Cost of Living and Food Insecurity

We will now have a five-minute limit.

It is a great pleasure to speak in the debate; I welcome the Opposition’s bringing it to the House. As I have only five minutes, I will focus on food security. That should come as no surprise to Members on either side of the House, because as the Member of Parliament for Montgomeryshire I represent many, many farmers producing first-class produce and contributing to UK food security.

I welcome what Opposition Members have said about companies buying agricultural land for carbon offsetting and about the need to balance tree planting in this country with agriculture. When the food strategy report is published—I welcome the Minister’s confirmation that that will be in weeks rather than months—I ask that we also look at the impact of the devolved Administrations’ policy on UK food security. It is often easy to leave looking at food security to the four nations of the United Kingdom, but we are one great country, so I ask that the UK Government look at the impact.

Although it is laudable that we have a policy to plant 86 million trees in Wales by 2030, I am incredibly concerned that we should work with the local custodians, the farming unions and the people who know which fields would be absolutely horrific to lose from the perspective of our food security. Owing to the targets, there is tremendous pressure to plant trees apace. We all welcome the reforesting of areas of Wales and some of the rewilding projects, but it has to be done with local knowledge and led by the farmers on the many small family farms and larger farms in my community who have generations of knowledge about where it would be a good idea to take forward the Welsh Government’s programmes and plant trees.

Since the Agriculture Act 1947, we have steadily increased our food sustainability under Governments of both colours, although luckily not the colour of the Scottish National party. Some 60% of the food we now consume is produced in the UK, which is great. Welsh lamb is of huge importance, especially in Montgomeryshire. Welshpool livestock market is the largest lamb market in western Europe; I usually frequent it on a Monday to look at the state of the market and the pricing. Lamb is one of the most sustainable meats in the world, so we need to look after the sector.

I want to touch on the international footprint and the London firms coming in, because there is a huge problem with the divergence of policies. Devolution is a wonderful thing. I call it localism, or getting decisions made as locally as possible—I would love to see more power going from Cardiff to mid-Wales, but that is a different debate. However, I want to see the UK Government and the Welsh Government working together to make sure that Welsh agricultural land is not left vulnerable to carbon offsetting by a divergence in policy. I would very much welcome collaboration between UK Government Ministers and Welsh Government Ministers.

Having been born and bred in my Swansea East constituency, and having lived there all my life, I have always been aware of how vulnerable people are to food poverty, but a call from a local food bank during the first week of the summer holiday in 2016 really brought it home to me. The food bank needed me to put out an urgent appeal for donations, as its shelves were running empty. Without the free school meals that keep children fed during term time, demand for the food bank had rocketed. That summer, my team made sandwiches to deliver to free activities around the constituency, which is how my first summer lunch club was born and how I became the sandwich lady.

Each summer since, it has evolved and grown. During the lockdown in 2020, we adapted to feed those who were struggling, isolating or vulnerable. Every Christmas we run our “Everyone deserves a Christmas” project, delivering hampers, hot dinners and festive treats to those who otherwise go without. We reached more than 2,000 households across Swansea last Christmas, and even that was probably not enough.

Like in many towns and cities across the country, financial hardship has hit homes across Swansea. The pandemic certainly has not helped, but it would be naive to blame everything on that. My constituents have had to tighten their belts even more these past couple of years, but I assure the House that those belts were already buckled tightly.

This week’s newspaper headlines tell us: “Rising cost of living leaves 4.7 million Britons struggling to feed themselves,” “‘Deluge’ of families facing homelessness” and “Fears people will freeze to death at home as energy bills rocket.” Some would say these headlines create moral panics and do not reflect what is really happening in our country. They might explain them as media propaganda or fake news, but I promise it is the reality in Swansea East.

Alongside the big headlines, I see the real-life experience of families who are unable to escape food poverty as the cost of living soars and incomes come down. I hear the panic in people’s voices when they talk about their energy bills in the coming months, even people who, up until now, have managed to pay their bills and put food on the table.

Once again, I and other Conservative Members are having to rise to oppose a motion from a party that is playing the blame game rather than offering solutions to support families, and overlooking what is really happening.

Over a year ago, the Government promised the British people that we would do whatever it takes to provide security and stability during the pandemic and in getting over it. That is exactly what we are doing, and we are delivering. I am acutely aware of the challenges that my constituents currently face with the cost of living and rising food and energy bills. This is an international issue that countries everywhere are facing.

I am surprised that the Opposition decry the Government for presiding over “falling wages” and a “lack of job opportunities.” Was it not this Conservative Government who introduced the national living wage in 2016? Was it not this Conservative Government who raised the national living wage to £9.50 this year? Stourbridge has seen a 28% drop in the adult claimant rate and a 40% drop in the youth claimant rate since last March.

I am surprised that the motion laments the Government’s supposed “tax hikes”. The Government will continue to be the Government of low taxes. [Laughter.] Don’t take my word for it—just look at our record over the past decade: an effective £1,000 tax cut to 2 million low-income people on universal credit; a council tax rebate for over 86% of households in the west midlands; fuel duty frozen for the past 10 years. The facts are there. The Opposition stood on a manifesto that the Institute for Fiscal Studies said would create the biggest tax burden since world war two, so I will not take any lectures or noises from them on taxation.

It is disappointing that the motion regrets the Government’s

“failure to tackle the energy crisis”.

That is another example of political point scoring. Labour’s short-term sticking plasters are superficial solutions that will do nothing to help families facing rising energy bills in the long term. We need to be honest with people. A VAT cut on energy bills will not be effective—it would disproportionately benefit wealthier households. A windfall tax on oil and gas firms will not cut energy bills—it will merely be passed on to consumers down the line.

I am pleased that this Government are being honest with people by proposing practical policies to support families with rising energy prices. All households will receive a £200 rebate on their energy bills this year. Eight million pensioners benefit from the £2 billion winter fuel payment scheme. Those are facts. More than 2 million low-income households receive a £140 rebate on energy bills as part of the warm home discount, and 4 million vulnerable households receive cold weather payments. Those are real solutions that will provide real support to those who most need it.

The cost of living crisis has been a long time in the making and has not come out of the blue. It is an escalation of a crisis that has been going on for a long time. As households brace themselves for the biggest drop in living standards in 30 years, yesterday we were asked to pass a Government motion in this House that would effectively cut pensions and social security payments by 3% to 4% in real terms. That, combined with the slashing of the universal credit uplift, the rise of the energy price cap and the increase in national insurance contributions, points to the simple conclusion that the Government are knowingly pushing more and more families into circumstances where they have to choose between staying warm and putting food on the table.

Just like the coalition Government with their austerity programme after the financial crash, this Tory Government are visiting the fallout of the covid crisis and the energy crisis on those who are the most in need, with a shocking 4.7 million adults and 2.5 million children already living in food insecurity. Two out of five children in my Middlesbrough constituency were in poverty before these latest insults.

It is both those in work and those out of it who are suffering. In-work poverty has hit new heights, with one in six working households now below the poverty line, thanks to the pitiful levels of the minimum wage, which despite the rise to £9.50 in April is plainly not enough to get by on. Statutory sick pay is so low, at just £96.35 a week, that during the pandemic many workers have been left with no option but to go into work when they are ill. Unlike in Germany, where SSP covers 100% of workers’ salaries, in the UK it is a measly 19%. No wonder we have some of the worst covid death rates in Europe and now this cost of living crisis.

This desperate situation for so many has come about because of the erosion of their rights over the decades since the assault on working people began under Thatcher. From the end of the second world war until 1979, about 85% of workers across the country had their rights protected by collective bargaining agreements. Such agreements bring about great benefits for workers, primarily by preventing the undercutting of terms and conditions by setting minimum standards across a sector. With the changes to Government policy brought in since 1979, collective bargaining coverage has been driven down to about 23% of workers—one of the lowest proportions in Europe, where the average is about 60%.

The hon. Gentleman mentions collective bargaining, but will he say how successful that was in the 1970s, when the lights were out?

I think a lot of people would swap now for the 1970s, when people could afford a home and food and had decent terms and conditions. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman should recall the clapping for care workers throughout the crisis—the very people who should be benefiting from sectoral collective bargaining and fair pay agreements that give them a decent standard of living. We will take absolutely no lectures from Tory Members on that subject.

With the fall in these agreements, many workers have seen a similar dive in their rights and pay, undermining their ability to put food on the table. Almost four in five workers are now at the mercy of the labour market and the whims of their employer, with no means by which to bargain collectively—a situation only exacerbated by bogus and discriminatory classification of workers. There are a number of categories of worker, with different degrees of employment rights. Some workers—employees—are entitled to all the pathetic statutory rights that are currently available if they have been employed long enough, while others, including the bogus self-employed, limb (b) workers and agency workers, are denied many of the basic rights they should be entitled to.

That is why I am pleased to introduce in this House the Status of Workers Bill, which was guided through the other place by my noble Friend Lord Hendy. The Bill would merge all the categories so they would all be classified as workers with statutory employment rights giving them the freedom to bargain for a decent wage. I implore the Minister to allow the Bill the necessary time to pass through this House to make this fundamental change to workers’ rights, which will bring about the changes we need to solve the cost of living crisis.

Like many in this Chamber, I have been inundated with cases of constituents who are struggling in the present circumstances. Lisa, a single mum, is in terrible circumstances. She has no money left. She has 10 days to go before she can get money to put food on the table for herself and her son, who is suffering from covid. I have pensioners who, proud as they are, refuse to go to food banks. That is a damning indictment of the current situation in modern Tory Britain. It has got to change—there must be fundamental change for the benefit of our constituents.

I welcome the opportunity to speak in this debate following the launch of the levelling up White Paper last week, which provides a framework for delivering the Government’s vision and plan to help everyone in Britain get back on their feet after the devastation caused by the pandemic. We have heard from the Minister some of the mitigating actions the Government have taken to try to ease the situation for the most vulnerable, so I will confine my comments to the national food strategy.

As we all know, the last two years have been dominated by the coronavirus pandemic, which has highlighted health inequalities. That is why post covid it is vital that we build back a stronger, more resilient and prosperous country, with a focus on our health and wellbeing. I recently spoke with Lord Bird, founder of The Big Issue, and we agreed that we want a society where we do look not to make the poor more comfortable, but to eradicate poverty. The Conservative approach is to focus on creating more and better opportunities in every region across the United Kingdom, to invest in skills and lifelong learning and to create pathways out of poverty, while also supporting the most vulnerable.

We have been so lucky to live in a country where the vaccine roll-out response has been so unbelievably fast and effective. However, we cannot simply rely on medicine every time we get sick. We need to prevent people from getting sick in the first place. Research indicates that one of the major reasons Britain fared badly compared to other countries was because of the particularly high prevalence of obesity and diet-related disease. The Prime Minister said himself that he believed he almost died after contracting covid mainly because of his weight, and through that experience he introduced one of the most ambitious Government obesity strategies in UK history. However, it still is not easy for most people to enjoy the healthy life, although it is certainly easier for some than others. That is why health is crucial and central to the Government’s levelling-up agenda.

My hon. Friend is making a characteristically positive and powerful speech, and she talks passionately about the Government’s obesity strategy and the need to access healthy food, but does she agree that part of that strategy is finding opportunities for people to exercise and be involved in sport? A key part of the Government’s levelling-up agenda is investing in more community facilities, allowing people to take part in sport.

Absolutely—exercise and food go hand in hand in a healthy lifestyle.

There are plenty of fast food outlets in Stoke, but it is quite difficult to find nutritious options. It is not about eliminating all unhealthy choices or making us feel guilty about eating them: it is about increasing the choices available and ensuring that everyone can easily find and afford good food. I am reminded of the words of Lord Woolton, the Conservative party’s food Minister in the 1940s. He said:

“Feeding is not enough, it must be good feeding.”

Those words are as true today as they were back then.

Many colleagues have commented that my social media includes many posts of me eating a variety of what Stoke has to offer, from oatcakes—which are an important part of our culture and heritage—to healthy Sunday roasts. I have been surprised how popular the posts are. I do them to show food choices in our city and to promote local businesses and organisations through the medium of food. Food is central to our society, communities and daily lives. Food brings us together and allows us to share stories, ideas and cultures, and build wonderful memories, but food should not make us sick.

Currently, four out of five leading risk factors for disability, disease and death are related to poor diets. In other words, the British diet is making us sick. While the average percentage of adults living with obesity or excess weight is 62% in England, it is 72.8% in Stoke-on-Trent. The health profile for the area shows that in the majority of health categories—for example, cancer rates, cardiovascular disease, obesity, life expectancy, physical activity, smoking and alcohol—the situation is significantly worse than the national average. I cannot accept this. How can we level everything up if our people locally are getting more sick and dying earlier than people elsewhere?

That is why it is important that the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Michael Gove, included the Government’s obesity strategy, and some policy recommendations from Henry Dimbleby’s national food strategy, in the “Levelling Up” White Paper. However, more needs to be done. The “Levelling Up” White Paper sets a blueprint for future White Papers such as the Government’s formal response to the national food strategy. This must set out a bold, brave and ambitious set of immediately actionable policies to help everyone in Britain to eat well. The six non-negotiable actions include the “eat and learn” recommendation that includes mandatory accreditation for food served in school to ensure that high-quality and nutritious food is not a postcode lottery; school curriculum changes such as reinstating the food A-level and Ofsted inspection of such lessons; and mandatory reporting for large food producers and manufacturers so that we know the proportion of healthier versus unhealthy food that companies are selling, as well as other metrics such as food waste.

I remind Members not to refer to Ministers or Members by their names, please. I did not want to stop the hon. Lady’s flow.

Poverty and food insecurity are key elements of the cost of living crisis. More and more working households, including those in receipt of universal credit, are not getting the food that they need, and this will be made even worse after what happened yesterday. Despite it being called an uprating, the Government pushed through a real-terms cut to benefits and pensions that I opposed, just as I opposed the motion on the welfare cap last month when it was before the House. That is because millions of people across the UK are experiencing food insecurity, including an estimated 1.8 million of school age. The use of food banks was increasing before the pandemic and has risen dramatically during the pandemic, and it is very likely that the situation will continue to get worse and worse. In fact, food bank usage represents the thin end of the wedge, with largely only those experiencing severe food insecurity receiving emergency food parcels due to the stigma and level of availability. At the same time, austerity cuts have meant that important services such as meals on wheels and other important lifelines and support services are no more.

Yet as people continue to struggle, I am proud that people have stepped up to fill the gaps. I continue to be in awe of local people organising to protect our communities and support one another, whether that is the Felix Project supported by Islamic Relief UK, with its unique kitchen that collects good surplus food to cook 20,000 culturally sensitive meals and deliver it to some of the most vulnerable families, the volunteers at the food bank run at Christ Church on the Isle of Dogs, or the work of neighbourhoods in my constituency and Sister Christine in Poplar. Those are just a few examples of the community spirit that makes the east end such a special place.

But the truth is that soaring food insecurity and the normalisation of food aid as the solution to a complete failure of Government has important consequences for the future of the welfare safety net. It warns of a future where responsibility for structural failures is increasingly placed on individuals and the third sector. We need urgent action so that, in one of the wealthiest countries in the world, no one is left hungry. Surely it should not be that difficult. Indeed, it is entirely possible to guarantee that everyone has enough food so that food banks no longer have to exist. This is why I have been supporting the Right to Food campaign calling for the Government to be legally responsible to help anyone in our communities going hungry—to take action to prevent barriers in accessing food and end the crisis of food insecurity once and for all. I want to place on record my acknowledgment of the brilliant work that my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Ian Byrne) has been doing in this regard. In the long run, I would like to see universal free school meals and the Government bringing the delivery of those and other outsourced food services back in-house, involving all the community in food provision. I repeat that even with the cost of living crisis it is possible to eradicate food insecurity. The question is do the Government really want to do that?