Food Inflation

Ben Coleman Excerpts

Thursday 15th January 2026 Westminster Hall

[Catherine West]

My hon. Friend is quite right, and is well versed on these issues. UK businesses face more red tape when they want to import from and export to the EU, invariably adding to costs in the sector. On 19 May last year, the UK and the EU agreed an exciting new strategic partnership, including an agreement to work towards a common sanitary and phytosanitary—SPS—area agreement to make agrifood trade easier. The Government estimate that that deal would add £9 billion to the UK economy in the long term. My right hon. Friend the Paymaster General, who is also Minister for European Union Relations, has said that it will bring down prices on supermarket shelves. I pay tribute to him and his excellent civil servants for everything they are doing to foster a good working relationship with Brussels and secure a better deal for UK food suppliers.

In my constituency, we are blessed with a huge range of small shops and market stalls selling fruit and veg of every kind, but that is not the case across every region of the UK. Fresh food deserts—areas where people rely on convenience stores—are an increasing phenomenon. As research from Which? shows, people who have to rely on smaller supermarket convenience stores are often charged more for the same products, and do not always have access to budget and own brand ranges.

In the same way that people in the 1940s could go to a nice restaurant for a ration book-free dinner, in 2026 people can gain access to cheaper fresh food and budget ranges if they have access to a car so they can go to the out-of-town supermarket. A Sainsbury’s poster from the rationing era acclaims the freshness of their produce due to high turnover of stock and guarantees that there will be no profiteering. I invite every supermarket to produce a 2026 version of that poster and to guarantee that they will not charge more for everyday food items in their small convenience stores than they do in their out-of-town supermarkets, and that their budget ranges will be available at all their convenience stores.

[Ben Coleman (Chelsea and Fulham) (Lab)]

I am most grateful to my hon. Friend for calling for this important debate. The Health and Social Care Committee are currently doing an inquiry into food, and supermarkets will be coming in shortly to talk to us about how they operate—we will have a lot of questions to ask. Obesity and nutrition are a particular challenge for people on low incomes. It is more than twice as expensive to buy healthy food. Does she agree that we need a cross-Government strategy to bring the price of food within a range that people on lower incomes can afford, and make sure that good, healthy food is not only affordable, but accessible everywhere in the country? We need Government, business and experts to work together on that. The time is now. The problem is real and needs to be addressed.

[Catherine West]

I look forward to reading the report that comes out of my hon. Friend’s Committee.

How do we build a future without food banks? Let us look at what has worked. As a former borough leader, I introduced free school meals for all primary school children. It was a great equaliser and social leveller. Children were more focused and made better progress; families who were just about managing saved money; there was no stigma, as everyone sat together, and the people serving the food got the London living wage. These meals provide an opportunity for children to sit down to eat a nutritionally balanced meal, have meaningful conversations with adults and learn to eat with a knife and fork. Under our mayor, free school meals for all primary school children were subsequently rolled out across London. More secondary school children will benefit under this Government’s new policies for all families receiving universal credit. I take my hat off to the Government for that change.

I am also incredibly proud of the Government’s Best Start in Life holiday activities and food clubs, something my hon. Friend the Member for Washington and Gateshead South (Mrs Hodgson) has campaigned on for years in this place, along with other Members. That £600 million investment, over three years, means nutritious meals and exciting activities for half a million children across the country every year, helping children to achieve and thrive. It means consistency for parents, who will not face a cliff edge on childcare when term time ends, and money back in the pockets of parents who would otherwise have to fork out during the holidays just so they can work to put food on the table. Children who attend the holiday activities and food clubs are more likely to take part in sport and exercise, which addresses the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Chelsea and Fulham (Ben Coleman), and children feel more confident and social with their peers after attending a club.

Most importantly of all, as I have said, the scrapping of the two-child cap on universal credit will start making a real difference in April this year. It will be the most cost-effective way to lift half a million children out of poverty, and allow them to look forward to supporting their parents at the same time.

The essentials guarantee that I would like the Minister to consider would embed in our social security system the widely supported principle that, at a minimum, universal credit should protect households against going without the essentials. The experts—the Trussell Trust and the Joseph Rowntree Foundation—are calling for an independent process to advise the Government on benefit rates. As the Minister is from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, she may well wish a Minister from the Department for Work and Pensions to answer this point, but it needs to be said again and again that income is one of the key drivers of food bank need. As independent process to set universal credit could advise the Government to ensure that rates are based on need and essential costs.

A protected minimum floor for universal credit would provide a safety net below which no one should fall. It would build on the introduction of the fair repayment rate by limiting all universal credit reductions, including from the benefit cap, to 15% below the standard allowance. It would also provide support to households, both in and out of work, and help over 240,000 children.

The local housing allowance has not kept up with the cost of housing. We know that the Government are straining every sinew to bring on new, genuinely affordable homes, but the local housing allowance remains frozen while we wait for that reality to unfold. If that remains the case over the course of this Parliament, renters will be about £700 worse off by 2029, and 50,000 renters will be pulled into poverty. If we do not re-establish the link between the local housing allowance and actual rents, increasing numbers of people will be forced to turn to food banks because they simply will not be able to pay the rent.

Will the Minister commit to ending the need for food banks for families by the end of this Parliament? We have made other commitments on things we are going to do by the end of the Parliament—for example, on immigration —but what is more important than ensuring that every family and child can afford nutritious food? Will the Minister work with colleagues across the ministerial teams on the possibility of an essentials guarantee in our social security system, and on ensuring that the local housing allowance keeps up with the reality of rental costs in the private sector?