Agriculture Bill — House of Lords, 2020-07-21
Topic: Agriculture
Anthony Robert Greaves (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, it is a real privilege to take part in the debate on this group of amendments, which has produced some of the most interesting and outstanding speeches in the whole of this Committee stage; the Government may think that some of them were a little long but I think that people can be excused if they are really good I signed the amendments tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts. I must say, when I did so, I did not have a clue about what he was going to make of his amendment and what he was going to say. His speech is one of those that I want to go back to and read carefully tomorrow. It was quite outstanding and put some of the problems that we have been talking about in a wider geographical and longer-term context. I am pleased that I signed that amendment I am also pleased that I signed the amendment tabled by my long-standing friend, the noble Lord, Lord Hain, who, along with the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, introduced the concept of food insecurity as opposed to food security. It is an absolute scandal, as I have already said in Committee, that we are arguably the fifth or sixth-richest country in the world—one of the richest countries ever in the world—and we have food banks. Something is seriously wrong. I remember that, when I was quite young, in the working class district I grew up in, it was well known that, in the households, the wife would go without food to feed the husband, who was the wage-earner. The vital thing was that that wage continued. Nowadays, even in the town I live in, Colne—near where I represent on the council—we know that young women are going without enough food in order to feed their children. This is 2020. This country has never been as rich as it is now, yet this is going on. Something is seriously wrong. I would say that something has to be done about it, but that is a cliché, I know I was very pleased to sign the amendment tabled by my noble friend Lady Parminter about food waste. The noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, had, I think, four apocalyptic subheadings in his speech, and one was shortage of food. The amount of food wasted in this country—in all the developed world—is absolutely shocking. It happens on the farm; in production, to some extent; in the supermarkets, which are getting a bit better but it still happens there; and in the hospitality industry. People are buying too much food and throwing appalling amounts away without even putting it on a plate, and people are putting too much on their plates and throwing half away. The amount of food wasted in households is a disgrace. I was a war baby and it is hard-wired inside my head that if the food is on the plate, you damn well eat it. Sending food back on a plate, even if I hate it and it is horrible, is something I find very difficult to do, because that was hard-wired into me in the first 10 years of my life. Nowadays, people do it all the time and do not think anything about it. We have to get back to the idea that you buy food, you cook food, you eat that food, and you do not eat too much—you cook the appropriate amount. This is very important. If we are talking about government propaganda exercises, which they seem to be heavily into at the moment, that is one that they might take on in a big way We have been told that we are leaving the European Union—the common market, the single market and the trade area—to have control over our own borders. Then we get this Bill, which is about providing farmers with sufficient income and providing sufficient food and food security and so on. The Bill gives the Government all these powers but, as the noble Lords, Lord Adonis and Lord Whitty, and many others keep saying, we do not know what the Government’s policy is for using these new powers that they will have. We do not know if, as far as trade is concerned, they will go for open borders and cheaper food. If that happens, how will they support the farmers? We do not know whether they will encourage more expensive and higher-quality food and keep the imports out. We have no idea. We know that some members of the Conservative Party are very pro-farmer and very worried, but we know that lots of others want us to be a buccaneering, free-trading country and want us to go back to the repeal of the Corn Laws and so on. Until we know the answers to those questions, we do not really know how this Agriculture Bill will pan out. It is very unsatisfactory that we are providing the Government with the framework, but it is in a vacuum.