Food Security

Question

15:09:00

Asked by

To ask His Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to improve food security.

My Lords, the Labour Government have committed £5 billion to the agricultural budget over the next two years, which is the biggest budget for sustainable food production and nature’s recovery in our history. The uplift to £1.8 billion, in 2025-26, for environmental land management schemes will boost food security and accelerate the transition to a more resilient and sustainable farming sector. We are also investing £60 million to support farmers who were affected by the unprecedented extreme wet weather last winter.

I thank the Minister for her Answer. As an agricultural adviser in a previous life, I observed at first hand the vital contribution of both research and investment to agricultural productivity, which is fundamental to domestic food production and food security. Yet both the NFU and CLA estimate that the recent changes to APR and BPR will lead to a substantial reduction in investment. Were the impacts of these tax changes on investment and productivity modelled with Defra before their introduction? If not, can His Majesty’s Government undertake such an impact assessment and make it available to Members of the House?

As I am sure noble Lords are aware, we are reforming APR and looking to do it in a way that protects small family farms and protects food security and resilience. The right reverend Prelate made some good points around this and the potential impacts of it. I will take his comments back to my honourable friend the Farming Minister, who is currently in discussions on those matters.

My Lords, I asked a question some weeks ago about whether Defra had been consulted only the day before the Budget and that no impact assessment was given. The Minister promised to write to me—I still await a reply—but I read in the newspapers that that is the case. How can the Minister say that she is improving food security when the impact of APR will be to force small farms to sell their farms? They will be bought by corporates, as part of their ESG and greenwashing, which will further reduce the supply of land for food production, along with the madness of creating solar farms on good agricultural land. This Government are destroying food security, not enhancing it.

I will answer a number of the noble Lord’s questions. We had a Question on solar farms last week; we are not building solar farms on grade 1 and 2—good-quality—agricultural land. On APR, Defra was in discussions with the Treasury to consider all the different changes for the spending review and is now in discussions on the next SR. The money that we are investing in farming is designed to support long-term food security in this country.

My Lords, under the last Government, just 4% of the ODA budget was devoted to agricultural assistance. Given the global growth in acute food insecurity linked to climate change and the increasing propensity for food security to be weaponised in conflict, can my noble friend the Minister tell your Lordships’ House whether His Majesty’s Government plan to increase the percentage of ODA being spent on agro-ecological measures?

I am sure the noble Lord is aware that there has been a growth in acute food insecurity linked to climate change. I confirm that the FCDO’s ODA budget, which will be published in due course, will be £9.24 billion in 2025-26, and Ministers will consider the ODA allocations for 2025-26 over the coming months. We are committed to this; the Prime Minister committed to deliver practical support to communities facing hunger. This is backed by a £70 million package, including a new resilience and adaptation fund that channels climate finance to ensure that food-insecure households, in places such as Ethiopia, Chad and Bangladesh, can withstand extreme weather and other shocks.

My Lords, 40% of all food is now imported, which raises a serious security issue. However, can I specifically ask the Minister about BBC World reports this morning that some pureed tomatoes being imported into this country are made by Uighur slave labour? The report included examples of punishment beatings and electric shock punishments for those who fail to reach their quotas. What more can we do to at least prevent goods coming into the UK that are wrongly labelled—in this case “Produced in Italy”—and give consumers the right to choose what they buy and do not buy?

I have seen the same reports as the noble Lord and they are extremely concerning. My understanding is that the supermarkets have said that they have not been purchasing tomatoes from these particular places, but clearly that needs to be robustly checked. We are looking at labelling as a way to better inform consumers and ensure that our food is from the kinds of sources we would all want to see and can trust.

My Lords, I refer the House to my interests as set out in the register. The NFU estimates that as much as 75% of British farming output comes from family farms that will now have to pay the family farm inheritance tax. Farmers already have to deal with increasing weather volatility and increasing input and output price volatility, leading to lower and less predictable farming incomes. Does the family farming tax undermine the Government’s own manifesto commitments to increase food security and champion British farmers and expose hard-pressed family budgets to the risk of higher food prices?

As I mentioned previously, the APR changes are not designed to undermine small family farms and I know that both Defra and the Treasury have been meeting with stakeholders to discuss this matter further.

My Lords, families whose food security relies heavily on food banks may suffer nutritional deficiencies because so much of the produce is ultra-processed rather than fresh. Some 800,000 children are reported to use food banks on a regular basis. What assessment have the Government made of the impact on child health and development of sustained dependency on food banks?

My Lords, clearly it is important that we have good nutrition for our children, which is why we have worked with schools around breakfast clubs, for example, because it is very important that children receive nutrition, especially at a young age. This is something we are working with the Department of Health and Social Care on. One of the important things this Government are doing is working much more across departmental policy areas in order to ensure that we get the kinds of results that support the policy areas the noble Baroness referred to.

My Lords, the Minister has talked about food security and we have heard a number of issues raised about different challenges to it—there are in fact a huge number. My noble friend Lord Browne talked about the weaponisation of food supplies. We know about disruptions to transport and about climate interruptions. Is not strange, therefore, that the national risk register put forward by the previous Government barely mentions food security, except in the context of contamination. Can my noble friend the Minister tell us whether this will be looked at, so the potential threats to food security in this country are looked at in the round, to coin a phrase?

Absolutely; my noble friend makes an important point. We look at overall household food security. In the financial year ending 2022, some 7% of households in the UK were considered to be food insecure. The Family Resources Survey 2022-23 found that the proportion of food-secure households decreased from 92% in 2019-20 to 90% in 2022-23. So this is something we do look at in the round.

My Lords, tenant farmers do not own their land but they do produce food. Can the Minister tell me what conversations she has had with her colleague the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government on solar planning applications that have been called in that relate specifically to solar applications on tenanted land where the landlord is looking to evict the tenant farmer?

Regarding the solar panels, we have discussed this with Defra, DESNZ and the Ministry for Housing, which the noble Baroness asked about, because it is important, again, that we get this policy right as we develop our policy on housing and on energy. Clearly, this will be part of the land use framework. Regarding tenants, I am sure that the noble Baroness is aware that we have committed to appoint England’s first commissioner for the tenant farming sector to promote the standards outlined in the agricultural landlord and tenant code of practice. We hope that the commissioner will play an important role in this area.