Agenda item

Cabinet Member: Corporate Services

Forward Plan Ref: 2022/013

Contact: Vic Kurzeja, Director of Joint Property Team Tel: 07726 307813

Report by Corporate Director Commercial Development, Assets and Investments (CA6).

To action the Council motion.

The Cabinet is RECOMMENDED to

a)               Ensure that food provided at full Council meetings and all civic events is entirely plant based and, where possible, sustainably and locally sourced.

b)              Endorse a graduated approach to incorporating plant-based options for school meals provided by the council, in partnership with schools who buy this service and in line with School Food Guidelines.

c)               Agree to the development of an Oxfordshire County Council food policy to support the delivery of sustainable food provision and its disposal within the Council.

Cabinet had before it a report setting out some initial measures to enable the council to meet its strategic priorities following an approved motion to Full Council on this matter in December 2021.

Before considering the report, the Chair had agreed to hear a number of speakers.

Councillor Ian Middleton, who proposed the motion to Full Council, responded to complaints that the motion limited free will, noting that climate-focussed limitations on our lives were now commonplace.  Many organisations across the world were now recognising the part that food choice played. There was overwhelming scientific evidence that intensive livestock farming was one of the greatest contributors to global climate change.

The issue had never been about veganism which was a personal choice.  The previous administration unanimously declared a climate change emergency and this was what climate action looked like.  Councillor Middleton described the proposals as a positive outcome for local food producers, helping to inform a long overdue food strategy which prioritised sourcing from local producers.

He was concerned though that the recommendations did not clearly reflect aspects in relation to schools in his original motion and asked Cabinet members to clarify this in their comments.

Karl Franklin asked Cabinet to reject the proposal to serve only plant-based food and instead adopt a sustainable policy to promote balanced diets and help bolster the local economy.  He said that the local agriculture sector can be part of the solution.  By buying locally the Council would support growers, producers, processors, food manufacturers and distributors.

Karl Franklin quoted statistics to show that British beef had half the greenhouse gas emissions compared to the global average and the amount of antibiotics used on British farms had been reduced by over 50%.  He called on the Council to back British farming.

Linda Newbury stated that Councils, schools and organisations must take a lead in demonstrating that food can be both nourishing and sustainable, and that meant a move away from meat as a priority choice.  Farmers demonstrating outside County Hall last month carried placards asking Oxfordshire to support local food and farming. She said that the placard she brought with her carried an identical message.  They were essentially on the same side.

Linda Newbury added that when school caterers shift towards plant-based meals, there will be an overall reduction of cost, but meat will still be served on three days each week which was a legal requirement. This saving can be used to ensure that the meat served is produced locally and sustainably.  She believed that before this there had been no council specification that meat used in school catering should be locally sourced.

Jimmy Pierson, Director of ProVeg UK, a non-profit organisation whose main aim was to increase the health and sustainability of school food in the UK by increasing the quantity and quality of plant-based food in schools.  He noted that if the recommendations were adopted, the Council would be joining many other councils across the country that were embracing the benefits of plant-based food for the health of their residents and the health of the planet.

Jimmy Pierson added that feedback from children and from parents had been overwhelmingly positive.  He believed that the main driver for this shift was climate change with health coming second and the fact that it was also cheaper probably being a third driver.  He described the proposal as an example of climate leadership.

Councillor David Bartholomew, Shadow Cabinet Member for Finance, stated that he respected vegans and their belief, that he quite liked some vegan food but abhorred being commanded to eat it.  Previously at council meetings, all food choices were respected, with vegan, vegetarian, gluten-free, meat and dairy options readily available.  The OCC Director of Law & Governance had advised that the Equality Act 2010 considers veganism a protected belief – but no such protection is in place for those wishing to eat meat and dairy products.

Councillor Bartholomew noted that the Cabinet report watered-down the proposals in the original motion and he believed that the wave of negative publicity and pleas from farmers had some impact.  Paragraph 5.3 of the report said schools will now be compelled to have a vegan menu just once a week instead of twice a week but a ‘graduated approach’ referenced at paragraph 1 b) suggested this will increase.

He asked the Cabinet to think again and refuse to adopt the report, consider how a vegan would feel if the situation was reversed and Cabinet was instructing that only meat should be served at meetings.  In his view, change was best brought about through education and encouragement.

Councillor Sally Povolotsky stated that she was saddened that the part of the Council motion about ‘food waste’ being used in Members’ catering had been removed and requested that this be placed back into the decision being taken by Cabinet.  She had just started a community larder in her division based on food waste and it had already distributed 750kg in just three sessions.

Councillor Povolotsky advocated thinking globally and acting locally to make this food motion work as part of the contribution to reducing climate impact.  As a council, and a procurement body, it often felt like the policy was cheapest first, with little or no regard for the product lifecycle of the item. Sustainable farming was a major contributor to the climate objectives, and local provision was key at all levels 

School meals not only supported parents with the provision of nutritionally balanced sustenance for their children, but also fostered local jobs along the supply chains and community wealth building on the path towards a green recovery from COVID-19.  This was an opportunity to work collaboratively with our farming community and landowners to make a change, to feed our residents and make health and our climate key factors in decision making.

Councillor Bethia Thomas expressed concerns about the item, including how it was labelled on the agenda as ‘plant based food’ which she believed was a misnomer as it misappropriated much of what was discussed in the report.   

She advocated sustainability throughout the lifecycle of the food that we eat – not just production, but also distribution and disposal, and cited the network of Community Larders run by town and parish councils and a network of volunteers.

Councillor Thomas welcomed the fact that Cabinet was slowing the introduction of food reform in schools to make sure it was done correctly and asked that they similarly have a re-think about food at events, to consider the approach to waste food and excess packaging, promote the 30% reduction in meat and dairy that was set down in the food strategy and create a balanced and sustainable food offering at council meetings, and other events, with a wide range of food from local and sustainable sources.

Councillor Donna Ford, Shadow Cabinet Member for Corporate Services, stated that, for her, the school element of the report was the most important.  She believed that an awards-based approach would be more effective just as schools already do for rewarding good choices.  Children do not appreciate being told what to do and the result is often that they rebel.

Councillor Ford asked for clarity around the graduated approach advocated in the report.  She cited paragraph 5.3 which referred to introducing a dedicated plant-based day, once a week.  That was not incorporating options but was dictating a plant-based menu for 39 meals a year.  She asked that they be allowed the option of choosing what they eat.

The Chair thanked the speakers and noted that there was a lot of agreement, for example on issues such as the quality of food, local sourcing, seasonality and food waste.  These were all issues that will be addressed in the Oxfordshire Food Strategy.

The report was not about imposing plant-based food on anyone but it was about leading by example.  It was based on advice from health experts and climate scientists on the importance of reducing the amount of meat and dairy produce that we consume.

Councillor Duncan Enright thanked Councillors Middleton and Povolotsky for bringing the original Council motion and welcomed the discussion that it had generated.  It had shown the widespread agreement on the importance of locally based and sustainable food sources.  He looked forward to the discussions around the broader Food Strategy which will include issues such as sustainable meat production.

Councillor Mark Lygo spoke about ensuring that food plays a positive role in our lives and he wanted to ensure that the voice of the child was heard in schools which he believed was happening with a lot of discussion about food and food waste.  Healthy and sustainable food must be affordable and accessible for everyone.  It was also important that our food choices should have a less negative impact on the planet.

Councillor Calum Miller noted that Cabinet had recently passed a Social Value Policy which will allow the Council to give a weighting to local suppliers and local sourcing.  He hoped that this discussion would be reflected in the implementation of that and that the Council can work with smaller suppliers in order to make it easier for them to engage with Council procurement.

Councillor Tim Bearder noted that he represented a rural division in which farmers were key members of the community and countryside stewards.  He believed that they had been let down by government policies and left reliant on supermarket food prices.  The recommendations here were advocating for more locally produced and sustainably produced food and he supported them.

Councillor Liz Brighouse noted that they were talking about food waste in a county which had families in poverty where there was no food waste and that needed to be taken into account in the coming Food Strategy.  An important issue with school meals was the level of uptake among those entitled to free school meals and the level of uptake among others. 

Councillor Brighouse stated that only 14% of schools availed of the Council’s service and they were all smaller primary schools.  She asked that they agree these proposals and move on to the bigger issues of food justice and supporting farmers within a circular economy.

Councillor Pete Sudbury emphasised firstly that nobody was forcing anything down anyone's throats.  There were two main justifications for the proposals: the health of this planet, and the health of the people of Oxfordshire. What was good for people, was good for the planet and vice versa.

He stated that three quarters of farmed land was devoted to meat and two thirds of all plant-based food grown was fed to animals. That was not sustainable.  Oxfordshire farmers were part of the solution not the problem. Meat-eating should be a treat, not a staple, but it should be Oxfordshire meat, reared in climate-positive conditions.

Councillor Sudbury added that they were acting on this, working with National Farmers Union representatives to put in place a "Food Hub" to promote Oxfordshire-grown food to our supply chains, and the wider community.  Acceptance of this paper and the follow-through actions demonstrated their intent to lead from the front.

The Chair thanked all speakers for their contributions.  She said that the discussion had brought Oxfordshire into the spotlight and drawn a lot of attention to the importance of locally produced and sustainable food.  She put the recommendations which were agreed.

RESOLVED to

a)            Ensure that food provided at full Council meetings and all civic events is entirely plant based and, where possible, sustainably and locally sourced.

b)           Endorse a graduated approach to incorporating plant-based options for school meals provided by the council, in partnership with schools who buy this service and in line with School Food Guidelines.

c)            Agree to the development of an Oxfordshire County Council food policy to support the delivery of sustainable food provision and its disposal within the Council.