Food Waste and Food Distribution
Debate between Deidre Brock and Steven Bonnar(2 weeks, 1 day ago)
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Steven Bonnar (Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill) (SNP)
It is nice to see you in the Chair this morning, Ms Vaz. I thank the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Jo Gideon) for securing this important debate on food waste and redistribution.
As the SNP spokesperson for the environment and food, I welcome the opportunity to address this issue, which plagues our society: wastage and the unconscionable amount of food waste that we allow to happen each and every year. I will also highlight some of the excellent work being undertaken in Scotland in relation to this subject. It is not just a matter of leftovers on our plates, as important as that is; it is also about the obscene waste of perfectly good, nutritious food while people in our communities the length and breadth of these isles and beyond go hungry.
Deidre Brock
The managing director of Too Good To Go, an organisation that has been mentioned several times this morning, has said that the UK Government’s refusal to introduce mandatory food waste reporting is a blow to the UK food waste reduction waste efforts. There has been a lot of criticism about the constant delays on this issue. The European Commission has proposed introducing legally binding targets to try to limit food waste across the EU, leaving the UK behind once again in progressive regulation. Is my hon. Friend as dismayed as I am at the Government’s intransigence on this vital issue?
Steven Bonnar
I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention. She makes excellent points. We are all frustrated with the Government’s intransigence, not just in this area but right across the food, environment and rural affairs spectrum; some of the matters are really disappointing. I know that she is keen on these particular issues and that she has done some excellent work on them, so I commend her for that.
The food waste numbers are stark. In Scotland alone, we waste a staggering 1 million tonnes of food and drink every single year. Shockingly, around 60% of that waste originates within households, with an additional 25% of it coming from food and drink manufacturing. That is enough food to feed countless hungry families, yet it ends up rotting in landfill, emitting harmful greenhouse gases and contributing to the very climate crisis that we are also threatened by.
This issue is not just about individual actions, important as they are. It is about a systematic failure: the failure of the UK Government to take decisive action to address this issue, as my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh North and Leith (Deidre Brock) has just said. Instead, they prefer to prioritise their own narrow political agendas over the wellbeing of our planet and our people.
However, perhaps most frustrating is the fact that so much of the waste is entirely avoidable. We know that 70% of food waste is still edible and that preventing such waste in the first place is not only morally imperative but economically and environmentally sound.
Cost of Living and Brexit
Debate between Deidre Brock and Steven Bonnar(10 months, 3 weeks ago)
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Steven Bonnar (Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill) (SNP)
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Cynon Valley (Beth Winter). I agreed with pretty much all that she had to say; it is disappointing that her party leadership does not agree with the two of us.
I will focus my remarks on some of the concerning aspects of our current political landscape: the implications of Brexit in creating what is now an endemic cost of living crisis, and the impacts of Westminster rule on Scotland’s potential. Brexit ideology is supported by both the Tories and the Labour party in Westminster. That ideology has turbocharged the cost of living crisis for so many people across Scotland and the rest of the United Kingdom. It is damaging and insular, and has more than a whiff of racism about it. In fact, it is exactly the kind of thing we have come to expect from the Conservative party.
But what of the official Opposition? What has been their position when the Westminster Government’s ideology has ensured that the UK’s GDP is down by 4%, that trade and exports have been reduced by 15%, that there has been a loss of £29 billion in business investment and of £100 billion in output, and that a third of our NHS workforce has gone as decent hard-working contributors leave the UK in droves? What has been the resistance to all that from the self-styled party of the ordinary man and woman—the Labour party—with its knight-of-the-realm leader? What has the Leader of the Opposition given us? The only thing that comes to my mind is a xenophobic trope about British kids speaking Polish.
The reality is that the Labour party has been fully complicit in and a willing enabler of this deeply damaging ideology. It is an ideology shared between the Labour party and the Tory party. It is not just us in Scotland who see the folly of these Brexit ideologues. The former US Treasury chief and top economist Larry Summers recently said that Brexit will be remembered as a “historic economic error”, adding that he would be “very surprised” if the UK avoided a recession in the next two years. He also noted that the UK’s economic situation was
“frankly more acute than in most other major countries”.
The sentiment that Brexit has been disastrous for the UK economy is well known to the people of Scotland, and it is now being reflected by people right across the rest of these islands. A poll from April 2023 shows that 53% of people now think that leaving the EU was the wrong decision. They know that Brexit was a lie and they know that it is contributing significantly to the scale of the day-to-day cost of living crisis that they are experiencing. Research shows that households in the UK have paid nearly £7 billion since Brexit to cover the extra cost of food imports to and from the EU. Food inflation alone sits more than 19% higher today than it did on this day last year.
The forecast is not good. Better days are not ahead. The vice-president of the European Commission recently said:
“Trade can no longer be as frictionless and dynamic as it was before. This means additional costs for businesses on both sides... Over time, increased divergence will bring even more costs and it will further deepen the barriers to trade between the EU and the UK.”
That is the reality. The Labour party should have been in unison with us in the SNP as a voice for the ordinary people who are so affected by Brexit and the cost of living crisis. Labour Members should have joined us in opposing this madness; instead, they endorsed it. They stood shoulder to shoulder with the Tories and they continue to ignore Scotland’s democratic will.
Deidre Brock (Edinburgh North and Leith) (SNP)
My hon. Friend is making some powerful points. Does he not find it extraordinary that Labour continues to insist that it will somehow make Brexit work? Very recently, we heard from the European Commissioner that even in the forthcoming review of the trade and co-operation agreement, there would be no fundamental change. Is that not ultimately very deceptive?
Steven Bonnar
It is very duplicitous, and it is pretty much standard from the Labour party. My hon. Friend supplements the point that I am making, and I thank her for that.
The reality is that families across Scotland are finding it increasingly difficult to make ends meet, with the cost of their rent or mortgage now sky high and the cost of food and energy putting the most basic necessities beyond the reach of many. Eight in 10 charities have experienced an increase in demand from families in the last three months alone, and half of them are not expecting to meet that demand in the next three months. Food banks across my constituency simply cannot meet the demand, and referrals are increasing day after day. In the United Kingdom today, baby food is being kept in anti-theft boxes in local shops. This is the cost of the Union.
In Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill, 15% of people are living in poverty and another 10% are experiencing employment depreciation. The figures are much higher here in Tory England, where up to 44% of children in deprived areas live in poverty. Workers’ rights, consumer standards, environmental regulations and many other safeguards have been eroded or lost entirely. We knew that Brexit would put these crucial protections in jeopardy. We warned that people would suffer and lose their rights over pay and conditions, pensions and opportunities for development. We warned that people’s prospects would be reduced.
My constituent, Mr Monteith, contacted me recently with his concerns about surviving as a single parent navigating the cost of living crisis. He is struggling to meet his soaring food and energy costs, and his employer has him on a zero-hours contract with no consistent hours, no set income and no job security, and with no consideration for his young family as a lot of his shifts start at 2 o’clock in the morning. He is stuck. He is scared to miss a shift when it is offered, for fear of not being able to put a meal on the table. His is just one of many such cases, but in many of these cases, all we can do is join our constituents—these hard-working men and women, the breadwinners of their families and the backbone of our community—and watch as yet another of their rights is taken from them by these callous ideologues before their very eyes.
What about the choices and chances left for our young people? The CEO of Barnardo’s said recently that young people
“seem to be losing hope and do not feel optimistic about their futures”.
I simply ask: is it any wonder? Is it any wonder, when the vast majority of young people in the United Kingdom voted to remain in the EU but were ignored? Is it any wonder when they know that their Government have damaged their educational opportunities, dented their employment and career prospects, and hindered their cultural and social integration opportunities?
It is disheartening and frankly sickening that any Government would continue on such a road of self-sabotage. But we know that when the time comes to rid ourselves of this Tory Government—that day is fast approaching—the new Tory-lite replacement will continue on the same futile path of destruction. There can be no doubt that the Labour party’s support for Brexit and siding with the UK Government from that day until this day is a betrayal of its core principles and a real disservice to the working class people it claims to represent, whether it relates to the damage of Brexit, the party’s brutal approach to social security or its persistent U-turning on promises.
The Leader of the Opposition has U-turned so many times that I do not know which way he is facing these days. Is Labour going to abolish the Lords? It tells us it will, but the next week it is putting mair people into it. It is also failing to stand against the universal credit cut imposed on struggling families by this Government. In my book, the worst thing of all is that it is offering the people of Scotland no say, no voice and no protection from the worst of Brexit. Labour knows fine well that the Scottish people did not vote for Brexit or for Labour. Yet, come election time, when this untrustworthy, unreliable lot are kicked out of office, Labour will expect and implore the people of Scotland to trust it again. But why should we and, more to the point, why would we?
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Deidre Brock and Steven Bonnar(2 years, 1 month ago)
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Deidre Brock (Edinburgh North and Leith) (SNP)
Steven Bonnar (Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill) (SNP)
The Secretary of State for Education (Nadhim Zahawi)
We are working across Government to support Ukrainian students in the United Kingdom by introducing a new humanitarian route; there will be a statement later today from the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities on that. It will provide them with an opportunity to extend their leave to remain or switch to graduate visas. The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office is leading on work to ensure that UK students in Ukraine are encouraged to return.