Andy Burnham has made clear his ambition to help people with the cost of living. When it comes to future food prices, there is one clear step he could take, but it demands the political courage to break with Keir Starmer and back UK food producers, writes Victoria Atkins MP.
The price of the weekly food shop keeps climbing. Ever-rising taxes and business costs, international supply chain disruptions and record numbers of British farm closures under Labour are all pushing prices up.
Why Labour’s last chancellor failed
The last Labour chancellor either did not understand, or simply did not care, that piling ever-higher costs and taxes onto businesses forces them to pass those costs on just to survive.
Keir Starmer was on the verge of adding to the problem through his renegotiation of food and agriculture laws with the EU. Labour’s plan was to hand over control of those laws to the EU in full, so that bureaucrats whose job is to protect EU member states would decide how British farms and food companies may farm and operate.
Putting British food under foreign powers
UK food production would be placed entirely under the control of foreign powers. The resulting shock for businesses and customers would be profound.
The Food and Drink Federation has estimated that at least 400 regulations, not including those on pesticides and fertilisers, would need to be changed.
CropLife UK estimates that British farmers would face a cost of £800 million in the first year. The Fresh Produce Consortium warns that new border checks on food arriving from the rest of the world could add another £300 million a year.
The burden reaches the shopper
These new laws, bans and checks would impose costs on producers, which would inevitably be transferred to shoppers, making every food shop more expensive.
Removing trade frictions between the UK and the EU is in both sides’ interests – we buy 13.1% of all total EU exports. But that cannot come at any price.
Conservatives will continue to defend shoppers, farmers and producers. We will keep costs down by retaining control of our own food laws, ensuring that decisions about how our food is produced are taken here, not by foreign bureaucrats.
