---

Food Industry Competitiveness

May I remind the House of my interests, which are declared in the register? I welcome the fact that at last we are having a debate on food and farming in Government time. I cannot remember the last time that happened, but I congratulate the Government on it, even if they have hung the debate on a very small hook—the one action they have taken that they believe to be in the interests of agriculture. I shall address the issue of the ombudsman later, but the Minister began by referring to "Food 2030", which the Opposition welcome. After nearly 13 years in office, the Government have recognised that they got it wrong in their previous 12. The two previous Secretaries of State—the present and previous Foreign Secretary, indeed—repeatedly said that domestic food production was unnecessary and that our food security could be achieved by importing from several different countries. In that time, pork production went down by one third, and bacon and ham by a quarter. Production of poultry, vegetables, milk, eggs and most of our commodities also declined before the Government saw the error of their ways.