The Case for a Good Food Bill

There was a strong sense of urgency in Parliament this week as MPs, Peers, businesses and civil society came together to back a Good Food Bill – and to launch the new Fixing Food for Good briefing. 

The event, hosted by the Food Foundation, Sustain and Green Alliance, brought together more than 100 organisations behind a shared goal: securing new legislation to fix a food system that is increasingly struggling to deliver for people and the environment. Dame Angela Eagle, Minister for Food Security and Rural Affairs, joined the discussion alongside cross-party parliamentarians, underlining the growing political focus on food security. 

That focus is well placed. The UK’s food system is under real pressure. Food prices remain significantly higher than just a few years ago, and millions of households are struggling to afford a healthy diet. New data released alongside the event highlights the scale of the challenge: 12% of households – equivalent to 6.3 million adults – are experiencing food insecurity. The picture is even more concerning for families, with 15% of households with children affected, impacting 2.2 million children. 

At the same time, global instability and climate change are exposing how vulnerable supply chains have become, while many UK farmers and growers are finding it harder to stay viable. 

Despite no shortage of strategies and commitments, there is still no overarching framework to tie food policy together and ensure it is delivered over the long term. That gap was a central theme of the event. 

A Good Food Bill would help address this by creating a clear, legally binding structure for action. While legislation can be harder to introduce, it is far more likely to drive meaningful, lasting change. Proposals include targets on diet-related health and boosting domestic production of fruit, vegetables and pulses, alongside stronger procurement standards to support sustainable, local sourcing and updated School Food Standards. In this sense, the Bill would build on – not replace – existing government ambitions, including the outcomes set out in the Good Food Cycle launched last year. 

Just as importantly, it would help scale up solutions that already exist. 

Programmes like Food for Life (FFL) are already showing how schools and public settings can serve healthier, more sustainable meals while supporting local producers and shaping food habits for life. Children in FFL schools are twice as likely to eat their five-a-day compared to those in non-FFL schools, and 45% of parents report eating more vegetables as a result of their child attending a FFL school. When food environments within settings are transformed, they can drive real-world change by making healthy and sustainable choices the easy option. Public food has a powerful role to play, setting the standard for what good looks like and delivering clear benefits for health, education and the environment. Alongside this, place-based action is helping to connect the dots across the wider food system. Sustainable Food Places (SFP), led by a partnership including the Soil Association, Food Matters, Sustain, Food Sense Wales and Nourish Scotland, brings together local authorities, businesses and communities to take a joined-up approach – tackling challenges from food poverty to climate impacts in a more coordinated way. The SFP programme, now active in more than 120 areas covering around a third of UK local authorities, has documented over 1,200 actions from 57 food partnerships, covering every part of the food system. 

These initiatives demonstrate what a better food system can look like in practice. But there was clear agreement at the event that the impact of existing solutions is being held back by a lack of long-term policy certainty. Businesses, farmers and local areas need a clear direction of travel to plan and invest with confidence. Too often, progress is undermined by shifting political priorities or short-term funding, while investors lack the certainty needed to support long-term change. 

A Good Food Bill could help change that – providing the national framework needed to scale and sustain this work across the country. Instead of isolated pockets of progress, it would support a more coordinated approach, with local innovation backed by long-term policy and stronger cross-government action to deliver health, environmental and animal welfare goals. 

With food security rising up the political agenda, there is a clear window of opportunity. As discussions at the event made clear, the question is no longer whether change is needed – but how quickly it can be delivered, and whether there is the political commitment to see it through.