Food Prices and Food Poverty

Lord Benyon Excerpts

Monday 23rd January 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Richard Benyon)]

I compliment my hon. Friend the Member for St Ives (Andrew George), who bowled the hon. Member for Ogmore (Huw Irranca-Davies) and hit the middle stump, showing the paucity of the motion. I offer advice to the hon. Gentleman and his colleagues—they simply cannot support the wording in the motion. It is a sign of desperation to pray in aid somebody who has not been in the House for 15 years when referring to Conservative or any other policy.

It is clear from this afternoon’s debate that Members on both sides of the House take seriously the challenges posed by food price inflation. It is also clear that down the years Governments of different complexions have seen varying degrees of price volatility. Of course I agree with hon. Members on both sides that wonderful work is done by charities and other organisations to support people on low incomes. That has always been the case. But please can we not pretend that in some parallel universe those charities were all forced into action on 6 May 2010 and that their existence is totally the result of the coalition Government? That is such a puerile and facile argument. Let us have a mature debate. I hope to add some thoughts in the few moments that I have.

Some Opposition Members have sought to ascribe the responsibility for high prices to the coalition. Clearly, that is undermined by the fact that food prices were rising at a faster rate under the previous Government. Likewise, we know that food price inflation was outstripping general inflation at one point last year, only for the situation to be reversed later in the year. The dynamics of where food prices stand at a particular point in time are of secondary importance to hard-pressed families who are balancing their budgets. Those families want to know what action is being taken to help, not just by Government, but by a range of organisations that have a distinguished track record in this regard.

We have heard of some excellent initiatives in the area of food provision and redistribution. We know about Healthy Start, which is a Government initiative. We have heard about FareShare, which provided 8.6 million meals in the last financial year. Many hon. Members have spoken about food banks, which are organisations set up by wonderful, community-minded people with real compassion. We applaud their activities. However, I say to Opposition Members, in particular the hon. Members for Liverpool, Wavertree (Luciana Berger) and for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy), that it is ridiculous to say that the rise in the need for food banks is attributable to this Government. This Government spend £122 million a day just to pay the interest on the debt that their Government left us. That is what we have to spend before we even pay off the debt.

[Luciana Berger]

Will the Minister give way?

[Richard Benyon]

No, I will not give way.

The motion is almost entirely consumed with statements about the introduction of the groceries code adjudicator. We agree on the importance of introducing an adjudicator. That is why we have published a draft Bill and are getting on with putting it in place. What is rather more puzzling is the position of the Opposition, who wasted 13 years without introducing the adjudicator, even though they knew that power was shifting from the suppliers to the retailers and had received evidence on that. Despite that, they criticise this Government for not having completed the process in 18 months.

The motion refers to “delays”. The only element of delay is in the motion itself, which demands that the adjudicator be introduced in the next Parliament. The hon. Member for Ogmore explained that that was a drafting error. In that case, he must tell Members not to support the motion. Any Member who supports it is showing a paucity of ambition, because it means that they want the adjudicator to be introduced early in the next Parliament. The hon. Gentleman will have to withdraw the motion. That is the only thing to do. The hon. Member for Wakefield (Mary Creagh) might want to wait until after the next general election to introduce the adjudicator, but the coalition has no such intention. We will carry on with the work in hand and bring it in during this Parliament.

Aside from the rather narrow focus on the adjudicator, there has been a series of interesting and useful contributions on the work that can be done to mitigate food prices. I pay great tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for South Thanet (Laura Sandys) and wish her social enterprise well. It sounds like an interesting idea. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Miss McIntosh), who made some interesting comments about the social impact of the threat of high food prices. I confirm for her that the groceries code adjudicator will consider anonymous submissions. She talked in particular about the fruit and vegetable sector. Those suppliers can approach the groceries code adjudicator anonymously.

The hon. Member for Llanelli (Nia Griffith) asked when the groceries code adjudicator would be introduced. I hope that we have answered her question. The draft Bill is available. I cannot second guess what will be in the Queen’s Speech. I would be in trouble if I did.

My hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) spoke about local and home-grown food. I pay tribute to what is happening in her constituency. My hon. Friend the Member for St Ives was absolutely on target. He sought, as I do, cross-party consensus because on these issues this House sometimes produces more heat than light. If we look at the matter in detail, we see that there is a lot more that we agree on than separates us.

The Government are hugely supportive of food banks and other organisations that work to open up access to food. The coalition Government have been clear from the outset about the importance that they attach to third sector and civic activity. The success of many organisations in this area demonstrates why we are right to work hand in glove with them in delivering social solutions.

This debate has demonstrated the extent to which food price inflation is shaped by an intricate matrix of interrelated global circumstances. To stand here and pretend that the Government can step in and bring down food prices at a stroke would be disingenuous. The Government can put measures in place to ameliorate the worst effects of food price inflation, which we are doing through measures such as our continued support for Healthy Start and other schemes. One of the biggest determinants of food prices is global and domestic supply, and this Department has put farming and food production at the heart of its business plan. Whether it is in stripping away the needless bureaucracy that has swamped farmers, developing a strategy for balancing the needs of greater food production with protecting our environment, or helping to fund innovation and increased competitiveness, this Government are highly attuned to the need to increase high-quality food production domestically.

My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State is personally driving a great deal of work with other countries to help to meet the food supply challenges set out in the Foresight report. We are investing time and energy to ensure that we are working hand in glove with others on that important challenge. Understandably, the effects of that will take time to be felt.

The fact is that there is no silver bullet. The Opposition should know better than to pretend that the adjudicator will be the cure-all for hard-pressed families. What families need now is for the Government to deliver real help right now to get living costs down to a manageable level. To that end, the Opposition should support freezing the council tax, cutting fuel duty, cutting income tax for 25 million people, extending free child care, increasing the child tax credit, taking action on energy prices and many other measures. They were strangely silent on those measures throughout the debate. That is the programme that the coalition Government will continue to deliver in parallel with our work to increase food security and keep food prices down.

I believe that the House is united in its concern for those who struggle to manage their food bills. That is as it should be. However, this debate has laid bare the absence of any ideas from the Opposition. That is in marked contrast to the practical steps that the coalition is taking to help hard-pressed families up and down the country. On that basis, the motion should be rejected.

Question put,