Asked by: Sharon Hodgson (Labour - Washington and Sunderland West)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps his Department is taking to support the food and drink supply chain with direct increases in food prices as a result of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Answered by Victoria Prentis - Attorney General
The UK has a highly resilient food supply chain, well equipped to deal with situations with the potential to cause disruption. Our high degree of food security is built on supply from diverse sources, strong domestic production as well as imports through stable trade routes.
As the global economy recovers from COVID-19, many economies are experiencing high inflation, in part due to pressures from rising energy and commodity prices, along with disruptions to global supply chains caused by a mismatch between elevated global demand and bottlenecks in supply as a result of the pandemic.
Our extensive work in this space has reinforced the long-standing view that the most effective response to food supply disruption is industry-led, with appropriate support and enablement from the Government. Consequently, Defra maintains a collaborative relationship with industry, and has for example recently expanded the membership of our longstanding UK Agricultural Market Monitoring Group. We have also supported industry through, for example, removing tariffs on imports of sensitive agri-food products from the US and removing other technical barriers to trade. We continue to engage with the sector regarding supply chain disruption.
Asked by: Sharon Hodgson (Labour - Washington and Sunderland West)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what support he is providing to the food and drink sector to help mitigate increased supply chain costs resulting from the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Answered by Victoria Prentis - Attorney General
It has not proved possible to respond to the hon. Member in the time available before Prorogation.
Asked by: Sharon Hodgson (Labour - Washington and Sunderland West)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps he is taking to ensure that natural flood management measures are located in optimum areas under all three Environment Land Management schemes.
Answered by Victoria Prentis - Attorney General
The new environmental land management schemes will include support for farmers and land managers to manage land and water in a way that reduces flooding and coastal erosion risks to local communities. Many natural flood management activities must be targeted to ensure that benefits are maximised and environmental damage is avoided. Ensuring we take the right actions in the right places (spatial prioritisation) is a combination of data, modelling, local knowledge and partnerships, guidance, and specialist advice. We are in the process of developing our approach to spatial prioritisation for the new schemes, which includes consideration of the role of Local Nature Recovery Strategies, and will be providing more information about the Department’s work in this space over the coming months.
Asked by: Sharon Hodgson (Labour - Washington and Sunderland West)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what the national plan for delivering food assistance is.
Answered by Victoria Prentis - Attorney General
The Government is working to ensure that up to 1.5 million people in England identified by the NHS as being at higher risk of severe illness if they contract Coronavirus have access to the food they need. The Government continues to contact this cohort of shielded individuals and ask them to register via the online NHS webportal or via the phone if they need help accessing food.
In partnership with industry, the Government started to deliver Shielding Packages in late March, to those that are clinically extremely vulnerable and have requested this support These packages consist of essential supplies and food. Supermarkets are also prioritising online delivery slots for those that are most in need and have expanded their capacity for home deliveries.
We are also working quickly to support people who do not fall into the category of being clinically extremely vulnerable, but still need help getting essential food supplies. This includes those who are elderly, disabled or have health conditions that make it difficult for them to get the food they need. We are speaking to food retailers, delivery organisations and volunteer groups to help prioritise those individuals to access essential food. Wherever possible, people should continue to rely on friends, family and wider community support.
Over 750,000 people across England signed up as NHS Volunteer Responders via the mobile app GoodSam. Over 600,000 volunteers have been verified as NHS Volunteer Responders via the Good Sam platform, and can now receive tasks to help those in their communities, including through shopping for vulnerable people for food and essential supplies.
Asked by: Sharon Hodgson (Labour - Washington and Sunderland West)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what plans the Government has for securing the food supply for key workers during the covid-19 outbreak.
Answered by Victoria Prentis - Attorney General
The Government has well-established ways of working with the food industry during disruption to supply situations. Our retailers already have highly resilient supply chains and they have adapted quickly to these changes in demand to ensure people have the food and products they need. Food supply into and across the UK is resilient.
To help the industry to respond to this unprecedented demand we have introduced new measures to support businesses to keep food supply flowing on to shelves and into homes. These include temporary relaxation of competition laws to allow supermarkets to work together, extending delivery hours to supermarkets and flexing rules on drivers’ hours to allow a higher frequency of deliveries to stores to ensure shelves are being replenished more quickly.
Supermarkets are already protecting shopping time for certain key workers. For example, several supermarkets have priority shopping hours for NHS staff and social care workers. We remain in close contact with industry on how they can support keyworkers.
Asked by: Sharon Hodgson (Labour - Washington and Sunderland West)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what estimate he has made of the number of people who will require food assistance during the covid-19 outbreak; what proportion of those people (a) were vulnerable before the outbreak and (b) are newly vulnerable.
Answered by Victoria Prentis - Attorney General
The Government has been and remains in close contact with representatives across the food supply chain and civil society to ensure that vulnerable groups have access to the food and products that they need.
We initially estimated that 1.5 million people would fall into the clinically extremely vulnerable group. We have put in place measures to ensure that those identified by the NHS as being extremely clinically vulnerable and who are without a support network of friends and family receive basic food and essential supplies when requested via the online NHS webportal or via the phone. Packages of essential supplies are being delivered across England within seven days of a request for support, as soon as their status as a shielded person is verified, and supermarkets are putting these customers at the front of the queue for online delivery slots.
Over 750,000 people across England signed up as NHS Volunteer Responders via the mobile app GoodSam. Over 600,000 volunteers have been verified as NHS Volunteer Responders via the Good Sam platform, and can now receive tasks to help those in their communities. These volunteers will help vulnerable people in England who are at most risk from coronavirus to stay well, including through shopping for vulnerable people for food and essential supplies.
We are working quickly to support people who do not fall into the category of being clinically vulnerable, but still need help getting essential food supplies. Government is working with industry, charities, other government departments and Devolved Administrations to ensure whatever support is needed is delivered in a coordinated and consistent manner. We welcome measures that supermarkets have put in place to support the elderly and other vulnerable groups.
We have been working closely with the third sector to understand the impacts the outbreak has had on food aid organisations, and how best to ensure that those who are financially vulnerable still have access to essential supplies. Food redistribution organisations across England are benefiting from £3.25 million of government funding to help them cut food waste and redistribute up to 14,000 tonnes of surplus stock.
Asked by: Sharon Hodgson (Labour - Washington and Sunderland West)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps his Department is taking to support local authorities increase their recycling rates.
Answered by Rebecca Pow - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Government is committed to increasing both the quality and quantity of materials collected for recycling and making recycling easier for everyone. The Environment Bill, which has been introduced in Parliament, introduces legislation so that from 2023, all collectors of waste must collect a core set of materials from households, businesses and other organisations such as schools. The core set will be plastic, glass, metal, paper and card, food and garden waste. By collecting the same core set of materials there will be less confusion among householders and others about what they can put in their recycling bins. As a result, the amount of materials that local authorities collect for recycling will increase.
We want to work closely with local authorities to help them improve their recycling performance. We will therefore provide guidance and examples of good practice. We also work with them on developing a framework of non-binding performance indicators to help identify which local authorities require extra support to improve their recycling performance.
Asked by: Sharon Hodgson (Labour - Washington and Sunderland West)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment her Department has made of the effect on food supplies of the UK leaving the EU without a deal.
Answered by Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park
We would prefer to leave with a deal and we will work in an energetic and determined way to deliver that better deal.
The UK food and drink supply chain contributes £121 billion to the economy and employs four million people (12% of UK employment). Food and drink manufacturing is the largest manufacturing sector in the UK, while food and drink retail is the largest service sector employer.
Consumers have access to a wide range of food products when they shop and this will continue once we leave the EU. However, if key trade routes are temporarily disrupted, there would be reduced availability and choice of certain food products, including some of the fresh produce we import from the EU. If we have to leave with no deal, there will not be an overall shortage of food in the UK.
While we are reliant on imports of certain fresh products at this time of year, our market profiles clearly demonstrate strong UK winter production of many root vegetables such as cabbage, carrots, swedes, turnips, parsnips and leeks.
Asked by: Sharon Hodgson (Labour - Washington and Sunderland West)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment she has made of the potential effect on food supplies in the event that the UK leaves the EU without a deal.
Answered by George Eustice
It has not proved possible to respond to the hon. Member in the time available before Prorogation.
Asked by: Sharon Hodgson (Labour - Washington and Sunderland West)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment he has made of the potential effect on food (a) supply and (b) disruption in the event that the UK leaves the EU without a deal on 31 October 2019.
Answered by George Eustice
It has not proved possible to respond to the hon. Member in the time available before Prorogation.