Food Strategy White Paper Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
Baroness Worthington
Main Page: Baroness Worthington (Crossbench - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Baroness Worthington's debates with the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
(1 year, 10 months ago)
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Lord Benyon (Con)
The noble Baroness speaks on a point that affects many people across these islands. I will take her point and relay it to the relevant Minister in the Department of Health, whoever that may be.
Baroness Worthington (CB)
Can the Minister tell us who is responsible in government for ensuring that we have secure supplies of food and that we move from a just-in-time delivery system to a just-in-case delivery system? This involves a number of departments of government, but who is responsible?
Lord Benyon (Con)
My department has overall responsibility for that, working with other departments. The noble Baroness is right: this is not something government can just mandate. We have an extremely efficient food distribution network and supply chain which was found to be resilient during Covid. It now needs to adapt to a changing world and changing demands from the consumer to make sure that we do not have the vulnerabilities that have been exposed this week in the Netherlands. We want to make sure that we are working with industry to get this right.