Food Inflation
Debate between Catherine West and Adam Jogee(3 days, 1 hour ago)
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Catherine West
I know the Minister will have much to say on that issue, and I look forward to her response.
Adam Jogee (Newcastle-under-Lyme) (Lab)
I shall add a Labour voice to the case for supply and production, but first I pay tribute to the Newcastle-Staffs Foodbank in Newcastle-under-Lyme, which does wonderful work, particularly at the Newcastle Congregational Church on King Street.
The intervention by the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) about supply and production speaks to the importance of the wonderful farmers in Newcastle-under-Lyme, such as the Jones family in Audley and the Williams family in Wrinehill. We can feed ourselves, but we can only do so if we support the farmers in my constituency, and those up and down our country.
Catherine West
Indeed, and it is wonderful to hear hon. Members speaking up on behalf of their constituents, particularly farmers—we now have so much more information about farming now than there was before.
Coming back to the point about the prices of cheaper foods rising at a much higher rate than the prices of more expensive food, cheapflation means that low-income families lose out. We know one reason for that is that margins on cheaper food are much tighter than those on more expensive food, so suppliers cannot absorb rising costs and households who are already selecting the cheapest varieties have nowhere else to go.
We also know that food inflation in the UK is generally higher than for our neighbours in Europe. Academic studies have suggested that Brexit has added as much as eight percentage points to food inflation, amounting to an extra £6.95 billion in food costs from December 2019 to March 2023. Since Brexit, the UK has lost the complex network of agrifood supply chains that we had shared with other members of the EU.