Recommendation 19

HM Government · verbatim extract Acknowledged

The Government thanks the committee for these comments and joins them in recognising the outstanding efforts of workers in the food supply chain to keep this vital industry operational through such extraordinary and challenging circumstances. The Food Heroes campaign which ran at the height of the response was initiated by Defra to openly recognise the role that the industry played and to publicly demonstrate our thanks. We would like to put on record our gratitude for the hard work and sacrifices made by employees at every level of the food supply chain, food supply continued at the height of the pandemic, and ensured that the nation was being fed at a critical time. We are also grateful to the businesses, associations, recruiters, unions and expert bodies who worked with government during this period to ensure our response to the COVID-19 pandemic was robust, evidence-led, and ensured that the key requirements of the UK’s agri-food industry were at the centre of our policy-making decisions. Conclusion and Recommendation 20: Guidance on measures that businesses should take to protect workers, such as guidance on how to introduce social distancing and the use of personal protective equipment, was not issued quickly enough. We commend the processors, manufacturers, retailers and trade unions that developed and implemented COVID-secure working practices before the Government had issued satisfactory guidance. It is disappointing that guidance on social distancing in the workplace was only published in April. We recognise the pressure the Government, and in particular Public Health England, was under at the time. However, yet again, it appears that the Government was somewhat slow to react and support food businesses in dealing with the impacts of COVID-19 prevention measures. The Government should ensure that improved co-ordination mechanisms are in place between government departments, public bodies and with the devolved administrations to ensure that in any future disruption, guidance can be developed, cleared and issued more rapidly. This may mean better resourcing of critical specialist functions, so they have the capacity to meet unexpected surges in demand.