value that is consumed by the British people
is
30 Jun 2008 : Column
670
produced by British agriculture, and what proportion does the
Secretary of State expect that to be in five and 10 years’ time?
Hilary Benn: If my hon. Friend will bear with me a moment longer,
I will come on to that point.
The UK currently
enjoys a high level of food security. Our food supply chain is, however, highly
dependent on energy, and reducing that energy dependency will be very important
in addressing the challenges we face. Our farming industry makes a very
important contribution to our food supply by producing food that consumers want.
I want - we want - a strong, thriving, successful farming industry, and in many
respects the outlook is brighter than it has been for some years. Let me say to
my hon. Friend that domestic production is necessary for food security, but it
is not on its own sufficient.
Daniel
Kawczynski: The Secretary of State is trying to
paint a very rosy picture - that he is a friend of farmers - but is he not concerned
about the large number of judicial reviews that the NFU is pursuing and the
growing number of such reviews that it feels forced to pursue because it
fundamentally disagrees with Government policy on so many things?
Hilary Benn: Well, we are a free society and individuals and
organisations are perfectly free, by those means, to challenge decisions that
the Government have taken. I should be very happy to discuss with the hon.
Gentleman the particular context of some of those. We await judgments in those
circumstances and we will of course be judged by the courts on the basis of the
decisions that have been taken by the Government, but I do not accept the
premise that the Government are somehow not trying to provide support. However,
if one is talking about regulation, we are operating within a context where a
lot of it comes from Europe, and it is indeed society itself that presses for
that.
Let me turn to the
facts and individual products. Coming directly to the point about
self-sufficiency, which my hon. Friend the Member for North-West Leicestershire
(David Taylor) raised, milk and cereals production is about the same as it was
30 years ago, although it peaked in the early 1980s. It has gone up and down a
bit. Self-sufficiency in vegetables has undoubtedly fallen from about three
quarters to less than two thirds. Imports from the EU have risen sharply.
Self-sufficiency in butter, on the other hand, has risen from just under one
third to nearly two thirds over the past 30 years. Of the foods that can be
produced in this country, we are about 74 per cent. self-sufficient and yes, it
is true that that is higher than it was in the 1950s or, indeed, the 1930s. It
is not as high as it was at the height of the CAP, and 60 per cent. of the food
that we import comes from the European Union, which is itself about 90 per cent.
self-sufficient in the food that it needs.
Would it be
sensible to make self-sufficiency a policy aim? What about exports, which are
very important for the farming industry? If self-sufficiency means
protectionism - the hon. Member for South-East Cambridgeshire said that he was not
arguing for that - is that a desirable aim? We are a trading nation. We export as
well as import food, and there are of course some things that we cannot possibly
grow ourselves that we
30 Jun 2008 : Column
671
need to buy. What is more, feeding the population of the UK sustains
a very large industry, not just agriculture, and some 3.7 million jobs. It
accounts for 7 per cent. of gross domestic product, and for one fifth of UK
greenhouse gas emissions. Of course, food manufacturing is the largest single
manufacturing sector in the UK.
Kerry McCarthy
(Bristol, East) (Lab): My right hon. Friend has talked
about self-sufficiency but he has not really put that in the environmental
context. Does he not agree that in this day and age, when this country produces
food such as apples, it is absolute madness to incur the environmental
consequences of importing apples from somewhere such as New Zealand?
Hilary Benn: In the end, consumers have a choice about what it is
they wish to buy in those circumstances. Food security cannot be considered in
isolation from the rest of the world. Part of the answer to the question that
was raised earlier is that we need an open global trading system and an end to
the distorting subsidies.
Mr. Paice: I am very grateful to the Secretary of State, not
least for the way in which he is addressing the subject. He rightly said earlier
that I was not calling for protectionism, but does he also accept that I was not
calling for self-sufficiency either? I specifically used the phrase “food
security”, which I defined as the capacity to produce the majority of our needs.
We have never been fully self-sufficient and nobody is asking us to be.
Hilary Benn: I accept the point and in asking the question - others
have raised it, and I was not attributing that view to the hon. Gentleman - I
think it important that we have thought through exactly the argument that he has
put, so that we can answer it in relation to those who do say, “Should we not
aim to be self-sufficient?” Then, we can get on to discussing what we mean by
food security and what the right policies are.
Mr. Michael Jack
(Fylde) (Con): The right hon. Gentleman is correct to
put this matter into an international context. At the world food summit, the
Food and Agriculture Organisation secured its plan to address this issue, but at
the same time, the Secretary-General of the United Nations, Ban Ki-moon,
indicated that the UN was going to produce its own plan to deal with the self
same issue. The World Trade Organisation has an influence in terms of its market
policy. The World Bank also has an influence and so does the European Union, yet
so many delegations said, “We’ve talked about this ad nauseam over the last two
decades, but what guarantees are there that we will have a course of action that
will deliver the increase in food supply that we need?” What role are the UK
Government going to play in trying to create coherence among all the players who
have an influence on this subject?
Hilary Benn: The right hon. Gentleman makes a very important
point. When one looks at the international system, one could describe a similar
situation regarding a number of other issues, where there are lots of fingers in
the pie. I do not mean that in a disrespectful sense, because those
organisations have a view to express.
30 Jun 2008 : Column
672
Indeed, I was discussing this, in part, with the secretary-general of
the OECD only this morning. I think that the answer would be that the UK will do
what it has done on a number of other occasions - to argue our corner to try to
ensure that we have an effective international system.
The single most
important priority in improving production is the need to focus on Africa,
because it has not experienced the green revolution that Asia went through. We
must also consider issues such as getting governance right, markets,
communications, water supply, access to seeds, lowering the cost of fertiliser,
helping with transport and getting products to market. Some of the food grown in
the developing world rots. The rats get it before anyone can eat it because the
infrastructure is not there to get it from where it has been grown to where it
needs to be. That is why progress on all those fronts is required if we are to
solve the problem.
Bob Spink (Castle
Point) (UKIP): The right hon. Gentleman is right to refer to
the common agricultural problem as part of the - [ Interruption.
] Sorry, that was a Freudian slip; I meant to say that he is right to refer
to the common agricultural policy as part of the problem. Does he agree that the
common fisheries policy is also dysfunctional? If so - I guess that I will not get
very far down this line - will he therefore explain why the Government’s policy is
not simply to withdraw from them? Given that the hon. Member for Norwich, North
(Dr. Gibson) is present and that apples have been mentioned, does the right hon.
Gentleman understand that the demise of the honey bee will have a major impact
on our agriculture and biodiversity, and what will he do about spending more
money on research into that problem?
Hilary Benn: I understand that the policy that the hon. Gentleman
has put forward is that of the party that he now plants his standard in; it is
not the policy of either of the parties represented on the Front Benches.
However, the sustainability of the world’s fish stocks is a really important
issue. If, in the end, we fish the seas out, we have all got an even bigger
problem on our hands.
Mr. Curry: Will the Secretary of State give way?
Hilary Benn: I will - for the last occasion, seeing as it is the
right hon. Gentleman.
Mr. Curry: May I invite the right hon. Gentleman, in response to
the question that came from behind him, to assert that trade is a good
thing - that if we do not buy New Zealand apples, they may not buy our whisky, for
example - and that the environmental damage of a long sea voyage is almost
certainly a great deal less than that of the final bit by lorry from the port to
the processor to the supermarket? Trade has done a huge amount to advance the
cause of civilisation, and I hope that none of the Front Benchers is going to
suggest that we should do anything but seek to promote it.
Hilary Benn: I happily say, since the right hon. Gentleman
invites me to do so, that trade is indeed a good thing, which is why I have just
told the House that we need an open global trading system. However, I also said
to my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, East (Kerry McCarthy)
30 Jun 2008 : Column
673
that individuals have a choice. If they are going to eat apples,
which lots of people do - doing so is very good for them - they can decide where
they want their apples to come from. [ Interruption. ]
“Kent”, says my hon. Friend the Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Jonathan Shaw)
from a sedentary position - and who am I to argue with him?
In bringing my
remarks to a close, I want to come to the question whether our food supply is
secure. Currently, the answer to the question is yes, both because we produce a
lot of it ourselves and because we are able to buy the rest of the food that we
need on the world market. Will the answer to the question be yes in the years
ahead? The truth is, none of us can answer that question for sure, which is why
this debate matters so much. We should therefore ask ourselves how we can watch
what is happening and set up a system of warnings - if I might use that word - to
alert us to changes that we ought to be worried about. That is the starting
point for this debate. In the document that I promised the House at the last
departmental questions, I intend to suggest what those warnings might look like.
I intend to produce the document alongside the Strategy Unit’s report on food,
and I genuinely look forward to contributions. As a starter for 10, the things
that we might want to watch include the overall global availability of food
compared with population growth; the pattern of UK food imports and supply
diversity; the changing patterns in domestic land use here and elsewhere in the
world; the energy dependency in our food chain and food chain resilience;
affordability of food, and especially whether low-income households can afford
nutritious food; and public confidence in the food system to deliver. There will
be many other suggestions -
Rob Marris: Will my right hon. Friend give way?
Hilary Benn: I will give way one final time in a minute, as it is
my hon. Friend.
What is striking
about this debate is that all of us can think of things that we might need to
worry about - [ Interruption.] I did give way to the hon. Member for
Shrewsbury and Atcham (Daniel Kawczynski). However, the answers are not clear.
While the hon. Member for South-East Cambridgeshire listed a series of things
about which he wished to complain, his speech was light on answers. I do not say
that because I doubt his ability, but because, in truth, all of us are trying to
work out the right policy to adopt to respond to this issue.
Rob Marris: My right hon. Friend probably knows what is coming.
One of the big factors that we have already had warning of is the change in
climate to which he has adverted. Those changes will accelerate in the United
Kingdom as well as elsewhere. I urge on my right hon. Friend a policy on food
production and security in the UK that keeps a close eye on climate change,
because it is one of the biggest issues facing UK agriculture.
Hilary Benn: I am happy to say that I agree completely with my
hon. Friend. What is the best way to ensure our farming sector can meet this
challenge? We need to support farming in producing food that consumers want in a
way that maintains the natural resources on which farming and food production
depend - the quality of the soil and the availability of water - and increases
30 Jun 2008 : Column
674
environmental resilience, because there is not a competition between
the two. We need to be more aware of where our food comes from and how it is
labelled and to find ways of producing food with much less dependence on fossil
fuels. We also need to encourage farming to play its part in reducing emissions
and to encourage the next generation of farmers to see the great opportunities
that exist.
One thing is
beyond doubt, and that is that the world is going to need a lot of farmers and a
lot of food over the next 50 years, and it is the job of every one of us to
respond to that global challenge. The truth is that all our lives depend on us
getting it right.
8.23 pm
Mr. Roger Williams
(Brecon and Radnorshire) (LD): I draw the House’s
attention to my declaration of interests in the register.
In July last year,
I asked the Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs,
the hon. Member for Lewisham, Deptford (Joan Ruddock), about food security, and
she replied that
“the hon. Gentleman knows that we are pretty confident
about the position here because of the diversity of sources from which we draw
our food supplies and our very effective international trade.” - [ Official
Report, 19 July 2007; Vol. 463, c. 417.]
That was a fairly
good answer, but what disappointed many of us was that there was no mention of
British agriculture and the part that it can play in food security.
Dan Rogerson (North
Cornwall) (LD): My hon. Friend makes a good point. I
listened with interest to the Secretary of State, but I was disappointed that he
did not focus a little more on that question and on the Government’s role in at
least ensuring that single farm payments are made in time to farmers who rely on
them to invest in the sorts of things that we want to see - [
Interruption. ] The Secretary of State says from a sedentary position
that the Government are making progress, but they recently had to revise
downwards their estimation of how much they would be able to achieve. Although
things are improving, they still have a long way to go.
Mr. Williams: I thought that the Secretary of State was
more encouraging towards British agriculture than I have heard him be recently.
My hon. Friend makes the point about the single farm payment and what a sapping
effect the problems with it had on the confidence of British agriculture and its
ability to invest and carry on its business.
The Secretary of
State defined food security as having sufficient food and access to food
unhampered by bad governance, substandard infrastructure or the inability to pay
for that food. As several hon. Members have said, this is an issue not of
self-sufficiency, but of security of supply and where we get food from. The
issue is greatly affected by national agricultural output and European
agricultural output. Indeed, the EU is a great exporter of food and is an
important source for food security in the whole world. Many analysts of climate
change predict that northern Europe will increase its importance in global food
production.
As an historical
perspective on food production, I point out that in 1900 there were some 2
billion people on the planet; in just over a century we have increased
30 Jun 2008 : Column
675
to 6.5 billion. Food supply has kept up with that increase in
population until very recent times because people have been innovative and
engaged in research and experimentation. Mechanisation, plant breeding,
fertilisers, agrochemicals and herbicides have all contributed to a great
increase in food production, so much so that food prices have fallen in real
terms over that period, especially in the past 20 years. That has been a big
disincentive to investment in British agriculture. When I did my training, we
were in the midst of the green revolution that did so much to bring improved
food security to Asia, including the use of F1 hybrids and other technical
developments. Many millions of people are alive in Asia today as a result of the
improved food supplies provided by the green revolution. Many children have also
gone on to better and more productive lives as a result.
Individual food
security is about not only sufficient calories, but sufficient vitamins,
essential amino and fatty acids and minerals. We need not only food, but a range
of foodstuffs that meets our nutritional needs. Where disasters have happened,
it has often been a case not of insufficient food, but of an inability to get
the food to people fast enough because of civil unrest, poor infrastructure or
delays in transportation. The problem has been logistics failure rather than
food shortage, but many people are undernourished. It has been estimated that
their numbers have increased considerably as a result of the increase in food
prices.
Why is food
security a hot topic and why does it cause concern for Britain and the British
Government? The Government were initially sceptical of food security
implications for Britain, or our responsibilities for the rest of the world.
Britain’s own food production has fallen as a percentage of our needs, and world
food stocks recently reached an all-time low. Food on shelves and in store is
likely to be inadequate if transport is disrupted, either by industrial action
or fuel shortages. Recent threats of industrial action have shown that food is
spread so thinly across the nation that getting it to the shelves is a real
issue, and it is one for which the Government must take responsibility. The
Government’s reaction was that although food production was falling in Britain
as a result of decoupling, Britain was resilient because of its secure home base
and diversity of supply. More work needs to be done on the resilience of the
distribution network.
Other factors have
already been touched on this evening that have implications for food security:
the possible increase in the population to 9.5 billion by 2050; the increase in
wealth of India and China, as well as the fact that they eat and want foods of
higher quality and cost; and the competition for land from biofuels, with all
its implications in causing a tighter market for food supplies.
What should the
Government do and what can they do? First, it is a question of attitude. I call
on Ministers to show more pride in British agriculture, to stand up for it and
to be proud of what it has achieved in producing good, wholesome food over a
long period and in ensuring that people in this country have access to that food
and to variety. Secondly, Ministers should invest in the greatest resource in
British agriculture - the men and women who work in it. There is too little demand
for many agricultural courses in our colleges of
30 Jun 2008 : Column
676
further education. Let me give a little example. In my local
agricultural college, which is in one of the biggest agricultural constituencies
in England and Wales, only one person wants to go on to level 3. As a result, he
will have to travel 50 or 60 miles to another college to take part in that
training.
David Taylor: The hon. Gentleman asked Ministers to take a
greater pride in British agriculture. Does he include in that their taking a
more robust attitude in Europe in matters of labelling, for instance? It is
absolute lunacy that pigs that are grown for slaughter and slaughtered in, say,
Denmark can be brought to, say, Kent, processed and then presented on the
supermarket shelves as a UK product. That is barmy, is it not? Why are we not
taking the other EU nations to task on it?
Mr. Williams: The hon. Gentleman makes a good point. We
seem to have been talking about labelling for as long as I can remember. It
would be a huge step forward for British agriculture and for the Government in
the eyes of British agriculture if they could do more on the labelling question.
It seems to me that the issues are relatively straightforward and that a little
bit of determination and guts could lead to a success story.
The Government
could do more to promote the use of second generation biofuels. The problem with
food security and biofuels comes from the first generation of biofuels, which
involve making bioethanol from foodstuffs such as wheat. The second generation,
which involves cellulosic enzyme technology, uses crop waste rather than
foodstuffs. The Select Committee on Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and the
Select Committee on Environmental Audit have both published reports that made
that recommendation, yet the Government do not seem to be taking it forward. The
next thing that the Government could do is invest in research into plant
breeding, which might mean using genetic modification as a research tool.
Kerry McCarthy: Before the hon. Gentleman moves on from
biofuels, let me say that although great emphasis is being placed on the fact
that biofuels are increasingly taking up agricultural land and that that is
forcing up food prices because of the scarcity of such land, is not another
factor the fact that agricultural land is increasingly being used to grow soya
that is then used as animal feed? Everyone knows that it takes 7 kg of grain to
produce 1 kg of beef. Is that not as much of a factor as the fact that biofuels
are being produced?
Mr. Williams: The hon. Lady makes a good point. As we
go on, in terms of global food security, we will have to look at how much food
is eaten in vegetable and plant form and how much is eaten as meat. The
ruminants do not have a good conversion factor in converting corn and soya into
meat, but species such as pigs and chickens are relatively efficient. Two thirds
of all agricultural land is grazing land and if we can use that land more
efficiently to produce food in the form of meat, meat production still has an
important part to play in food security. I do not think that people sometimes
realise that arable land takes up only one third of the total global
agricultural land.
By investing in
research, the Government could do a great deal to improve the efficiency and
effectiveness of agriculture in this country. By exporting that technology,
30 Jun 2008 : Column
677
they could do a lot for other countries, too. I referred earlier to
the green revolution, which is an example of how research and technology can
take forward production to an extent that is difficult to anticipate.
The next issue is
saving waste, which the Secretary of State has already mentioned. More research
and more investment in infrastructure and transport are needed. Some 30 per
cent. of all food is wasted. Some is not even harvested, and some deteriorates
in store. Much is wasted in processing and in retail when it is not sold during
the time in which it is meant to be sold. It is wasted in the home, too. If only
a small amount of that waste was used for its proper purpose as food, food
security would be addressed.
British farming
must not be discriminated against by uncompetitive regulation. The hon. Member
for North-West Leicestershire (David Taylor) talked about pig production, and we
have seen the pig herd in this country reduced by about a third or a half of its
total. Part of the problem is that it has to compete against imports of pigs
that are reared and produced in conditions that would not be allowed in this
country. That is where labelling comes in. If the Minister and the Secretary of
State can do anything for the pig industry in this country, they should ensure
that imports meet the same standards and regulations as apply here.
Mention has also
been made of the situation in much of the EU, where full decoupling has not
taken place. That puts British agriculture at a disadvantage, too. Some of the
cost compliance for agriculture seems unnecessarily complicated and oppressive.
Mention has been made of all the inspections. Yes, we must have a compliance
system to ensure that public money is properly accounted for and spent, but some
of the compliance requirements do not seem to go that way at all.
Nitrate-vulnerable
zones have been mentioned. It is all very well for the Secretary of State to
say, “I wasn’t there when the agreement was made,” but we have to deal with the
issue now, and ensure that Britain is not disadvantaged while other countries
are not made to sort out their difficulties - [Interruption] - or fined.
There is another issue that the Secretary of State must take up during the
mid-term review: the move towards pillar two must not be done at a rate that
makes British agriculture uncompetitive and unprofitable. We want to move
towards pillar two, but in a considered manner, and the profitability of
agriculture must be borne in mind. I believe that the hon. Member for South-East
Cambridgeshire (Mr. Paice), who spoke for the Conservatives, said that we should
move away entirely from direct payments to management schemes. That is the first
time that I have heard that suggested. He must mean that to be done at the end
of 2013.
Mr. Paice: I think that the phrase I used was a “phased
programme” of transfer; that has been our approach to common agricultural policy
reform for several years now. It is about shifting resources from pillar one to
pillar two over a reasonable period, precisely for the reason that the hon.
Gentleman describes - to give farmers time to adjust. That shift should happen
across the whole of Europe.
Mr. Williams: I am pleased that the hon. Gentleman has
been able to clarify that point. He also talked about co-financing for nations
that wanted to spend more on agriculture. I am not sure how that would work
within a
30 Jun 2008 : Column
678
common agricultural policy. I understand the issue of co-financing
within the CAP, but it seems to me that if one country wanted to spend more on a
particular aspect, that would destroy the concept of a common agricultural
policy.
People should take
responsibility for their own food security. That is a point that a number of
people have taken up. When towns or developments are being planned, allotments
and other land should be set aside so that people can get involved in food
production. People not only want farmers’ markets and other local food
production, but want to produce food for themselves, and they should be given
the opportunity to do so.
I call on the
Government to take action on the Competition Commission report on supermarkets.
There is no doubt that there have been uncompetitive practices. Supermarkets are
reaping the rewards of their actions; the fact that food prices have risen
substantially is partly due to supermarkets having paid farmers so poorly that
food production has been reduced. Representatives from supermarkets are now
going around the country trying to find produce to fill their shelves. The
Competition Commission recommended establishing an independent ombudsman for the
supermarket and retail trade. I ask the Minister to say, when he replies to the
debate, when the Government will act on that issue.
My last point is
that we should secure the hills. The hills are a huge jewel in the crown for the
UK. The profitability of farming in the hills is decreasing so rapidly that no
young people will take up the farms there in future. Unless the Government come
forward with plans to address that problem, we will end up with dereliction in
the hills, rather than the management that so many people want, so that they can
enjoy their walks and their recreation in the hills.
This has been a
useful debate. It is one that the Secretary of State wanted, and all Members
have engaged in it in a positive way.
8.43 pm
Dr. Ian Gibson
(Norwich, North) (Lab): I was inspired to contribute to
the debate after a meeting held last week by Sir Ben Gill, who gathered together
100 brains from different parts of the United Kingdom to consider the issue. The
problem with such debates is that 100 issues come flooding out into the ether,
rather as they did in the last speech. The subject requires some concentrated
focusing-down on what the important issues are, both in the short and long
term.
I want to thank
two friends of mine, Professor Ian Crute from the Rothamsted research laboratory
in Harpenden, and Professor Chris Lamb from the John Innes Centre and the
Sainsbury laboratory in Norwich; the people there do sterling work on plant
genetics and developing food crops. I shall say something more about them when I
focus on the issue, but I start with the comments of the new chief scientific
adviser, Professor John Beddington. At a GovNet sustainable development UK
conference in Westminster, at which the Secretary of State spoke, Professor John
Beddington said quite clearly:
“There is progress on climate change. But out there is
another major problem. It is very hard to imagine how we can see a world
growing enough crops to produce renewable energy and at the same time meet the
enormous increase in the demand for food which is quite properly going to
happen as we alleviate poverty.”
30 Jun 2008 : Column
679
That is a strong,
political message from our new chief scientific adviser. I am sure that more
will be said about that issue in the coming months.
The year 2008 is
distinguished by the fact that fewer members of the world population derive
their livelihood in rural areas than in towns. More people buy food produced by
others than are involved in its production. A few years ago, land workers in
this country disappeared. In my part of the world - East Anglia - there were always
strong Labour constituencies, because farm workers knew which way the cookie
crumbled. It all changed when new factories were built and so on. We lost a lot
of that technology and skill on the land.
This year is the
centenary of a discovery that has probably saved more lives than any other
discovery in the history of mankind - the Haber-Bosch process of making ammonia
from gaseous nitrogen and hydrogen, which was discovered in 1908. It provided
the ability to manufacture nitrogen fertiliser, and it is estimated that without
access to synthetic nitrogen fertilisers there would be half as many humans on
the planet or we would have had to cultivate double the land area. Either way,
there would be major ecological destruction, conflict and suffering. Some people
argue against that view, but whether one loves them or hates them, pesticides
and insecticides have made an important contribution to farming development
across the world. We feed 6.5 billion people from 1.5 billion hectares of land.
The area of land used to grow grain globally - about 2 billion tonnes per
annum - has hardly increased in the past 50 years, but crop productivity has kept
ahead, as we have heard, of rapid population growth, which has been achieved
through foresight and sustained investment in agricultural science and
technology, from the period between the wars until 20 years or so ago, when we
became rather complacent. That may cost us dear.
With global grain
stocks at an all-time low - less than 10 days’ worth, it is estimated - and with
ever-increasing demand from an urbanising, Asian population; with the losses of
animal land to degradation and urbanisation; and with the impact of climate
change and the rising cost of oil, we can be sure that high food prices will be
with us for some time to come. The only response is to increase the food supply.
There are only two ways to increase food production: plough more land or
increase the yield per hectare. I shall deal with the first proposal and
discount it as a solution. The total land area of the earth is about 13 billion
hectares, but more than a third is desert, high mountains or covered in ice, so
it does not support the growth of crops. Of the remaining two thirds, we
cultivate 1.5 billion hectares, which is only 18 per cent. of the land area of
the planet, leaving more than 7 billion hectares, which support plant growth.
However, we would be ill advised to use that land because it is stable pasture,
forest and savannah, and harbours a vast supply of stored carbon. If we plough
it or cut down forests, we release carbon into the atmosphere and reduce the
earth’s capacity to fix carbon. That is not a sensible thing to do, although we
know that deforestation is taking place and that the pressure to bring more land
into cultivation is indeed very great in some parts of the world, and there is a
strong political pressure.
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If we are not
going to plough more land, how are we going to achieve more productivity per
hectare to meet global demand? Scientific knowledge comes into it, as does an
understanding of plant genetics, soil science, plant pathology, and pest
biology. In fact, we must harness our understanding of the components of
agricultural ecosystems. Science will enable us to remove some of the things
that constrain agricultural productivity, and we must invest in it quickly.
Since the years of the previous Government, we have believed that as a wealthy
nation we will always be able to buy what food we want on world markets and that
affordable food will always be available. As a result of that complacency, we
have under-invested and severely damaged what was, and still can be, a
world-class capability in agricultural science. The point is that as food prices
increase, it is the poorest of the world, and even the poor in rich nations like
ours, who suffer. In Europe, and particularly the UK, we have fertile resilient
soils, a favourable climate and excellent skills, so we have an obligation to
the future to ensure that we obtain maximum productivity with minimum
environmental disturbance from that natural resource.
Let me return to
the science. Five things constrain plant growth. Science and technology cannot
deal with all of them, but it can address most of them. First, radiant energy
for photosynthesis is all about latitude. We cannot do too much about that, but
through molecular genetics it is possible to make photosynthesis more efficient
and therefore fix more carbon for growth. The work at Rothamsted research
laboratory in Harpenden introduces the prospect of higher crop yields by
increasing the efficiency with which radiant energy is converted to chemical
energy. The UK has a jewel there - the longest established agricultural research
centre in the world, and a deep reservoir of knowledge and expertise which we
must do more to foster and exploit.
Another constraint
is temperature, which is a feature of latitude and altitude. We can use modern
glasshouse technology to conserve energy and prolong growing seasons but, more
importantly, we must anticipate problems of extreme temperature, even here in
the UK, where it could have catastrophic effects on cereal yields. Mathematical
simulation and modelling from Rothamsted point to the need for emphasis to be
placed on breeding crops with resilience to high temperatures, which are
predicted to become more frequent.
A further
constraint is water. The only reason we can grow food in some parts of the
world, such as India, is that we move water from places where it is plentiful to
places where it is scarce. We can use sophisticated technology to use water more
efficiently, and 70 per cent. of fresh water on the planet is used for
agriculture. The competition for water for urban, domestic, industrial and
agricultural use is becoming more intense. It could, indeed, become the source
of warfare and strife. Science can deliver to us crops that use water more
efficiently - a really green and valuable application of the science of genetic
engineering. That is the target of several research groups, and in particular,
that which I have spoken about at the John Innes centre in Norwich.At the
beginning of my contribution, I mentioned nitrogen fertiliser and its importance
for cultivation. Adequate crop nutrition - sufficient provision of nitrogen,
phosphorous, potassium and trace elements - is essential for high yields. We need
crops that are nutrient-use
30 Jun 2008 : Column
681
efficient, and we need to use high technology to ensure that
nutrients get to the right place at the right time to bring about their effects.
Nitrogen fertilisers require fossil fuels for their synthesis and they can
pollute watercourses; we must use them more efficiently. The world experts in
that arena are also located in the UK, at Rothamsted. In Norwich, we have groups
working on the prospect of transferring to other crop plants, such as wheat, the
genetic capacity of legumes, which fix their own nitrogen through associated
bacteria. We can transfer them across plants. We surely must resource better and
encourage more important work, because it is vital to our future.
The fifth
constraint and the source of much wasted water, energy, labour, nutrients and so
forth are pests, diseases and weeds. Some 25 per cent. of all crops are lost to
those causes before or after harvest, and the control of pests, diseases and
weeds would go a long way to providing the extra 50 per cent. of food that we
will need between now and 2030, when the world’s population will reach about 9
billion. How do we do that? In Norwich, at the Sainsbury laboratory at the John
Innes centre and at Rothamsted, pioneering work exploits natural plant defences
and their genetic control, aided by green chemistry to deliver a new generation
of pest-resistant and disease-resistant crops. The threat of resistance to
pesticides, the agricultural equivalent of MRSA, is being countered and
responded to at Rothamsted, with the application of new molecular diagnostic
methods and management practices that will sustain the effective lifetime of
those valuable chemicals.
In conclusion,
Members will realise from what I have said that the challenge is great, but we
have the tools, technology and intellect to meet it, and we must nurture
encourage and resource the science. This is my message: we must sweep away any
regulatory environment that impedes that progress and makes the lives of farmers
who grow food more difficult. We ought to ensure that safe pesticides exist, and
as the argument develops we ought seriously to consider GM crops again. We all
know the arguments in respect of GM crops, and I do not want to go through them
now, because we will do so on many future occasions, but about 300 million
Americans have consumed food derived from GM crops - without a single tort in the
most litigious society in history. [ Interruption.] My hon. Friend the
Member for Stroud (Mr. Drew) laughs, and we will continue the argument until the
cows come home.
The use of Bt
cotton in, for example, China benefits small-scale farmers. Other people will
point to the monopolies of the various pharmaceutical companies - Monsanto,
DuPont, Syngenta and so on - and how they develop the technology. The argument is
there. However, as the Minister said, we have to look seriously at GM as part of
a key breeding tool in the context of a shift to science-based, targeted and
predictive breeding underpinned by some kind of plant genetics.
GM is not the
whole process, but it is a part that we have to contemplate seriously and get
back to. The arguments are not all about how the technology is used; they are
also about how such crops are produced and what good they are. As was said in a
debate on human embryology, when GM was used to produce insulin in human cells
there was no argument whatever; the development was quite tolerable. However,
when we try
30 Jun 2008 : Column
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to make plants that are resistant to certain bugs and viruses,
resistance seems to develop among certain parts of the community.
The
science-to-crop-improvement pipeline is fractured internationally and it
requires significant capacity development in developing countries. Today we have
read in the papers that not enough physicists are coming through; we also need
more plant geneticists. We need people who want to work on plants and develop
new, efficient crops that are resistant to drought and so on. We must get such
people into our education system. Plants are not always popular; animal and
medical techniques and technologies seem to take many of the best people. We
have to keep hammering home the message that we need to produce more food and we
need to use science to do it.
8.56 pm
Mr. Michael Jack
(Fylde) (Con): I am delighted that my hon. Friend the
Member for South-East Cambridgeshire (Mr. Paice) managed to secure this
important debate on the security of our food supply. The hon. Member for
Norwich, North (Dr. Gibson) said that we all ought to do something about the
issue, so for the record I should say that Sunday afternoon saw me on my
allotment harvesting my first courgettes, nurturing my peas and onions and
battling against the overwhelming forces of the weeds.
Doing a little
horticulture made me reflect on the fact that at least I had at my disposal a
range of sophisticated chemicals to deal with the creatures that - in spite of my
most persuasive words to the snails and slugs that keep coming on to the
allotment - want to take away the food that I am growing. I realised how fine the
margins are between having and not having a food supply. The hon. Member for
Norwich, North rightly reminded us of the enormous progress made by science and
technology, as far as western agriculture is concerned, in increasing the margin
between having and not having a crop.
Before I became a
Member of Parliament, I worked in the horticulture industry. I remember standing
in a field of leeks that had been hit by a severe cold spell. They had
effectively melted. No amount of science was going to stop the loss of that
crop. It is important that we recognise that all our discussions on the
availability of food are surrounded by natural forces over which we - mankind on
this planet - have very little influence. Yes, we can do something to address the
vagaries of climate change, but the limits are there for all to see.
I had the
privilege and pleasure of going to the world food summit in Rome on behalf of
the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee. I sat through the
presentations of all the Heads of State there, and that gave me an interesting
perspective into the whole question. In the west, we have effectively
subcontracted our supply of food to supermarkets and major caterers; 80 per
cent. of the food spend in this country happens in supermarkets. The idea that
the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has some command-economy
role to play in respect of the price of food or its supply is not an issue.
However, the Department can influence some of the key policy instruments that
can ultimately affect the purchasing policies of companies
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such as Sainsbury’s, Tesco and Marks & Spencer. We have
subcontracted our food supply to them; they make the procurement decisions.
It is important to
distinguish between the factors that have led to a short-term rapid rise in the
price of food and consider them against the background of the period five or 10
years ago when my hon. Friend the Member for South-East Cambridgeshire would
have talked about falling real rates of return to producers and the impact that
they were having on the structure of the United Kingdom’s agriculture. Those
falling real rates of return were a contributory factor in the restructuring of
the dairy and horticulture industries, and in pig producers going out of
business and so on. They are also one reason why people in the arable sector
have looked, enviously in the first instance and now with enthusiasm, at
biofuels, which represented an opportunity to use set-aside land productively to
produce something rather than nothing.
From the western
point of view, we have to look at the relationship between the overall policy
framework, namely the common agricultural policy, and its effect on the supply
side of the equation. The world food summit taught me that there is another view
of agriculture and the Secretary of State alluded to it when he talked about
Africa. When one listens to the Heads of State from the less developed parts of
the world, it is clear they take a very different view. Those countries have
very small-scale micro-agriculture. There are some medium-sized and large-scale
producers, but nothing compared with the very large-scale agriculture in the
United States and some parts of western Europe. Their challenges are the
affordability of seed and simple fertiliser, the availability of water, and the
opportunity to get their food to market - all the things that the Secretary of
State mentioned. It is a question of how we in the west can stimulate production
in those countries and address the fundamental issue of the supply of food for
their indigenous people. At the same time, that will take some of the pressure
off the west having to make up for the fact that, in the less developed
countries, the margin between feast and famine is wafer thin.
It is interesting
to look at the statistics showing the priority that we in the world give to
agriculture. In the past 12 months, we put $1 trillion into propping up the
world’s financial system and $4 billion into aid for food production. It is also
interesting that it costs the world $20 billion annually to deal with the
consequences of obesity. Perhaps if we ate a little less, there would be a
little more for others.
There are so many
ways of looking at this multi-faceted subject that it is difficult to come to a
neat five or six-point conclusion on what we need to do. I am firmly of the view
that it is vital to knit together the many and various world bodies and
policy-setting forums. The World Trade Organisation has been talking about
market liberalisation and opening up opportunities. That is right, because the
returns that farmers receive fundamentally change the supply-side equation. If
one wants more from farmers, give them the return and within 12 months they will
react to it.
However, there are
downsides to reform. For example, the change in the sugar regime under the
common agricultural policy resulted in the price of sugar within
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684
the European Union falling, which brought forth immediate criticism
from Afro-Caribbean producers who said, “We can’t supply sugar at that
price - it’s not high enough for us.” We can open the door to market access, but
the price consequences can have the wrong effect, and unless one can help those
countries to modernise their agriculture, we will lose an important resource. It
is vital to link together the work of the European Union, the WTO, the World
Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the United Nations and the Food and
Agriculture Organisation, and then to make certain that the grand plans that
they talk about really happen. At the world food summit, the President of
Senegal got up and said, “Look, we’ve been at this for 10 years. We’ve heard all
this before. Just give me the budget of the FAO and I’ll go and sort out the
world’s food supply.” He was saying that we had had too much talk and not enough
action.
One of the themes
that came out of the conference was that, because there had been a green
revolution, people thought that agriculture had started to motor forward in the
less developed world and the development agenda had moved on to health and
education. Then, all of a sudden, we found that agricultural production had been
falling, just when the world’s population was increasing and climate change was
threatening some of the major centres of world agricultural production, such as
Australia. If we bring the two together, we get a shortage of supply, rising
demand and rising prices. Therefore, optimising the opportunities to use our
agricultural knowledge to address those issues is one of the most important
things that we can do.
I have one or two
other points of contrast. President Lula da Silva of Brazil made a passionate
defence of his country’s production of biofuels. He pointed out that Brazil has
340 million hectares of agricultural land, 200 million hectares of which is
pasture, with 63 million devoted to crops and only seven million used to grow
sugar cane. He pointed out that 77 million hectares of land could be brought
into production in one of the most interesting areas in the world for
agricultural production and he said that that could be done without destroying
the rain forest. I have to take what he said at face value, but against the
background of rising arable crop prices, the demand for biofuels and the
important issues of sustainability raised in western circles, I asked myself why
those 77 million hectares were not being used for production. Constraints exist,
some of which are agronomic, but some are influenced by market access.
That brings us
full circle to the European Union’s policy on subsidies versus exports, and its
attitudes to the World Trade Organisation talks. There are interesting lessons
to be learned from some of the speeches at the conference, and for me, the cameo
speech was that of the President of the Republic of Madagascar. He did not stand
up and say, “I want lots of aid”, but said that there were certain things that
it could do for itself. His first point was that
the things that
his country produced. He wants a level playing field with regard to the
economics of world agricultural production. He went on to make a number of
points, but the next one that caught my eye was that
“no-one really cared about farmers, their legal situation,
their security, their ability to access credit”.
30 Jun 2008 : Column
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Simple things can
give a sense of security to the local farmer, such as the provision of resources
and credit, which is where the World Bank can make such an enormous
difference.
The President
talked about the initiative going on in Madagascar - a new vision that he called
“Madagascar naturally”. He went on to talk about the liberalisation of the price
of rice in that economy, which had led to a 25 to 30 per cent. increase in
production in the past three years. That shows the simple relationship between
return and an increase in production. He also said that
“we need better training and better advice...we have to
increase our productivity per hectare by using better seeds.”
He did not want to
become dependent on western nations, but wanted to improve his storage and
transport facilities. He wanted to standardise and improve his product; he
wanted to develop new products that would meet international demand; and he
wanted better marketing strategies. Against that background, he said that his
country also produced some of its own biofuels.
While I was
sitting there listening to all that, and we were discussing the food chain,
climate change, agricultural science, environmental issues, the role of
aquiculture and the challenge of pests and diseases, I kept saying to myself,
“Where’s DEFRA?” It was not represented. There was no DEFRA Minister and no
DEFRA civil servant. The UK representation was left to the Department for
International Development. I am sure that it did a very good job of putting
forward the UK’s position, but given that DEFRA has the prime responsibility for
food, it has the levers to mobilise our food chain by disseminating information
and using technology. It has learned many of the lessons that are so vital in
other parts of the world, it leads on climate change and, as the hon. Member for
Norwich, North has pointed out, it holds the levers on agricultural science.
The John Innes
Centre has a budget from public funds of £12.5 million and earns another £12.5
million from contracts. That makes £25 million, which would hardly buy a really
good premiership forward. We have to address the priority that we give to the
science and technology issues that are vital not only to our agriculture but to
that of less developed countries. I would like the Secretary of State’s
Department to become fully engaged in providing what the President of Madagascar
said would be a key ingredient in improving the performance of his agricultural
sector. For Madagascar, read many other enlightened countries, particularly in
sub-Saharan Africa.
It comes down to
this: we must consider the factor that has caused us to consider this matter
now - the rising price of food - but at the same time, we must minimise the risk to
the world’s food supply chain. We must use our technology and knowledge not only
to increase total food productivity from our excellent indigenous agriculture
but to maximise the potential of Africa, the east of Russia and other parts of
the world, such as Brazil, that have tremendous potential. Then we might rest a
little easier in our beds about the world having a secure supply of food.
Several hon.
Members rose -
Mr. Deputy Speaker
(Sir Michael Lord): Order. Before I call the next
speaker, may I say to the House that we have probably a little under half an
hour to go? Three
30 Jun 2008 : Column
686
Members are seeking to catch my eye, and if each can manage to
restrict his remarks to a little under 10 minutes, we might fit everybody
in.
9.12 pm
Mr. David Drew
(Stroud) (Lab/Co-op): I shall take careful note of your
remarks, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and be as brief as I possibly can, particularly as
I rehearsed my arguments in the debate that we had on 3 June, as my hon. Friend
the Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs knows. I
shall make my speech and he can make his, and we can reconsider food
security.
I wish to address
some matters that are different from those that I raised that day, at the time
of the Rome conference. I am delighted to follow the comments of the right hon.
Member for Fylde (Mr. Jack), the Chairman of the Select Committee on
Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, on the conference. I shall park the matter
there, but it was an important conference and it is good to hear for the first
time the contents of some of the speeches.
I wish to address
some of the major themes and discuss some slightly different issues. It is a
pity that my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich, North (Dr. Gibson) is no longer
in his place, because he does the science bit and I do the anti-science bit.
Long may that continue - we are very good friends, but we do not agree about
everything. I wish to say a few things about GM crops, as people would
suspect.
I shall begin with
a couple of points that are more general. As I said in the debate on 3 June, I
never felt that the era of low food prices would last for ever. I also felt that
low food prices sometimes have counter-productive effects. We have abused food
and used it in ways that we should not, and it has been taken for granted. As
the most basic of all God’s supplies, we have taken far too liberal a view of
food and of how to face up to future challenges. I would argue that at least we
can now debate the matter - I suspect that, a year ago, we would not have held
such a debate. Perhaps the Government took food security for granted, and there
was a general context in which it was believed that food would remain cheap,
that that was a good thing and that we would never have to debate the matter.
However, that is clearly not the case and we are having the debate, which
concentrates the mind.
The reasons for
being where we are have been well rehearsed. As no one else has done so, let me
give a plug to the Cabinet Office paper, which the Select Committee examined. It
remains a good analysis of the different criteria whereby our food is produced,
who can buy it, the international consequences and the impact on health. The
latter has not been mentioned, but it is important and we ignore it at our
peril.
We talk about food security as a global or a national issue, but it is
sometimes highly personal. I shall say a little about the impact of rising food
prices on the poor, which should concern us, shortly. There is a live debate
about what we should do with the school meals service. The School Food Trust now
says that it can do nothing with the money that it has set aside to provide
school meals, and that, despite Jamie Oliver, there has been a decline in the
take up of school meals. That has a huge impact in two respects. First, it means
that some children will have inferior food and, more particularly, if we
30 Jun 2008 : Column
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cannot educate children appropriately at school about good food and
catering, there is little chance, given the way society has gone, that they will
have that education.
I am grateful to
July’s edition of Green Futures, which states that Washington state has
decided to put $600,000 into locally grown food and vegetable snacks for the
school meals service there. The Americans had no hesitation - partly because they
support their agricultural system in that way, but also because, when they have
a problem, such as rising food prices, they put resources into it - in subsidising
those who most need it. Such initiatives, which are perceived as “nanny state”
if this country introduces them, are part and parcel of the operation of
American states. We should take more such action.
Let us consider
the impact of rising food prices on the poorest. Again, the Americans have had
food stamps for generations. If we consider the link between production and
support for the producers, we might like also to examine the impact on those who
buy food. The impact of rising food prices in the past few weeks and months has
been greatest on those who buy. I do not suggest food stamps per se, but one of
the advantages of a deficiency payment system was that we provided food to those
who could least afford to buy it. The whole EU has moved away from that to a
minimum price system, and that has an effect. Those who cannot afford to buy
food of quality and variety are adversely affected. It is therefore a great
shame that we do not consider a more flexible system. As a long-standing
opponent of the EU, I wish we had more national control because there can be
reasons for intervening. For example, I have considered the school meals
service, supporting the poorest through flexibility in providing food, and the
price at which the food is being made available.
To some extent, we
are still debating the last war, although things have moved on. As the hon.
Member for South-East Cambridgeshire (Mr. Paice) said, there are new
opportunities for production and new people are going into production. People
are growing more in their gardens and trying to get allotments. Community
agriculture means that people are genuinely coming together - there are two
examples in Stroud, as hon. Members can imagine. People are making the best use
of their time and are willing to consider how they can produce food. That is at
least interesting, and we need to encourage it and see it as a different way of
really localising the food chain. Again, I stress that we must not see food
security as a global or national issue, but a local one.
It was interesting
to hear some of the things that Sir Iain Anderson said about biosecurity and
biosafety in a private meeting last week. I have felt for a long time that the
biggest threat to this country is animal disease, whether imported or created
indigenously - we all know about the impact of that. I have never been sure what
we would do if a series of animal diseases all hit at the same time. I did not
receive a terribly satisfactory answer to my question a week or so ago, but I
continue to bang on about how important it is to look at the strategy, because I
do not think that we will get animal diseases in single order anymore. Rather,
it is quite possible that we will have a number of them all together. We need to
have the means to bear down on them, otherwise our whole food chain will
suffer.
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But on to GM. I
heard what my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State said about the issue
being safety and the environment. I also heard what my hon. Friend the Member
for Norwich, North said about how we must continue to experiment. I would
introduce a third factor, which has always worried me, which is this: who owns
the means to propagate GM? My greatest concern has always been about the
concentration of our retailers and supermarkets - we are increasingly seeing this
with the globalisation of the control of seeds, fertilisers, pesticides and the
rest of it. Until we can break those monopolies, I will always be fearful. That
is my fundamental opposition to GM. It is interesting that people have recently
begun to look into both the entry costs and the exits costs of GM. There is
always the terminator gene, too. I know that it can be greatly exaggerated, but
it is nevertheless something that we must face up to.
In conclusion, I
am not nearly as sanguine about GM. I do not see it as the answer. More
particularly, the worrying thing is that GM is moving in the direction of
increasing concentrations of power and the ability to influence the food chain
in a completely different way from how I would like it to develop. That way
would be to encourage localisation, encourage more people to do things for
themselves, and recognise that there are farmers markets and ways for
communities to come together and effect changes in what we now call food
fundamentals. Again, those things are happening out there, but it is a great
shame that we in this place do not look at those local initiatives and see them
as important to the huge strategic issues that we face regularly. As long as
that is heard and understood and as long as there is some recognition that the
issue is as important as some of those other debates, I will be quiet and let
others continue the debate.
9.23 pm
Mr. Richard Benyon
(Newbury) (Con): In the few minutes left, I will
try to add something new to this debate.
I always think
that food security needs to be considered in the context of the fragility of our
food supply. That was brought home to us recently by the fuel strike, during
which we saw photographs - they may have been in the Daily Mail, but they
were there nevertheless - of empty shelves. If I want to scare myself as I cross
the M25 coming into London, I think for a moment about how many eggs, pints of
milk, loaves of bread, bags of peas or tonnes of fish have to cross that line
just to feed this city on a daily basis. The way in which that is achieved daily
is a triumph of market forces. I try to imagine how it would happen if it was
controlled by a central agency - by DEFRA, perhaps. I suspect that there might be
a few people fed in the suburbs, but food riots in Chelsea. We have to learn
from the successes of the free market in order to make ourselves more
self-sufficient.
That is why I
support the idea of places such as Thanet Earth. I have not been there, and
there might be all sorts of problems locally that I have not heard about, but I
have always believed that there was a market for proper, large-scale, home-grown
food production near to centres of population. I have never subscribed to the
belief that low wage costs elsewhere in the world would drive food production
inexorably away from these shores. I have seen at first hand how food is
produced highly
30 Jun 2008 : Column
689
efficiently in places such as Kenya. However, given the wage
inflation in the developing world - it stood at 43 per cent. in parts of China
last year - I believe that there is a huge market for places such as Thanet Earth.
Furthermore, I never believed the GM theory that was propounded a few years
ago - namely, that we could feed the world from a farm the size of Delaware. There
is a great future for British agriculture.
I am amazed that
the Government’s proposed amendment to our motion says that
“UK self sufficiency stands at 74 per cent. for food which
can be grown in the UK, which is higher than in the early 1950s”.
It is worth
putting that statement into context. When Winston Churchill spoke at a National
Farmers Union dinner in the 1950s, he said that
“30 million people, all living on an island where we
produce enough food for say 15 million, is a spectacle of majesty and
insecurity this country can ill afford”.
I wonder what
heights of hyperbole he might reach if he were able to consider the situation
today, with double the population and the declining level of food
self-sufficiency.
Given the global
changes in demand, our own consumer needs and the effects of the rise in the
price of oil, we are faced with either a serious problem or a great opportunity.
Huge challenges face our agricultural community, but there are also
opportunities, and we need to embrace them. Unfortunately, at present, there
appears to be a widespread lack of understanding of the fundamental importance
of agriculture in this country. This sometimes leaves farmers with a sense that
they are redundant, undervalued and misunderstood. I think that I am the only
dairy farmer in the House - my hon. Friend the Member for Leominster (Bill Wiggin)
will correct me if I am wrong - but I will not be one for much longer. I am
selling my herd this autumn. Regulations relating to nitrate vulnerable zones
and the cost of complying with an overburdening regulation scheme are driving me
out of milk production. I should have reminded hon. Members to look at my
declaration in the Register of Members’ Interests.
Farmers are the
main users of land in Great Britain. Farming is a significant economic sector,
but it is easy to forget the contribution that it makes to other income earners
in this country, including tourism. The present Government have failed to give
confidence to the agricultural community as a whole. We have seen their
incompetence over the single farm payments and the needless red tape,
gold-plating and bureaucracy that have been imposed on farmers and landowners. I
remember my father talking about the agricultural community’s fear of Labour
party manifestos which talked, year after year, about the nationalisation of
land. It is wonderful that that is no longer in Labour manifestos; it has not
been in them for years. I submit, however, that there has been a nationalisation
of the use of the land. What we can actually do on our farms is now so
restricted, and the quangocracy now controls so tightly what farmers can do,
that we no longer have the freedom that we had in the past.
In conclusion, I
want to make a plea, and I use these words with great caution. I believe that
there needs to be a reassessment of the power of the environmental and
conservation lobby. Actually, I call it the conservation industry. I am part of
it; I have chaired a conservation organisation and I am a member of a variety of
30 Jun 2008 : Column
690
conservation bodies. I consider myself a conservationist. I have won
conservation awards, for what that is worth. The problems of the 1970s, which
included hedges being taken out to produce more food, represented appalling
excesses. I can remember being encouraged to use appalling pesticides, such as
Hostathion, which killed everything and had a wide impact on our environment.
However, since the 1970s, the pendulum has swung much too far the other way.
I heard recently
about a prime management objective on an agreed management policy of a farm in
Scotland, which was
“to create, maintain and encourage a high density of
breeding raptors”.
I have nothing
against raptors; in fact, I am very fond of them and take great delight in the
red kites on my farm. I would, however, question whether we have the balance
right. In an era of food shortage, is it morally right to have such a - dare I say
it - smug first-world attitude in saying that farms in this country should no
longer have the prime objective of producing food? I submit that we can produce
food and maintain the environment. The moral issues were clearly put by my hon.
Friend the Member for South-East Cambridgeshire (Mr. Paice): when we cannot grow
something here, we have to buy it on the world market; and when we buy it on the
world market, we are competing with poorer countries. That is something that we
should ponder - whether we are getting the balance right.
I wanted to say
much more, but I also want to hear my hon. Friend the Member for Shrewsbury and
Atcham (Daniel Kawczynski), the eminent chairman of the all-party dairy farmers
group.
9.31 pm
Daniel Kawczynski
(Shrewsbury and Atcham) (Con): I read the motion as
focusing on our own food security here in the UK, although many others have
spoken about problems in other parts of the world. I view the motion as relevant
to our own country, and the Secretary of State has tried to pour a soothing balm
over the whole crisis that we face. He tried to appear both very positive and as
the friend of the farmers, but I have to tell him - I want to take this
opportunity to explain it to the House - that this country faces a crisis in its
agricultural sector. He knows how passionately I feel about dairy farming, and
speaking as chairman of the all-party dairy farmers group, I have to tell him
and the House that more than 170 MPs across the parties are involved in the
group and they all feel passionately about the future of our dairy sector.
In 1997, 47 cattle
were slaughtered in Shropshire. Last year, the figure had risen to more than
1,200. I keep repeating those figures: how can we go from 47 cattle slaughtered
in one year to more than 1,200? To me, that seems just phenomenal. It goes over
and over in my mind, and it reflects the state of the crisis that we have with
bovine TB in Shropshire. This year, if current trends continue, more than 1,600
cattle will be slaughtered in Shropshire.
As the House
knows, I like talking about Shropshire, but nationally, as my hon. Friend the
Member for South-East Cambridgeshire (Mr. Paice) stated - the National Farmers
Union confirmed these figures to me today - 28,000 cattle were slaughtered in 2007
and it is
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likely that 40,500 will be slaughtered in 2008. That is going to cost
the British taxpayer more than £100 million in compensation to the affected
farmers - money that I believe the Government can ill afford in current
circumstances.
One farmer in my
constituency is Mr. Chris Balmer - I want that name to be indelibly etched in the
mind of the Secretary of State - from the village of Snailbeach. He had bovine TB
on his farm and I had to intervene on 16 occasions concerning the fiasco over
his rural payments during the last year. This is a man who has been literally
brought to his knees by the incompetence of DEFRA in respect of tackling bovine
TB and getting the payments to him. If I could ask one thing of the Secretary of
State, it would be to please ensure that that one constituent is treated in a
much better way in future. If the right hon. Gentleman is interested to know
more about the serious problems that my constituent has faced, I would be happy
to talk to him about them.
It does not have
to be like this. France has eradicated bovine TB. Fewer than 0.004 per cent. of
herds in France are infected - [Interruption.] I hear some socialist MP
saying no, that is wrong. Well, I have spent hours translating Ministry of
Agriculture statements from France where those involved are lauding their
achievements in this sphere. France has tackled bovine TB through a huge
investment in extra testing, vaccines and a limited cull of badgers. If the
French can do it, why can the Government not do it? They will not do it because,
in their growing unpopularity, they are desperately worried about those marginal
seats where there are many members of the Wildlife Trusts.
The Government do
not want to offend members of the Wildlife Trusts. I understand that. There are
5,000 Shropshire Wildlife Trust members and it is the biggest organisation in my
county. So concerned are those people about my desire for a limited cull of
badgers that they insisted that on Friday night my wife and I spend four hours
watching a badger sett and looking at all the badgers. They even gave my baby
daughter Alexis a little cuddly badger to play with. They desperately want us to
stop talking about badgers and a potential limited cull, but my priority has to
be my Shropshire farmers, although I think badgers are sweet. I have seen all
the evidence that there is a definite link between badgers and the spread of
bovine TB.
I must also tell
the Secretary of State that I entirely agreed with my hon. Friend the Member for
South-East Cambridgeshire when he raised the issue of illegal meat imports and
said that 12,000 tonnes of illegal meat come through our ports. Why is that
being tolerated? We need extra security guards in our ports to deal with that
illegal meat. Australia and New Zealand have specific border guards who deal
with the problem to ensure that illegal meat and substances are not trafficked.
Will the Secretary of State give me an assurance that some investment will be
made to ensure that there are more officers and sniffer dogs at our ports to try
to deal with the huge increase in illegal meat imports?
Food security
starts with encouraging people to grow their own vegetables. That may be a funny
thing to say, but one Briton in three is thinking of starting up an allotment
and growing their own vegetables. I have 16 raised beds at home and I grow all
my own vegetables
30 Jun 2008 : Column
692
for my family, as well as having planted an orchard. I take great
pride in looking after my orchard, and nothing gives me more pleasure than
looking after my fruit trees and vegetables and providing my family with organic
foods grown locally.
The Government
should do more to encourage councils to have more allotments. Today, I went to
Greenfields, which is part of Shrewsbury, and spoke to the gentleman who runs
the Greenfields allotments. There is a huge waiting list of people trying to get
allotments and we should do more to encourage councils to give people the chance
to grow their own food.
I am conscious of
the time, so I shall end my remarks. I have spoken in private with the Secretary
of State on this issue, and today I spoke with the National Farmers Union. We
all await the Government’s decision on bovine TB, which is one of the worst
things affecting my constituency. I hope to hear from the Secretary of State
some assurances that the Government will finally tackle the disease and save
many Shropshire farmers from going out of business.
9.38 pm
Bill Wiggin
(Leominster) (Con): The Secretary of State has said that
the
He is right, but
failing in the UK makes that problem worse in the rest of the world. He moved
from the previous DEFRA position, and we welcome that U-turn. He is a nice chap;
he waves his arms around in an inclusive way and I have a soft spot for people
with political parents, but he is wrong about food security being an unknown in
the future. He never offered solutions on animal health and welfare,
deregulation, gold-plating or, worst of all, public procurement, so without
leadership on the issue food security will be a problem in the future.
The hon. Member
for Brecon and Radnorshire (Mr. Williams) is a member of the Select Committee,
but he failed to mention TB. Perhaps he should go away and read the Committee’s
report. He did mention our own farmers with pride. In this year, the 100th
anniversary of the National Farmers Union, I can completely agree with him that
we owe farmers a great debt of gratitude and we should be extremely proud of the
industry.
The hon. Member
for Norwich, North (Dr. Gibson) made a very interesting scientific speech, which
I enjoyed - he spoke of such matters as the invention of fertiliser - but it might
have come across better as a PowerPoint presentation. It was very technical.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Fylde (Mr. Jack) talked about his
allotment. I cannot resist pulling his leg: I know he is an expert on all
agricultural matters, but he did tell the House that he was talking to his slugs
and snails, which made me chuckle. He also talked about the horticulture
industry and melting leeks, the limits of climate change, and - most important - the
world food summit. I listened carefully and with enjoyment to what he said about
the President of Madagascar’s speech, about the fact that we talk about
improving agriculture but do not actually do it, about the way in which
countries can help themselves if they are allowed to, and, of course, about the
endless demand for a level
30 Jun 2008 : Column
693
playing field. I know that my constituents will be sad to learn that
DEFRA was not represented at the conference, as I think they would rather it was
abroad than at home.
The hon. Member
for Stroud (Mr. Drew) described himself as the anti-science Member, which
worried me somewhat. He also told us that we had abused food - I was not sure what
he meant - and talked about things being “in the round”, from which I assume that
he had eaten what he should not have eaten. He talked about school food and
nutritional education, which I agree is an important subject - as is Washington
state’s support for local production. I believe that if we address ourselves to
local procurement, we can make a huge impact and send out all the right signals.
I agree with the hon. Gentleman that the present position is a disgrace.
The speech that I
considered most powerful was made by my hon. Friend the Member for Newbury (Mr.
Benyon), who knew exactly what he was talking about. He spoke of opportunity,
understanding agriculture and the undervaluation of the dairy farmer. I think we
all agree with that. He talked with great sadness of how he was being driven out
of dairy farming by the nitrate vulnerable zone regulations, and I too thought
that that was deeply sad. He also talked about the single farm payment, the
nationalisation of the use of land and, of course, his own award-winning role as
a conservationist. It was an extremely helpful and powerful speech, and it was
sad that my hon. Friend could not continue for longer. It was really good to
hear about an experience of that kind. I hoped that what he said about raptor
breeding in Scotland related to golden eagles, but I suspect that it involved a
lesser species.
My hon. Friend the
Member for Shrewsbury and Atcham (Daniel Kawczynski) talked of the crisis in
agriculture, and mentioned his constituent Chris Balmer. No one should miss the
chance to emphasise the importance of what our constituents are suffering as a
result of TB and rural payments. My hon. Friend spoke passionately about the
dairy farming sector, of which he is a strong advocate, and about the number of
cows being culled because they have TB.
I do not think
anyone has been left in any doubt that global food supplies and prices matter,
because we live in an uncertain world in which global demand for food is rising
and supplies are under pressure. The cost of the basics - wheat, rice and other
cereals - is rising, and the increasing cost of fertiliser, energy and fuel is
making food more expensive to produce and buy. Consumers are facing record food
prices, while farmers and food producers are being squeezed because the
increasing food production overheads are forcing up the costs of bringing food
from farm to fork. We can no longer take it for granted that plenty of food will
be available at low prices. In the last year alone, prices paid by consumers for
food have risen dramatically. Butter and eggs are up by more than a third, bread
by more than a quarter, flour by more than one fifth, and milk and cheese by one
sixth.
Regulation has
placed an enormous burden on our farmers, costing the industry £500 million a
year. The Government have already cost the industry more than £20 million in
lost interest alone, and face a potential £300 million fine from the EU for
failing to deliver the single farm payment on time. They believe that if British
consumers have access to food, the food security issue is resolved, but at this
time our country cannot continue
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to rely on an increasing supply of food imports. There are steps that
the Government should be taking to improve domestic food production.
Food procurement
is the key. The Government have tremendous resources at their disposal to back
British production through the £2 billion budget for public procurement, but
with just 5 per cent. of British fruit being served in the NHS and our armed
forces being fed with lamb that is just 13 per cent. British, it is clear that
the public sector could do more to support local food production, or at least
take steps towards a system whereby food that is publicly procured is produced
to standards that are acceptable in Britain so that our producers can
compete.
Red tape is
another crucial issue, and the Government fail to understand it. They must end
gold-plating, and they can start by listening to farmers telling them about the
impacts of the nitrates directive, which will cost farmers on average about
£11,000 each, as well as the shift from risk to hazard-based pesticides, which
will have a disproportionate effect on yields, and welfare standards and
labelling.
Happily, British
consumers want to buy British, as they recognise the higher welfare standards to
which our livestock is produced. The public demand those standards and our
farmers deliver them, but meat cheaply imported and then sold as
British - sometimes labelled as British because it is processed here - is all too
often produced in conditions that fall well below the standards we would find
legally and morally acceptable. This greatly disadvantages our own domestic food
producers, and to counteract that the Government should be pressing the EU and
the WTO to raise standards around the world. Then British producers could
out-compete as standards rise, rather than see animal welfare dragged down by
price to the lowest common denominator. The Government should also establish a
better and more honest system of food labelling.
Robert Key: On food labelling, is my hon. Friend aware of another
fabrication being perpetrated on the British consumer: the fact that smoked food
does not have to be smoked? Most smoked bacon is dipped in chemicals and has
never been near a whiff of smoke. Is that not astonishing?
Bill Wiggin: My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and it is a
shame because we all try to support British food when we go shopping, but if we
do not have honesty in labelling, how can we possibly direct our purchasing
power in the right direction?
When the
Government launched their consultation on cost sharing for animal diseases, the
Secretary of State remarked:
“I want the industry to be much more deeply involved in the
key policy and operational decisions, and rather than shy away from hard
choices I think now is an opportune moment to reinvigorate this
debate.”
If anyone is
shying away from hard choices on disease control, it is this Government. They
have dithered and failed to take the tough decisions on tackling TB so that we
can have healthy cattle as well as healthy wildlife.
From an animal
welfare point of view alone, I cannot see how the Government can justify the
suffering caused by leaving sick badgers to crawl around, excluded from their
own social groups, fighting and possibly infecting
30 Jun 2008 : Column
695
other social groups of badgers through scratches, and then slowly
dying, riddled with lesions that start in the bladder. That is inhumane, and we
need to face up to our responsibilities to tackle this infection in order to
protect our healthy badger population. Of course we should be acting responsibly
towards our wild animals, but the taxpayers are footing a £100 million bill each
year for culling infected cattle, and this bill looks set to rise inexorably
higher. This situation cannot continue.
Much of our debate
has focused on land-based food production, but the incompetent way the
Government regulate food production extends beyond the land we farm and into our
fisheries, which we must manage sustainably. Like our farmers, our brave
fishermen are under tremendous financial pressure. They have fuel costs, which
have doubled over the past year, and while fishermen in Spain are receiving de
minimis aid from the Government, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural
Affairs is in no position to support our fishing industry. The industry should
be having access to £97 million of the European fisheries fund that we are
entitled to, but because the Government failed to agree with the devolved
Administrations how the money should be spent and failed to submit to the
European Commission their operational programme by last year and are in the
middle of consulting the industry on it - something they should have been doing
this time last year - this money will not be available until later this year, and
some of it might even be withheld.
Moreover, because
the Government have not produced a policy to tackle fish discards, edible fish
that could be sold to British consumers is being thrown back into the sea dead,
and this precious food resource is wasted with no value to anyone. Food
security - along with energy security, climate change and terrorism - is one of the
major challenges of the 21st century. It matters to the public, to food
producers on land and sea, and to our economy. To deliver it, we need
competitive, viable and sustainable British food production fit for the 21st
century. We also need a Government who have the political will to take the steps
to help our food producers and free them to feed the nation.
At the next
general election, the public will have a choice between a Conservative party
that truly values British food producers and consumers, or more years of misery,
dithering and ruin under Labour.
9.49 pm
The Minister for
the South East (Jonathan Shaw): This has been a good and
welcome debate. We welcome the remarks from the hon. Member for South-East
Cambridgeshire (Mr. Paice) and the way he set out the key issues facing not just
this nation but the world, and how we tackle a rising population and the demands
on our food.
Many Members made
important contributions, and particular reference was made to the European
Union. Members from all parts of the House frequently say, “Why aren’t we doing
this in Europe? Why aren’t we doing that? What about nitrates, pesticides,
electronic identification? Why aren’t you telling the other member states what
to do?” Grandstanding is all very well, but Members really know that what we
have to do is to
30 Jun 2008 : Column
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make hard, solid arguments. On looking at the direction of travel of
common agricultural policy reform, we see that many member states do not agree
with us. They take a more protectionist line, and it is we who are in the
vanguard of CAP reform. It is the UK Government who are shifting the subsidy of
food production to public goods, so we are working hard on that issue and making
good progress.
Many Members made
important contributions on what farmers and the farming community have done for
our environment, and rightly so. This year is the 21st year of agri-environment
schemes, which have been enormously successful. Many Members will doubtless have
seen very imaginative schemes on farms in their own constituencies. The hon.
Member for Salisbury (Robert Key) referred in an intervention to pesticides. I
visited a farm recently where the farmer had a stewardship scheme. He had put in
a border that was encouraging ladybirds. Of course, the ladybirds eat the
aphids, so he was spending less money on fertilizer and pesticides. Such simple
measures have led to enormous achievements, so we congratulate the farming
community on its contribution in that regard.
Several Members
mentioned supermarkets, and the right hon. Member for Skipton and Ripon (Mr.
Curry) referred to the discussion between supermarkets and the Competition
Commission. He criticised the fact that, when supermarkets had tried to increase
the amount of money that they paid to farms for good reasons, they were fined by
the Competition Commission. My noble Friend Lord Rooker wants a dialogue, and we
should surely be able to have a mature dialogue involving producers, the
Government and the supermarkets that does not breach competition rules. That is
a sensible idea and I know that he is taking it forward.
Many Members
talked about the World Trade Organisation, and we welcomed what the hon. Member
for South-East Cambridgeshire said in that regard. He said that he agrees with
us on protectionism, which we, too, do not want to see. Now is the time that we
need to take forward the WTO, not least because a deal could be worth an
estimated €120 billion to the global economy annually. That is €30 billion for
the EU economy alone. We need to reform the agricultural policy, which
undermines the ability of poorer countries to produce and trade agricultural
goods and keeps prices high for EU consumers. Further CAP reform would reduce
the prices that UK consumers pay for food. In 2007, the cost of the CAP to
consumers was €33.4 billion.
The hon. Member
for Brecon and Radnorshire (Mr. Williams) referred to the single farm payment.
We are making good progress on that, but it is the right policy because it is
area-based and allows farmers to respond to the market. He is right to say that
the EU is an important player in global food production. As the hon. Member for
South-East Cambridgeshire said, we also have that responsibility. We will
continue to be a contributor to the world, and we will of course support Africa
and develop its agricultural industry, as mentioned by the right hon. Member for
Flyde in a thought-provoking speech - [ Interruption.] I mean the right
hon. Member for Fylde (Mr. Jack). I was thinking about his reference to snails
and wondering whether he meant the members of the Select Committee, but I am
sure that he would not be so rude. He made the important point that there
30 Jun 2008 : Column
697
has not been enough focus on agriculture in Africa, and the World
Bank is now concentrating on that in a more effective way.
The hon. Member
for Brecon and Radnorshire mentioned the men and women who work in agriculture.
One group that has not been mentioned in this debate is migrant labour. We
introduced the Gangmasters Licensing Authority, and hon. Members will remember
the cockle pickers in Morecambe. It was right to introduce legislation on that
issue and we pay tribute to Paul Whitehouse and the work that he has done in
collaboration with the trade unions and supermarkets. That has made a real
difference to ensuring that we have floors of decency in the sector, in our
packing sheds and fields. Migrant labour makes an important contribution without
which this country would not be so strong in food production. We should point
that out whenever possible. That is what farmers tell us, and it is an important
point.
Hon. Members
mentioned biofuels, and we anticipate the Gallagher report. The hon. Member for
South-East Cambridgeshire appears to have read it already, as he gave us a sneak
preview. He obviously has good sources. We will bring that report forward
shortly, and we need to tackle the issue of first and secondary biofuels.
Hon. Members also
mentioned waste. We throw away some £10 billion of food a year - 6 million
tonnes - while 6 million children die of malnutrition.
My hon. Friend the
Member for Norwich, North (Dr. Gibson) made an important contribution, focusing
on the work of scientists. He told us how fertiliser was invented in 1908 and
what a huge contribution it has made to the yield we can get from our land. He
also talked about how we need more research on, for example, how we use water
and chemicals in the farming industry.
Mr. Ian Taylor
(Esher and Walton) (Con): Will the Minister accept a
compliment on the trials of genetically modified food, which - if the trials
work - will be an essential component of food security?
Jonathan Shaw: My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State
recently gave the go-ahead to a trial involving potatoes, but they were sadly
vandalised - [ Interruption.] They were mashed, someone suggests.
We live in a world
of contradictions, in that we have some of the finest food we have ever
produced - as hon. Members who have visited agricultural shows will have seen - but
we are also producing some of the worst. It is important that supermarkets are
conscious of the primary producer. Asda is producing sausages, which it cannot
even call pork sausages, for 16p and it should consider its
responsibilities.
My hon. Friend the
Member for Stroud (Mr. Drew) talked about educating children about food. I pay
tribute to the year of food and farming which has made a huge contribution by
bringing thousands of children on to farms so that they understand that food is
not produced neatly wrapped in cellophane by supermarkets, but grown and reared
on our farms.
The hon. Member
for Leominster (Bill Wiggin) referred to animal diseases, and we are grateful
for the partnership arrangement for bluetongue. Hon. Members referred to TB. My
right hon. Friend the Secretary of State will make a decision on that - [Hon.
Members: “When?”]
30 Jun 2008 : Column
698
Very soon. The hon. Member for Newbury (Mr. Benyon) referred to his
experience as a dairy farmer and to Thanet Earth. Food security -
Mr. Andrew Robathan
(Blaby) (Con) rose in his place and claimed to
move, That the Question be now put.
Question,
That the Question be now put, put and agreed to.
Question put
accordingly, That the original words stand part of the Question: -
The House divided: Ayes 185, Noes 278.
Division No. 238]
[10 pm
AYES
Afriyie, Adam
Ainsworth, Mr.
Peter
Amess, Mr. David
Ancram, rh Mr. Michael
Atkinson, Mr.
Peter
Bacon, Mr. Richard
Baker, Norman
Baldry, Tony
Barker,
Gregory
Barrett, John
Beith, rh Sir Alan
Bellingham, Mr.
Henry
Benyon, Mr. Richard
Bercow, John
Beresford, Sir Paul
Binley,
Mr. Brian
Blunt, Mr. Crispin
Bone, Mr. Peter
Boswell, Mr. Tim
Brady,
Mr. Graham
Brazier, Mr. Julian
Brokenshire, James
Brooke,
Annette
Browne, Mr. Jeremy
Browning, Angela
Bruce, rh
Malcolm
Burrowes, Mr. David
Burstow, Mr. Paul
Burt, Alistair
Burt,
Lorely
Butterfill, Sir John
Campbell, rh Sir Menzies
Carmichael, Mr.
Alistair
Carswell, Mr. Douglas
Chope, Mr. Christopher
Clark,
Greg
Clarke, rh Mr. Kenneth
Clifton-Brown, Mr. Geoffrey
Cormack, Sir
Patrick
Cox, Mr. Geoffrey
Curry, rh Mr. David
Davey, Mr.
Edward
Davies, David T.C. (Monmouth)
Davies, Philip
Dorrell, rh
Mr. Stephen
Dorries, Mrs. Nadine
Duddridge, James
Duncan,
Alan
Duncan Smith, rh Mr. Iain
Evans, Mr. Nigel
Evennett, Mr.
David
Fabricant, Michael
Fallon, Mr. Michael
Farron,
Tim
Featherstone, Lynne
Foster, Mr. Don
Francois, Mr. Mark
Fraser,
Christopher
Garnier, Mr. Edward
Gauke, Mr. David
George,
Andrew
Gibb, Mr. Nick
Gidley, Sandra
Goodman, Mr. Paul
Goodwill, Mr.
Robert
Gray, Mr. James
Green, Damian
Greening, Justine
Greenway, Mr.
John
Grieve, Mr. Dominic
Hammond, Mr. Philip
Hammond,
Stephen
Hancock, Mr. Mike
Harper, Mr. Mark
Harris, Dr. Evan
Harvey,
Nick
Hayes, Mr. John
Heald, Mr. Oliver
Hendry, Charles
Herbert,
Nick
Hoban, Mr. Mark
Hogg, rh Mr. Douglas
Holloway, Mr. Adam
Holmes,
Paul
Horam, Mr. John
Horwood, Martin
Howard, rh Mr. Michael
Howell,
John
Hughes, Simon
Huhne, Chris
Hunter, Mark
Jack, rh Mr.
Michael
Jackson, Mr. Stewart
Jenkin, Mr. Bernard
Jones, Mr.
David
Kawczynski, Daniel
Keetch, Mr. Paul
Key, Robert
Kirkbride,
Miss Julie
Laing, Mrs. Eleanor
Lait, Mrs. Jacqui
Lancaster, Mr.
Mark
Leech, Mr. John
Leigh, Mr. Edward
Lidington, Mr. David
Lilley,
rh Mr. Peter
Loughton, Tim
Mackay, rh Mr. Andrew
Maclean, rh David
McIntosh, Miss Anne
Main,
Anne
Malins, Mr. Humfrey
Maples, Mr. John
Mates, rh Mr.
Michael
Mercer, Patrick
Milton, Anne
Moss, Mr. Malcolm
Mundell,
David
Murrison, Dr. Andrew
Newmark, Mr. Brooks
O'Brien, Mr.
Stephen
Öpik, Lembit
Ottaway, Richard
Paice, Mr. James
Paterson, Mr.
Owen
Penrose, John
Pickles, Mr. Eric
Pugh, Dr. John
Randall, Mr.
John
Redwood, rh Mr. John
Reid, Mr. Alan
Rennie, Willie
Robathan,
Mr. Andrew
Robertson, Angus
Robertson, Hugh
Rogerson, Dan
Rosindell,
Andrew
Ruffley, Mr. David
Russell, Bob
Sanders, Mr. Adrian
Scott,
Mr. Lee
Selous, Andrew
Shapps, Grant
Shepherd, Mr. Richard
Simmonds,
Mark
Simpson, David
Simpson, Mr. Keith
Soames, Mr. Nicholas
Spicer,
Sir Michael
Spink, Bob
Spring, Mr. Richard
Stanley, rh Sir
John
Steen, Mr. Anthony
Streeter, Mr. Gary
Stunell, Andrew
Swayne,
Mr. Desmond
Swinson, Jo
Syms, Mr. Robert
Tapsell, Sir Peter
Taylor,
Mr. Ian
Teather, Sarah
Thurso, John
Tredinnick, David
Turner, Mr.
Andrew
Tyrie, Mr. Andrew
Vaizey, Mr. Edward
Viggers, Sir
Peter
Walker, Mr. Charles
Walter, Mr. Robert
Waterson, Mr.
Nigel
Watkinson, Angela
Webb, Steve
Weir, Mr. Mike
Whittingdale, Mr.
John
Wiggin, Bill
Williams, Mr. Roger
Williams, Stephen
Willott,
Jenny
Wilshire, Mr. David
Wilson, Mr. Rob
Winterton, Ann
Winterton,
Sir Nicholas
Wright, Jeremy
Yeo, Mr. Tim
Young, rh Sir
George
Tellers for the Ayes:
Mr. John Baron and
Mr. Nick
Hurd
NOES
Ainsworth, rh Mr. Bob
Allen, Mr. Graham
Anderson,
Mr. David
Anderson, Janet
Austin, Mr. Ian
Bailey, Mr. Adrian
Balls,
rh Ed
Banks, Gordon
Barlow, Ms Celia
Bayley, Hugh
Beckett, rh
Margaret
Begg, Miss Anne
Benn, rh Hilary
Benton, Mr. Joe
Berry,
Roger
Betts, Mr. Clive
Blackman, Liz
Blackman-Woods, Dr.
Roberta
Blears, rh Hazel
Blunkett, rh Mr. David
Borrow, Mr. David
S.
Brennan, Kevin
Brown, rh Mr. Nicholas
Brown, Mr. Russell
Browne,
rh Des
Bryant, Chris
Burden, Richard
Burgon, Colin
Burnham, rh
Andy
Butler, Ms Dawn
Byrne, Mr. Liam
Caborn, rh Mr. Richard
Cairns,
David
Campbell, Mr. Alan
Campbell, Mr. Ronnie
Caton, Mr.
Martin
Cawsey, Mr. Ian
Chapman, Ben
Chaytor, Mr. David
Clapham, Mr.
Michael
Clark, Ms Katy
Clark, Paul
Clarke, rh Mr. Charles
Clarke, rh
Mr. Tom
Clelland, Mr. David
Clwyd, rh Ann
Coaker, Mr. Vernon
Coffey,
Ann
Cohen, Harry
Connarty, Michael
Cook, Frank
Cooper,
Rosie
Cooper, rh Yvette
Corbyn, Jeremy
Cousins, Jim
Crausby, Mr.
David
Cryer, Mrs. Ann
Cummings, John
Cunningham, Mr. Jim
Cunningham,
Tony
David, Mr. Wayne
Davidson, Mr. Ian
Davies, Mr. Quentin
Dean,
Mrs. Janet
Denham, rh Mr. John
Devine, Mr. Jim
Dhanda, Mr.
Parmjit
Dobson, rh Frank
Donohoe, Mr. Brian H.
Doran, Mr.
Frank
Dowd, Jim
Drew, Mr. David
Eagle, Angela
Eagle,
Maria
Ellman, Mrs. Louise
Ennis, Jeff
Etherington, Bill
Farrelly,
Paul
Field, rh Mr. Frank
Fisher, Mark
Fitzpatrick, Jim
Flello, Mr.
Robert
Flint, rh Caroline
Flynn, Paul
Foster, Mr. Michael
(Worcester)
Foster, Michael Jabez (Hastings and
Rye)
Francis, Dr. Hywel
Gerrard, Mr. Neil
Gibson, Dr.
Ian
Gilroy, Linda
Godsiff, Mr. Roger
Goggins, Paul
Goodman,
Helen
Griffith, Nia
Griffiths, Nigel
Grogan, Mr. John
Gwynne,
Andrew
Hain, rh Mr. Peter
Hall, Mr. Mike
Hall, Patrick
Hamilton, Mr.
David
Hamilton, Mr. Fabian
Hanson, rh Mr. David
Harman, rh Ms
Harriet
Harris, Mr. Tom
Havard, Mr. Dai
Healey, John
Henderson, Mr.
Doug
Hepburn, Mr. Stephen
Heppell, Mr. John
Hesford, Stephen
Hewitt,
rh Ms Patricia
Heyes, David
Hill, rh Keith
Hillier, Meg
Hodge, rh
Margaret
Hodgson, Mrs. Sharon
Hoey, Kate
Hood, Mr. Jim
Hoon, rh Mr.
Geoffrey
Hopkins, Kelvin
Howarth, rh Mr. George
Howells, Dr.
Kim
Hughes, rh Beverley
Humble, Mrs. Joan
Hutton, rh Mr. John
Iddon,
Dr. Brian
Illsley, Mr. Eric
Irranca-Davies, Huw
James, Mrs. Siân
C.
Jenkins, Mr. Brian
Johnson, rh Alan
Johnson, Ms Diana R.
Jones,
Helen
Jones, Mr. Kevan
Jones, Lynne
Jowell, rh Tessa
Joyce, Mr.
Eric
Kaufman, rh Sir Gerald
Keen, Alan
Keen, Ann
Kemp, Mr.
Fraser
Kennedy, rh Jane
Kidney, Mr. David
Kilfoyle, Mr.
Peter
Knight, Jim
Ladyman, Dr. Stephen
Lammy, Mr. David
Laxton, Mr.
Bob
Lazarowicz, Mark
Lepper, David
Levitt, Tom
Lewis, Mr.
Ivan
Linton, Martin
Lloyd, Tony
Love, Mr. Andrew
Lucas,
Ian
McCabe, Steve
McFadden, Mr. Pat
McCafferty, Chris
McFall, rh
John
McCarthy, Kerry
McCarthy-Fry, Sarah
McCartney, rh Mr.
Ian
McKechin, Ann
McKenna, Rosemary
McDonagh, Siobhain
McGovern, Mr.
Jim
McIsaac, Shona
Mactaggart, Fiona
McGuire, Mrs. Anne
McNulty, rh
Mr. Tony
McAvoy, rh Mr. Thomas
Malik, Mr. Shahid
Mallaber,
Judy
Marris, Rob
Marsden, Mr. Gordon
Martlew, Mr. Eric
Merron,
Gillian
Michael, rh Alun
Milburn, rh Mr. Alan
Miliband, rh
David
Miliband, rh Edward
Moffat, Anne
Moffatt, Laura
Mole,
Chris
Moon, Mrs. Madeleine
Morden, Jessica
Morgan, Julie
Mudie, Mr.
George
Mullin, Mr. Chris
Murphy, rh Mr. Paul
Naysmith, Dr.
Doug
Norris, Dan
O'Brien, Mr. Mike
O'Hara, Mr. Edward
Olner, Mr.
Bill
Osborne, Sandra
Owen, Albert
Palmer, Dr. Nick
Pearson, Ian
Plaskitt, Mr.
James
Pope, Mr. Greg
Pound, Stephen
Prentice, Bridget
Prentice, Mr.
Gordon
Primarolo, rh Dawn
Prosser, Gwyn
Purchase, Mr. Ken
Purnell,
rh James
Rammell, Bill
Raynsford, rh Mr. Nick
Reed, Mr. Andy
Reed,
Mr. Jamie
Reid, rh John
Robertson, John
Robinson, Mr.
Geoffrey
Rooney, Mr. Terry
Roy, Mr. Frank
Ruane, Chris
Ruddock,
Joan
Russell, Christine
Ryan, rh Joan
Salter, Martin
Sarwar, Mr.
Mohammad
Seabeck, Alison
Sharma, Mr. Virendra
Shaw,
Jonathan
Sheerman, Mr. Barry
Sheridan, Jim
Simon, Mr. Siôn
Skinner,
Mr. Dennis
Slaughter, Mr. Andy
Smith, rh Mr. Andrew
Smith, Ms Angela C.
(Sheffield, Hillsborough)
Smith, Angela E. (Basildon)
Smith,
rh Jacqui
Smith, John
Snelgrove, Anne
Soulsby, Sir Peter
Southworth,
Helen
Spellar, rh Mr. John
Spink, Bob
Starkey, Dr. Phyllis
Stewart,
Ian
Stringer, Graham
Stuart, Ms Gisela
Tami, Mark
Taylor, Ms
Dari
Taylor, David
Thomas, Mr. Gareth
Timms, rh Mr. Stephen
Todd,
Mr. Mark
Touhig, rh Mr. Don
Trickett, Jon
Truswell, Mr. Paul
Turner,
Dr. Desmond
Twigg, Derek
Ussher, Kitty
Vis, Dr. Rudi
Walley,
Joan
Waltho, Lynda
Ward, Claire
Watson, Mr. Tom
Watts, Mr.
Dave
Whitehead, Dr. Alan
Wicks, Malcolm
Williams, rh Mr.
Alan
Williams, Mrs. Betty
Wills, Mr. Michael
Wilson, Phil
Winnick,
Mr. David
Winterton, rh Ms Rosie
Woolas, Mr. Phil
Wright, Mr.
Anthony
Wright, David
Wright, Mr. Iain
Wyatt, Derek
Tellers for the
Noes:
Mr. Bob Blizzard and
Mr. Sadiq Khan
Question accordingly
negatived.
Fields of Fire witness accounts of 2001