00:00David Chadwick. Thank you. Thank you for giving way. Last week, I was privileged to attend
00:07the Royal Welsh Show in my constituency, Bracken, Radnor and Comtowey, one of the biggest constituencies
00:12in England and Wales. I spoke to many farmers and top of their list of concerns was the
00:17power imbalance between producers and retailers. Will he agree with the Lib Dem manifesto,
00:26which called for a strengthening of the Groceries Code adjudicator to ensure fairness in the
00:32supply chain, thereby protecting producers and guaranteeing food security?
00:37I don't make a habit of saying kind things about Liberals of any description, but I am
00:43going to say something quite kind to John Drennan because he's right to draw attention
00:47to that code. I was instrumental when I was a minister in the Department for Business
00:54at the time of arguing the case for the Groceries Code adjudicator. I met the first adjudicator
01:01and brought the second, the current incumbent, to my constituency to meet a group of farmers
01:06and growers in the last Parliament. So he's right about the strength of that and that just proves
01:12something that not everyone here will know. Even Liberal Democrats sometimes get it right.
01:18So in summary, Madam Deputy Speaker, I believe that now is the time for food security. Now is
01:29the time, building on the last government's beginning, and it was a belated beginning,
01:34to make food security a central tenet of the new government's priorities. I know the
01:41hon. Gentleman has enjoyed good relations with farmers and growers during his period as a shadow
01:46minister. That's been reported to me by my constituents and others, and he will have heard
01:51this argument made by them, not only by those of us who represent them in this place. It is really
02:00of vital importance in the national interest from the common good that we don't any longer allow
02:09our valuable agricultural land to be used for all kinds of other purposes, and by so doing,
02:16to compromise this country's food security, making us more dependent on landfills,
02:23more vulnerable, increasing emissions, increasing food miles, damaging local economies.
02:31That's not the way forward. Let's make food security matter.
Comments