We are committed to tackling food waste and ensuring that food reaches those in greatest need. We have a new £15 million fund redistributing 19,000 tonnes of surplus food, and our simpler recycling reforms, which will come in from next March, will cut the amount of food waste sent to landfill. We hope that behaviour-change initiatives will also tackle food waste in the home.

Those are two absolutely brilliant green tech companies at the heart of my hon. Friend’s constituency. We are committed to halving food waste by 2030, and we support both those companies. Digital waste tracking will be in place from April 2026, and will be mandatory from October for waste receivers. That is part of tackling the organised crime end of things. Our circular economy taskforce is considering how we can go further and the potential benefits of a mandatory food waste reporting requirement for large food businesses.

Mr Speaker, you and I—and many others in this House—will remember that when we were younger, nothing was ever thrown out. When the cheese had blue mould, we cut off the edges and ate it. If food was coming near to the end of its time, the dog got it. Nothing was ever wasted. “Best before” dates on fresh food encourage judgment to be exercised before food is thrown out. Has consideration been given to making them law, to ensure that we do not throw away good food for no other reason than the date, which has no relevance to the quality of the food?

To be fair, the previous Government did something on food labelling and “best before” dates. There are certain rules around items such as eggs, about which we have to be much more careful. However, I share the hon. Gentleman’s view. We need to remove some of the packaging, so that people do not over-buy. We also need to teach people more about how to tackle food waste in their home, so that they do not buy more than they need, and they understand that they can freeze things like butter and cheese when they want to buy in bulk and save money.