My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have spoken this evening. We have had a very well-informed, thoughtful and wise debate on these issues. I also thank the Minister for his, as ever, detailed and thorough response to the amendments. We welcome the inclusion of Clause 17, but it has some of the hallmarks of something added at a late stage. The more you start to put things of that kind in a Bill, the more questions you raise than answer. The Minister was at great pains to list everything that would be included in the food security report, but more of those need to be spelled out in the Bill. All the contributions from noble Lords about needing a more comprehensive plan, with tighter targets and more regular reporting systems, were well made. I ask the Minister to reflect on those issues and on whether more of them can be put in the Bill.
A number of noble Lords raised concerns about the devolved nations and disparities in food growing and food poverty around the different nations, with the complexities of an internal market for food developing within the UK. Without going into detail on that, I recommend our Amendment 290, which is in one of the groups we may get to this evening and proposes setting up an agricultural co-ordination council. This would not only provide a framework for the devolved nations to discuss agriculture but bring together issues around food production. It is a valid point that I hope we will address in that later group. I agree with all the noble Lords who talked about food insecurity, in particular household food insecurity and food poverty—they should be part of food security reporting.
Finally, I pick up and reiterate our arguments for a national food plan. As I said when I introduced it, our amendment was drafted before the Lords report, but I recommend the report to noble Lords and particularly to the Minister. Some of its key recommendations could form the framework for a national food plan in the Bill. We have talked about the Dimbleby report, and I know that interweaving the timing of all this is not ideal, but the Government have accepted that there should be a national food strategy. We would like to see a requirement for this in the Bill, backed up by the detail of the plan and the recommendations in the Lords report.
I genuinely hope that the Minister will reflect on that aspect of this debate, because something like this will probably come back. It was perhaps my noble friend Lord Rooker who made the point that, if the Government do not do it, it will happen anyway. I hope that the Government will take the lead in co-ordinating that, perhaps talking to the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, and others involved in the committee about how their recommendations could best be brought forward in the Bill. I am sure people will co-operate with the Minister, but this cannot be left as it is. Time is moving on and I am sure that people do not want me to talk any more, but it is not the end of this issue. For the time being, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.