Esther McVey – 2022 Speech on the National Food Strategy and Food Security

The speech made by Esther McVey, the Conservative MP for Tatton, in the House of Commons on 27 October 2022.

I beg to move,

That this House recognises that food security is a major concern to the British public and that the impact of the covid-19 pandemic, the cost of living crisis and the conflict in Ukraine has made UK food security more important than ever before; further recognises the strain on the farming sector due to rising farming and energy costs; supports the Government’s ambition to produce a National Food Strategy white paper and recognises the urgent need for its publication; notes that the UK food system needs to become more sustainable; and calls on the Government to recognise and promote alternative proteins in the National Food Strategy, invest in homegrown opportunities for food innovation, back British businesses and help future-proof British farming.

The motion is in my name and that of the hon. Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy). I pay tribute to her for all her help in co-ordinating this debate, and I particularly thank the Backbench Business Committee for finding time for it.

Food security is a perennial concern. Even the meaning of “food security” causes concern and disagreement, but I will use this definition as a starting point—being able to feed the population at a reasonable cost, even in the face of future shocks such as a global pandemic, massive harvest failure or a general crisis of agricultural productivity caused by climate change. However, colleagues may well wish to expand on that definition and talk about a whole array of issues, for this is such a vast topic with so many important implications for farmers and for families and household food bills, particularly now that we see them rising with the cost of living crisis.

The UK is addressing the issues of food security by using new approaches to agriculture such as vertical farming, precision agriculture and genome editing. It is cutting food waste with Government policies and new technology, producing alternative proteins from cultured insects and algae—not for the faint-hearted—as well as producing plant-based meat, on which the UK leads the way, and packaging food in innovative ways to reduce damage, prolong freshness and fight off bacteria.

However, with the shocks we have suffered to our food security over the last two years—the consequences of covid and lockdowns, and now of the war in Ukraine —there is much more the Government need to do, particularly to help our local farmers. In the north-west, our 12,815 farming and growing community quietly go about their business, collectively producing a wealth of food commodities and contributing more than £726 million to the economy. Our UK farmers and growers are world leaders in food safety, animal welfare, traceability and environmental enhancements, and these values are reflected through our UK annual food and drink export value of £2 billion.

I want to focus on my little corner of the world. Over 70% of Cheshire county is still agriculture-producing, with large swathes given to dairy, sheep and cattle farming. More than 7,000 people are employed on 2,804 farm holdings covering nearly 160,000 hectares of land. We are home to some of the country’s leading dairy farms and dairies—for example, Grosvenor’s Eaton Estate in Cheshire produces more than 35 million litres of fresh milk a year, which is enough for half a million people every day. In Tatton, we have County Milk, which is a family-run business and the largest privately owned dairy ingredient company in the UK. We have the award-winning Delamere Dairy, located in Knutsford, and Bexton Cheese in Knutsford. We have the award-winning Lambing Shed, run by the Mitchell family, and Cheshire Smokehouse in Morley Green, Wilmslow. We have Mobberley Ice Cream, Great Budworth Ice Cream and Seven Sisters Farm Ice Cream—there are lots of ice creams—and Roberts Bakery. I meet my local farmers regularly, assisted and facilitated by the local National Farmers Union team.

There have always been concerns in farming, for livestock and the Great British weather are temperamental fellows to work with, but of late these issues have got bigger and they need to be addressed if we want our food strategy to work. In Tatton, our farmers, like those across the country, are facing labour shortages, energy price increases of up to 400%, fertiliser cost increases of over 150% and red diesel increases, as well as increases in rural crime. Only the other week, I met a group of local farmers at Shepherd’s farm in Aston by Budworth, which has just invested £300,000 in a new milking shed of the new cubicle type, and they all concurred that we are now seeing particularly tough times.

My farmers are renowned for good husbandry, good farming and good farming techniques, and they go to great lengths to look after their animals and land, for high-quality care leads to high-quality meat, milk and produce, but they need help to find staff and to offer competitive training and apprenticeships. New farmers entering the profession need to have a chance to get a farm, and those leaving it need a chance to relinquish a farm at a price that will provide for their retirement. Can the Minister please look into these matters as a matter of urgency? I know significant work has been done, but certainly more work needs to be done. If the Minister cannot provide a full answer today, I am more than happy for him to write to me.

Another of my constituents is Philip Pearson, who, along with other members of his family, runs a family business called the APS Group. Set up by his grandfather after the second world war in Alderley Edge, it is now the biggest tomato producer in the UK, producing approximately 650 million tomatoes a year. He has explained quite clearly that the horticulture sector in the UK is desperately short of staff to look after crops and to cope during the harvest. He would have expected 1,500 workers, out of a peak total of 2,500, from central and eastern Europe each year—from March to Christmas—but this has not been possible this year.

A question for the Minister is: can these farmers have more visas for seasonal agricultural workers—the number must rise from the current 30,000 to at least 50,000 as soon as possible—and can farmers employ Ukrainian nationals and other migrants now housed in the UK to help deliver an increase in the number of seasonal agricultural workers?

Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)

The right hon. Lady is making a very powerful case, very little of which I would disagree with, but the food strategy is not all about agriculture. The fishing industry also needs visas for crews in particular, which has been a problem for years. Through her, can I add to the Minister’s list to take to the Home Office the plight of the fishing industry as well as that of farmers?

Esther McVey

The right hon. Member absolutely can, and indeed he has. I expect other Members to talk about the farming in and the produce coming from their parts of the country. As I said, I am focusing on Cheshire, but I believe we all share the same concerns.

In my patch, farmers are leading the way in technology, too. In the case of APS, it is developing robotics for tomato production, starting with harvesting and going right the way through to packaging. It is putting significant money and research into this development to cope with the lack of people now coming forward to work in the farming sector. However, these robots will not be ready for four to five years, so it needs short-term help now to be able to deliver on its commitment to supply tomatoes for the country.

Farmers also care deeply about the environment. This particular farm is working hard to deliver compostable packaging. It uses its tomato plant waste to develop packaging, and it is using it for other sectors, including fake leather for car seats, coffee cups and even bactericidal treatment for the NHS. It is charged a packaging tax, yet it is developing green, biodegradable alternatives, so can the Minister let me know what incentives there are for such great British technology to help the companies providing these terrific developments, which will be used not just here, but right around the world?

Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)

Robotics is very important in my constituency of Strangford in two ways. First, for the dairy sector, it is a seven-figure sum to set up a new robotic milking dairy—my neighbours are doing that—and, secondly, it is a significant six-figure sum for those wanting to have tomato houses, as the right hon. Lady has mentioned. To make such vast investments happen, the Government must be involved, so the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs here and the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs back home will have to be very much part of that process.

Esther McVey

I thank the hon. Member for joining in and adding that pertinent point.

We could not have this debate without talking about the high energy prices at the moment, with an increase of 400%, and what is happening to farms having to cope with those increased costs. For APS, this has resulted in reduced production of UK tomatoes and other foods, because the costs of production are not recovered through higher prices. Farmers must be mindful of passing on higher prices to customers—if they can, as the supermarkets and shops the food goes to will not accept them—so we must be mindful of how we support farmers.

That company has even developed a combined heat and power plant, which supplies 3 MW of power to Alderley Edge, and it uses the waste heat and the carbon dioxide from that to grow their crop. I wonder whether it can get some recognition that it uses carbon dioxide from power generation to produce food, because that would help it to offset the huge increases in energy cost. I know the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy is reviewing the move from the European Union energy trading scheme to the ETS UK equivalent post Brexit, but can the Minister liaise with his ministerial colleague at BEIS and give me the latest news on that?

Food production is essential for the delivery of the environmental benefits on which the Government plan to centre in their agricultural support policy, but unless we recognise the dual role of farmers as food producers and conservationists, we risk turning farmers into environmental contractors with little incentive to continue farming. That would do enormous damage to the jobs and communities that depend on farming, as well as weaken our food security. The strategy needs to be clearer in linking food production to action against climate change and enhancing the natural environment.

My final plea is for greater clarity on food labelling, so that the high standards of British food are known and recognised—so a shopper knows the quality of the produce and where it is from. Buying British and locally, for me that means buying from Cheshire, is important not just because of the high husbandry standards of UK food but the low transport mileage to get from field to fork. That low transport mileage is particularly important if we are concerned about the environment. As my beef and sheep farmers say, it is better to have high-quality beef and lamb from Cheshire than chickpeas from halfway around the world. [Interruption.] I thank Members for the cheers for that.

On food standards, it is important when the Government are negotiating and implementing free trade agreements to avoid undermining the domestic sector for farmers and growers and reducing standards. In its report on the UK-Australia free trade agreement issued on Friday 17 June 2022, the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee concluded:

“In practice it appears unlikely that food produced to lower animal welfare standards will enter the UK as a result of this deal.”

That is positive news, but my farmers are calling for greater transparency on food labelling. Like me, they believe in choice, but we only have choice when we have knowledge of what we are choosing and what we are choosing from.

Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)

I sit on that Committee and we observed that the average size of a sheep farm in Australia is 100 times the size of one in Wales, and they practise mulesing—shearing the back- sides of sheep in a painful way without anaesthetics—and transport cattle for 24 hours. So there is a clear problem of British producers being undercut by inhumane welfare practices and massive intensity of production.

Esther McVey

That relates to the transparency that some people are calling for to know what they are eating and enjoying, to appreciate the difference in cost and the treatment the animals have gone through. Fair competition can only really come from accurate labelling and transparency on produce. The UK produces some of the best food in the world, with the highest standards of safety and animal welfare, and it is only right that people in this country know what they are getting.

Tatton farmers and producers are hard-working, dedicated to the sector, industrious and experts in their field, with many generations of experience. They want to help solve the food security issues that this country is facing, but along with this strategy, which goes some of the way, and along with awareness of what is happening around the world, more assistance is needed to help our farmers here and now with the problems the world is facing.