Speeches by Zeichner.

“Of course it concerns me, and I would very much hope that, over a period of time, as we have these discussions with the sector, the plans we are putting in place, particularly the farming road map—we will come on to some of the other things that we are putting in place—will build confidence. But I do not underestimate …”

“That is a very good question, which I will go away and see if we can find the answer to. I suspect, as in so many other things, that there is always more that we can do, but of course we are dependent to some extent on international advice.”

“We will probably come on to the individual sector arrangements that are being made. It is at that level that we can have closer dialogue.”

“Absolutely I understand why it matters, and it goes to the heart of my and the Secretary of State’s vision for the future: that farmers’ farms are successful businesses. But I also would not want to unfairly criticise other parts of the food chain, whether it be the food manufacturers or the retailers that, in my view,…”

“Not necessarily; we have very efficient producers in our country.”

“I understand the point you are making, and I too see that discrepancy between the anecdotal accounts and what comes through in the scientific advice. Colin may be able to add a little more.”

“Whenever you have a situation where there is a strong level of power, there is always the possibility that that is hard for others who are price takers, essentially.”

“Well, two things. As I say, it is actually directly a DBT responsibility, but my understanding is that there is a current review under way, the fourth statutory review, which began on 20 March 2025. I am told that Ministers in the DBT are still finalising the exact arrangements for the review, but it is in line with th…”

“We want to look closely to make sure it provides good value for money. Obviously, decisions that devolved Governments make are their decisions, we do not always take the same decisions.”

“It was a temporary arrangement, effectively, so if nothing changes, it will become an annual negotiation in the normal way.”

“There is unhappiness, clearly, within the agricultural sector about the way they are sometimes treated. But I would not want to characterise the food system as being anything other than actually, overall, successful. We do have a successful food system in this country. I am trying to choose my words carefully here beca…”

“To tax and subsidies?”

“That is one of the legacy European Union schemes; we are currently looking at what we would do to replace that. We are in conversation with people on that, but it was a legacy scheme that came to an end.”

“I very much understand that, and I am very aware of it on a daily basis, I can tell you.”

“I suspect that I am going to answer in a similar way on a number of these questions. Some of these issues fall far more within the Department for Business and Trade remit, and that is who the GCA actually is accountable to. But my understanding is the Competition and Markets Authority did do an investigation into super…”

“I understand the point you are making. What I would just gently say is there is a fairly clear legal system around labelling, and labelling should not be inaccurate. Where it is inaccurate, there is a legal issue. But we are, as you rightly say, looking very closely at the whole issue of labelling and it should always …”

“Again, this will come through the review that is being carried out. But the case that has been made in the past against widening it is that its effectiveness has been that it has concentrated on those relatively few relationships directly with the retailers. On the anxiety about raising complaints, I absolutely underst…”

“I am afraid I am going to give you the same answer that you got from the DBT, which is that it is a matter for the Competition and Markets Authority, and for the reason I explained earlier: we think the Groceries Code Adjudicator is working well.”

“What is good is that this is an alternative income stream for farmers, which they can rely on into the future, but we have to demonstrate it is good value for money to maintain that support from the Treasury. I think Janet was going to add something.”

“What is different now is we are having an open dialogue about the future. I cannot quite remember exactly which period you referred to, but there was a series of false starts under the previous Government.”