Huw Irranca-Davies MP, Shadow Food and Farming Minister, responding to DEFRA’s ‘Plan for Public Procurement’, said

“This Tory-led Government has spent the last four years lecturing us all to buy British produce. Yet it has only today announced that it will introduce a new voluntary framework for public sector food procurement from 2017. 

“The Labour Party is a strong supporter of raising food standards across the public sector and recognises that Government food procurement plays an important role in setting a direction for the whole of the food system in the UK.

“That’s why in Government we published ‘Food 2030’, which makes clear the need to bring the whole industry together to develop a coherent strategy to ensure everybody across the public sector has the chance to eat safe, healthy, affordable and sustainable food, now and in the future.”