New figures show Government is buying more British

The figures show an increase across 13 out of 21 departments in Whitehall, with 99 per cent of all milk and eggs now coming from Britain.

Defra topped the list of Government departments, with just over 90 per cent of all its food coming from British sources.

The overall amount of British food bought by Government departments has fallen one per cent since the last report, however since then the Ministry of Defence’s non-operational bases and the UK Border Agency have been included in the report, making direct comparisons difficult.

Soldiers on active service are now eating only British pork and fish while hospital patients are only served bread made in the UK.

Despite the improvements on last year’s figures, there is still much room for improvement with British making up just two thirds of public procurement.

In particular, figures from both the Department for Communities and Local Government (DLGCO) and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office show only 57.5 per cent of their food is British.

Announcing the new figures, food and farming Minister Jim Fitzpatrick said: “The government is committed to helping local food producers compete for public sector catering contracts, and it’s great news that they’re increasingly offering the best value.

“Almost all of the Government’s milk and eggs are British, and more departments are switching to farm assured meat.

“We know that there’s still more that government departments could do, and there are areas where British producers could potentially be supplying more to the public sector. “

The report, takes into account food supplied to hospitals and prisons under contracts negotiated by the NHS Supply Chain and National Offender Management Service.

However, schools – which spend around £1 billion on catering every year – were not included in the report.

The Conservatives responded to the report by labelling the Government’s track record as ‘lamentable’ and promising to improve on the figures should they come to power at the next General Election.

Shadow environment Secretary Nick Herbert said: “Under a Conservative Government, all Whitehall departments will be required to procure food that meets British standards of production, wherever it can be achieved without increasing overall costs.  And all the evidence is that local food needn’t cost more – in fact, it often leads to savings.

“We don’t want to stop there – we want to lead a sustainable procurement drive across the public sector, in schools, hospitals and local authorities.  We’re taking this action because we care about local food and we care about the countryside.  If only the same could be said of this Government.”

For more details on how much British food each Government department is buying, see the table on the right.

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