Queen’s Speech

The noble Lord may enjoy responding to what I am about to say. During debates on the gracious Speech this House has rightly spent considerable time examining economic issues, particularly the implications for our domestic economy, trade and, indeed, the currency of the present financial crisis. However, a number of factors are converging to create a global crisis for food security which is every bit as serious as the global credit crisis, and is made even more serious by the global financial situation. It is therefore disappointing in the extreme that while the gracious Speech contains measures dealing with environmental issues, particularly marine and coastal access, which will certainly have minor implications for food security, the only other measure which can be said to impact on agriculture is a draft Bill, the Floods and Water Bill. It is hard to see that Bill, or indeed the Government’s attitude in general towards food security, as in any way an adequate response to the situation we face. The statistics are stark. Each year the world’s population is increasing at a rate equal to the entire population of Great Britain. By 2050 at least, if not before, there will be more than 9 billion mouths to feed in the world. At the same time, UN figures show that each year drought, deforestation and climate volatility are already taking out of food production an area equivalent to the size of the Ukraine. Thus, while we need to double food production by 2050, we will have to do so on a reduced area of cultivable land worldwide, and with fewer resources than at present. Climate change threatens production levels on existing land and will make some uncultivable. Worldwide water availability will certainly restrict output. The volume of food aid is now less than half what it was in 2000. The situation is therefore grave. It is because these facts are incontrovertible that the content of the gracious Speech disappoints in its inadequate response—one might almost say nil response—to this challenge. The Government have had rather a relaxed attitude to these issues for some time. In 2005 a joint Treasury/Defra report asserted that whatever food we in Britain might be short of, the world would supply. Margaret Beckett MP, at the Oxford Farming Conference, famously remarked: "““The world is awash with food for us to import””." This remark was rash at the time; it is now risible. A recent Defra analysis said: "““Climate change is likely to bring new challenges for food security, not of rich countries, like the UK, but of less developed tropical regions””." That will not do, especially for a net importer of food such as the UK. Surely, in addition to helping the developing world feed itself through aid and investment, we should right now stop importing the vast quantities of food that we can grow ourselves. Ten years ago we produced a surplus of pork; we now import a third of all the pork we eat. We ship in more bacon, lamb, eggs and chicken than we did 10 years ago. This is most emphatically not a protectionist point. Trade must continue to play an important part in food security, but the Government’s current view seems to ignore the growing global food security crisis in which, by increasing domestic production, we could help ease the pressure on stretched global markets. We have the infrastructure, soils, climate and skills to increase that production. This is significant because 2008 will go down as the critical year when more than 50 per cent of the world's population became city-dwellers. It would be unfair to imply that absolutely nothing is happening within Government with regard to food security. In the past year the Cabinet Office produced a report called Food Matters: Towards a Strategy for the 21st Century. This was followed by a Defra consultation paper entitled Ensuring the UK’s Food Security in a Changing World. In October Hilary Benn announced that a council of food policy advisers would be appointed. The noble Baroness mentioned this council in her opening remarks and I am sure that the noble Lord will wish to update us in his winding-up speech. Given the gravity of the crisis which confronts us and the world, I would have expected the gracious Speech to contain urgent measures, for example, to remove barriers to maximising domestic food production; to support CAP reform to make farmers more able to respond to consumer demands; to resolve the question of the contribution GM technology could make towards increasing food production and reducing agricultural costs; and, in particular, to address the 45 per cent reduction in funding for research and development in agriculture that we have seen in the past few years by reordering government priorities. It is hard to think of an issue of greater importance than feeding ourselves and helping to feed the world. The primary duty of any Government is to provide security for their people, and that includes food security. Frankly, a draft Bill on floods and water, reasonable and honourable though it may be, does not even start to address the challenges we face.