World Food Programme

When my right hon. Friend was making his opening speech, I was scoring out paragraphs in mine because he was pre-empting them, and he has just done that again, but I will read it anyway. Many of the poorest people in the world are no longer reliant on good or bad crop yields, but they are now dependent on the market to access food. If someone in this country does not have access to food, we do not give them food aid, or seeds and tools to plant food. They receive money under the benefits system, so that they can go out and buy food. I am sure that there would be riots in the street if we were to suggest handing out food parcels rather than benefits. If that is not right here, surely there are plenty of other countries where we should consider alternatives. I shall return to the system of vouchers and cash. I would be grateful to hear whether any consideration was given during the last round of the Doha talks to nutrition and the ability of countries to feed their citizens. Nutrition was mentioned in the opening speech today, and it is a key aspect of the issue. It is about not just the quantity of food available, but the quality. As we have heard, food insecurity is particularly hard to tackle in a complex, ongoing crisis and in the fragile transition to stability. During a crisis, fragile states may lack the capacity or institutional frameworks to implement long-term food insecurity solutions. That situation is made more serious by poor governance, conflicts, man-made disasters and HIV/AIDS and other diseases. Against that backdrop, it is right that the focus is shifting towards cash, rather than the giving of in-kind food donations. I am pleased to see the increased emphasis given to social transfer schemes of cash or vouchers, which my right hon. Friend has mentioned, through the World Food Programme, and the Select Committee was right to highlight their importance. I strongly support the recommendation that the USA should immediately review its practice of giving the vast majority of its support in the form of in-kind donations of US surpluses, shipped by US companies. I remember many years ago visiting the United States Agency for International Development headquarters, where I saw a sign stating that more than 50 per cent. of aid given by USAID was spent on American companies. It boosted the American economy, rather than helping the individuals and countries that one would have thought it was going to. I want to take a few minutes not only to consider what we can do to help to solve the problem, but to raise a few questions with the Minister about what we are doing to make it worse. Many developed countries naturally support their own farming industries and interests, but too often that is at the expense of others. Dumping surpluses or subsidising products can undermine local production in developing countries and their markets, and those markets will need to develop and thrive if developing countries are ever to inch away from their current level of food insecurity. What can the Minister say about the overdue reform of the common agricultural policy—I believe that that is central—and other negotiations that would allow a level playing field for more people and give them the ability to reap the reward of growing their own food, rather than receiving alternative cash products? Aid should not be determined by any factors other than need and effectiveness. It is one of the best legacies of the current Government that the International Development Act 2002 explicitly states the principle that the giving of aid must be guided by humanitarian principles and not take into account the interests of the UK overseas. I am interested to hear whether the Minister has had any discussions with his counterpart in the new Obama Administration regarding any shift in US policy. I welcomed the recent commitment to a $60 million pilot project for local purchase of food. It would be good to think that that is part of a genuine reappraisal of the approach. As I have said, DFID has done much good work and is respected in many parts of the world. I am happy to place my views in that regard on the record. I welcome the £400 million support package for agricultural research, and I am interested in any progress report that the Minister can give on where that money is being spent and the impact that it is having. However, food security is clearly about more than supporting agriculture and matching supply with demand. It must be about building countries' and communities' resilience to the shocks that are increasingly restricting access to food for millions of people. Growing water scarcity, triggered partly by climate change, is also severely affecting countries' ability to irrigate crops. Global demand for water has tripled in the past 50 years. We cannot consider food supply and security in any region without examining the broader effects of global warming. I would be interested to hear what DFID is doing to ensure that there is joined-up thinking between the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the Ministry of Defence and DFID to ensure that food security is not just considered as a development issue. Save the Children, in its evidence for the original report, rightly cited""a myriad of international actors with overlapping remits but none with the key purpose of ensuring the efficacy of international donors, development organisations and governments in reducing malnutrition."" I share those concerns, particularly given that there still appears to be a lack of a specific nutrition policy or genuine measurable targets for assessing progress in reducing malnutrition. I understand that there is now a nutrition policy team in DFID, and I would appreciate any update from the Minister on the work that it is undertaking. A few years ago, I survived for a week on a Red Cross food parcel; it was just after Christmas and into the new year period. The food kept body and soul together, but there was no nutrition there, and that was for only a week. I would not wish the experience of trying to survive on it for more than a week on anyone else. Unfortunately, however, as we have heard, 1 billion people in the world have to survive on similar rations or less. I look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say, because the current Government have done and are doing good work, but we can always press for more.