The Cabinet Office is putting out a report on Monday looking at UK food policy. It’s expected to say that one in 10 deaths - up to 70,000 a year - could be saved by people eating more healthily.

A third of cardiovascular cases and a quarter of cancer deaths are diet-related, meaning that eating five portions of fruit and veg a day could hugely reduce the burden on the NHS.

Monday’s paper is the result of a project by the Strategy Unit which began in September. The interesting thing though is what policy changes will take place as a result. A ban on advertising for the most unhealthy foods? Removal of junk food vending machines from stations and other public places? Higher taxes on high-fat products? Tax breaks for apple growers?

Given the strength of the food industry, I doubt it.

The report will also look at the hugely topical issue of biofuels. To quote from the interim report: “The FAO, IMF and others have highlighted that wealthy nations’ biofuel policies are set to have impacts on arable farmers’ cropping decisions, on livestock farmers (via feed prices) and to result ultimately in higher food prices.”

Ditto…

“The full climate-related impacts of farming, and especially livestock and dairy, warrant much more
attention – we need to look beyond CO2….. OECD country policies on biofuels could have unintended consequences for food-importing developing countries and poor urban populations around the world by contributing to higher food prices”

Perhaps it’s no co-incidence that the report will come out at the same time as ”Gallagher”, the long-awaited analysis of biofuels and their impact on the environment. My sources say it will be even more hard-hitting than a leak which appeared in the Guardian a while back.

Expect this message: the prime minister wants to put the brakes on the EU’s biofuels policy, which means ripping up jungle to make way for more fields - with an even more catastrophic environmental impact. Even “2nd generation” biofuels, which are made using the waste from crops, are not going to get a major thumbs-up, apparently. 

When 35 Labour MPs signed up to an EDM criticising plans to raise fuel tax in the autumn it was seen as a massive threat to Gordon Brown’s authority.

Was it really?

When you look at the list of current EDMs - some more riveting than others - there are several, critical of the government, signed by hundreds of Labour backbenchers.

Friends of the Earth made a good point today as the Climate Change Bill was debated in the Commons. The pressure group said an EDM calling for the emissions reduction target to be fortified from 60 per cent to 80 per cent by 2050 has attracted 257 signatures, including 167 from Labour.

This is far more than those who signed EDMs criticising the abolition of the 10p tax rate, let alone the fuel tax change. Yet the government continues to fob off this tide of criticism with vague promises to review the emissions target (and the tangential issue of including aviation fumes.)

Interestingly, of the five most “signed” EDMs, four are on environmental issues (buildings’ energy performance, amphibian extinction, feed-in tariffs).  Are party leaders - backpedalling rapidly on green policies - in tune with their own MPs?  

It was Sian Berry, the Green candidate for London mayor, who told me - a while back - that people care less about the environment during difficult economic times.

“In about the mid-1980s, environmental issues started to appear spontaneously, and it kept rising up to 1989,” says Ms Berry. “At the top of the economic cycle it was considered more important than health and immigration. During the recession it dropped like a stone.”

There is even a word for it: Maslow’s theory (look it up on Google).

Hilary Benn, environment secretary, will tackle the theme in a speech tomorrow in Washington.

“Some will say that these pressures mean that we must put our economic interests first - that we must choose economic stability over environmental stability. We need both. So I believe that this is a false choice….” he will say.

“We must resist temptation to put off dealing with climate change for another day, when the world economy is stronger.”

But there is growing evidence that green issues are sliding down the policy priority list; the lukewarm path to bin taxes and road taxes…the possible cancellation of autumn’s fuel duty rise…

Nor are the Tories banging the green drum any more. There was little or no mention of the environment in David Cameron’s big policy speech last week.