Bristol East MP and food waste campaigner Kerry McCarthy has been named as shadow Defra secretary in newly-elected Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn’s new cabinet.
McCarthy will take over from Maria Eagle in the position.
She has been in the news most recently after her Food Waste Bill, which includes new legislation to force supermarkets to donate waste to charity, won a second reading in parliament.
Elected in 2005, McCarthy has previously worked as a lawyer and as head of public policy at a consultancy. In the past, she has been a temporary shadow minister for work and pensions and a junior shadow minister to the treasury. She is also known to be a vegan.
“Delighted to confirm that the Food Waste (Reduction) Bill has been given leave to proceed – and wasn’t forced to a vote,” she wrote on Facebook. “Its second reading has been scheduled for 29 January 2016.”
The bill aims to address the “shocking and unsustainable” levels of industry food waste and oblige retailers to donate unsold food – similar to recent legislation in France.
It will also require large supermarkets and manufacturers to publish food waste figures across the supply chain, and require government to review its current system of fiscal measures, which makes it cheaper to sell food nearing its use-by date for anaerobic-digestion and composting, rather than for redistribution.
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