The Vegan Society attended three party conferences this year. Our Public Affairs and Policy manager, Alistair Currie, reviews a busy but productive few weeks
Politics in recent months has been everything but boring. Where traditionally, the first year of a government with a huge majority would be characterised by confident and bold policymaking, the year since The Vegan Society last attended party conferences has been like no other in living memory. At the time of writing, five parties are polling in double figures and instead of looking confidently towards the future, the UK’s still relatively new government is anxiously contemplating dramatic reversals at the next election and what it can do to avoid them.
For The Vegan Society, as with many other organisations and causes, it has been hard to be heard among the political noise. That’s one reason why this year we committed to a substantial presence at the Labour conference in Liverpool. With the government’s food strategy – the Good Food Cycle – at a sensitive stage, raising the profile of food and plant-based diets was more important than ever.
Liverpool life
Around 20,000 people attend the Labour conference, a wide mix of local and national politicians, party members, trade unions, businesses, campaign groups, lobbyists and journalists. This is an event at which connections are made and intelligence gathered. From fringe meetings to accidental encounters to exhibition stands, opportunities to spread the message and get a sense of how it is received are everywhere.
Last year, we hosted a successful fringe event addressing how plant-based foods can improve health. This year, we invested in a stand throughout the conference, another panel discussion and a team of five staff in total, including our CEO Libby, working in relays throughout the four days of the event.
Our focus was raising awareness of and winning support for the Ten Point Plan, a set of policy proposals to support a transition towards more plant-based diets that we have been closely involved in developing and which now has the support of nearly 50 organisations. We certainly found that other than at a handful of specialised events, few people even knew that the government is developing a food strategy, a telling sign of how low the issue currently is on political radars.
(From left to right) Kath Dalmeny, Fran Haycock, Claire, Shireen Kassam and Jim Dickson.
Spreading the word and making connections
Our fringe event, Healthy people, healthy planet: is food the magic ingredient?, helped to address this deficit. It was chaired by our Head of Campaigns, Policy and Research Claire Ogley with an expert panel consisting of Kath Dalmeny, Chief Executive of Sustain, Jim Dickson MP, Fran Haycock, Head of Sustainability at convenience food manufacturer Greencore and Dr Shireen Kassam, founder and director of Plant-Based Health Professionals. There was agreement across the panel that the food strategy is a critical opportunity to address a food system that is bad for our health and bad for the environment. Our speakers reaffirmed the role that a transition towards more plant-rich diets must play, but noted that food is a very complex issue for government, involving health, environment, business, the economy and science. There was some optimism that the government would be willing to take action, but a recognition that there is still much work to do.
Our stand received steady traffic, much of it from vegans or vegan-sympathisers wanting to know how they could help. We spoke to campaigners, councillors, MP assistants and academics, as well as receiving visits from supportive MPs Kerry McCarthy, Navendu Mishra and Irene Campbell.
MP Kerry McCarthy with Vegan Society Public Affairs and Policy Manager, Alistair Currie and Head of Campaigns, Policy and Research, Claire Ogley.
At fringe events, we heard from experts, campaigners and the new ministers in charge of the food strategy, Emma Reynolds, Secretary of State at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) and junior Defra minister, Dame Angela Eagle. Both have taken on their roles after the launch of the food strategy in July and were non-committal about the direction it might now take. We now know that the action plan for the strategy, detailing the actual goals and policies the government will pursue, is due for publication in the spring, making the next six months of lobbying critical.
Across the conference, we also spoke to a number of other MPs, MSPs and senior local government representatives, as well as representatives of businesses and other campaign groups. Our policy team is following up on all those meetings.
Vegan Society Research and Impact Manager, Alex Huntley and Councillor Sangita Patel
Beyond Labour
Elsewhere, we had a lower profile presence at the Liberal Democrat and Green Party of England and Wales (GPEW) conferences, both held in Bournemouth which is local to a member of our policy team. At the Liberal Democrats, we were able to talk to a number of target MPs, while at GPEW we were pleased to meet and discuss key issues with the new Special Interest Group, the Vegan Greens. As we are still far from an election, the Conservative and Reform conferences were not a priority for us, but we will be evaluating the value and cost of all conferences as we get closer to next year’s conference season.
Overall, our conference season this year was intense and exhausting but highly productive. We found and made many new friends and will be leveraging our new relationships as hard as we can to ensure that policies to support plant-based foods have the best chance of winning support.
Vegan Society Policy and Research Assistant, Mia Fidge
Take action
The conferences confirmed to us that there is very wide agreement and understanding among experts and campaigners about the positive role that plant-based foods must play in the new food strategy. It was also clear that there is some political caution about the issue and that it is vital it is raised up the political agenda.
The government’s strategy is focused on England, but is also relevant to other parts of Britain. Please contact your MP to ask them to support the Ten Point Plan by contacting ministers. There is a template email here but please feel free to adapt – as always, please ensure any correspondence with your MP is brief and polite.
Thank you for taking action. If you get a reply, please share it with us by forwarding to policy[at]vegansociety[dot]com
Subject line: Constituent request – please contact ministers regarding food strategy
Dear X
As one of your constituents, I believe it is vital that the government’s new food strategy promotes a transition towards more plant-rich diets. Very recently, two major reports, the global EAT-Lancet Commission and the UK-based Agrifood Network +, representing hundreds of scientists and policy experts, have both concluded that it is essential for public health and environmental protection for diets to shift towards more consumption of healthy plant-based foods and lower consumption of animal-based foods.
The government’s strategy – the Good Food Cycle – offers an opportunity to introduce policies which will make it easier for people to choose, access and afford healthy plant-based foods, and to support British growers and companies who produce and sell them. A set of proposals to achieve that has recently been produced and is supported by almost 50 commercial and civil society organisations working in food, environment and health. The plan is here and a one-page summary here.
Please contact Dame Angela Eagle, the Minister of State at Defra responsible for the food strategy, to ask her to adopt the measures in the Ten Point Plan proposal as part of the forthcoming action plan for the food strategy.
Yours sincerely
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