My Lords, it was extremely tempting, in preparing for my three-minute slot, to talk about the endless stream of disastrous public procurement decisions in the Covid
pandemic, which made the term “chumocracy” such a figure in media headlines, as the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes of Cumnock, just reflected. But I have chosen instead to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, by taking this opportunity to focus on the impact of procurement on the dangerous, disastrous state of public health; the UK’s responsibility, as chair of COP 26, to show the way in public procurement that benefits our poor, fragile, battered earth; and to add to that, as the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, did, the need for procurement that adds social value in our poverty-wracked society.
The Government tell us they want to be world leading in every area they mention, yet we are, once again, at the back of the pack in using public procurement to improve public health and the environment. Back in October 2019, I asked Written Questions of the respective Ministers what percentage of food served in schools, prisons and hospitals was organic or locally sourced. On schools, I was told that the Government had no information at all. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen of Elie, was able to tell me quite a bit on prisons, although not the specific information that I asked for. On hospitals, I was pointed to a forthcoming independent review of NHS hospital food that did indeed report last month. Henry Dimbleby’s initial food strategy report highlighted similar issues.
So it is good that there are signs that the Government are catching up with this agenda, even though they are many years, even decades, behind. In Latvia, for example, since 2014 it has been mandatory to apply green public procurement criteria in food and catering services in state and local government institutions. Finnish procurement for public food aims to assist the national goal of every adult consuming half a kilo of fruit, vegetables and berries every day. The city of Copenhagen aims to serve 90% organic food in public kitchens, favouring seasonal and diverse produce. For example, one tender included 86 different varieties of apple from seven different wholesalers.
What is striking about all these examples is that there is, tied to health and environmental criteria, a desire and outcome that focuses on local, small, independent producers, rather than the giant multinational producers of dull, tasteless, ultra-processed pap, which forms so much of British institutional diets. The health and environmental advantages are obvious, but since the Government tell us they aim to build back better and to level up, that must mean spreading out the economy, breaking up the hold of giant multinational companies and building up market gardens, local manufacturing and small independent businesses across the land. EU membership never stopped this, as my examples show, so the continuity the Minister referred to still provides a chance for a fresh start and a bid to catch up with so many of the nations that have raced ahead of us.
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