SNP food price controls or socialist nationalisation?
A key pledge from the SNP election manifesto was to limit the cost of up to 50 essential items such as milk, eggs, cheese and rice.
It is likely that the new SNP-led Scottish government will attempt to implement the legislation, which it describes as a cost of living and health measure combined.
Predictably, the measure has been criticised by the retail industry for penalising the “competitiveness” of the sector. But will it be implemented and what will its impact be on price inflation?
After all, the cost of food has increased dramatically and is set to increase still further as the consequences of the war on Iran hits food costs even further later this year.
Food costs in the UK are almost 40% higher than they were in 2020. This has lead to more than 14 million people currently suffering from food insecurity.
At the same time the profits for the big food producers and the food retail sector have ballooned. The combined net profits of the big three supermarkets – Asda, Tesco and Sainsburys – in 2021/2 were £3.2 billion: double the £1.6 billion they’d made before the pandemic in 2019. And for 2023/24, it was £5.3 billion.
The SNP proposals are not likely to move the dial on food poverty. That’s because as it stands, the big supermarkets would, under the proposals, be required to cap the cost of just one variety of the listed items, such as just one particular brand of bread.
Leaving the vast majority of the food items, and supermarket profits, untouched by the legislation.
What happens if that one particular brand of bread sells out?
Will the legislation be able to prevent the supermarkets from putting up prices of other items to compensate? Socialists argue that you can’t control what you don’t own.
The key to dealing with food insecurity is to nationalise the big companies that dominate the food producing and retail sectors under democratic workers’ control and management. As well as the nationalisation of land to prioritise food production that is sustainable and affordable.
poverty amid plenty
This, alongside the introduction of a living minimum wage and benefit increases to match the cost of living, would help get to the root cause of hunger and insecurity; poverty amid plenty caused by the market and the capitalist system that profits from human essentials like food, energy and housing.
Socialist planning would mean these decisions would not be subject to the whims of a handful of capitalists, but democratically discussed and decided upon by elected representatives of workers and communities.
