Public Accounts Committee
Thursday 15th October 2026
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09:59
Geoffrey Clifton-Brown
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Geoffrey Clifton-Brown
Welcome back to the Public Accounts Committee on Thursday the 15th of October 2026. Today is the second instalment of our farming Week, in which we are examining the resilience of UK food supply to disruptions. On Monday, we heard from expert witnesses on topics such as the preparedness of the farming sector to major disruptions, as well as the government's engagement with food retailers, manufacturers and farmers about food supply and resilience. Today, we'll be looking to explore how Defra and the government are organised to improve food supply chain resilience, assess its preparedness for a severe supply chain disruption, and also understand how the department engages with industry and learns from other sectors and countries.
We will also be looking to take a local angle on this issue by questioning Defra on the local level, the level of local and societal preparedness for food supply disruptions. So may I thank all our witnesses very much for coming. And as is our usual practice, perhaps starting with you, Paul, introduce yourself and how long you've been in post would be really helpful.
We will also be looking to take a local angle on this issue by questioning Defra on the local level, the level of local and societal preparedness for food supply disruptions. So may I thank all our witnesses very much for coming. And as is our usual practice, perhaps starting with you, Paul, introduce yourself and how long you've been in post would be really helpful.
10:01
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10:01
Geoffrey Clifton-Brown
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Geoffrey Clifton-Brown
Very good. Well, thank you all very much. I am going to ask the first question, but before I do so, I should declare my members interests as a practicing farmer and chartered surveyor. So the first question is to you, Paul, if I may. Basically farming and food resilience are all part of the same coin, two sides of the same coin. So in 2023, we had a major disruption to the food chain.
So you had plenty of warning about what actions Defra needed to take to ensure our resilience of our food supply chain this summer or this year really saw major problems for farmers spike in input prices. Now we've seen the whole debacle, as Harry Metcalfe told us about on Monday of the SFI and five hours to get your applications in. The fertiliser tax. As if it wasn't enough for the fertiliser to increase increase by 30 to 40%.
Now, as a new fertiliser tax imposed by the government on the 1st of January, it does seem to me a bit as though on both instances Defra are behind the curve. What can you do to make sure that Defra is more prepared for these quite seismic world events, which affect the resilience of our food and farming?
So you had plenty of warning about what actions Defra needed to take to ensure our resilience of our food supply chain this summer or this year really saw major problems for farmers spike in input prices. Now we've seen the whole debacle, as Harry Metcalfe told us about on Monday of the SFI and five hours to get your applications in. The fertiliser tax. As if it wasn't enough for the fertiliser to increase increase by 30 to 40%.
Now, as a new fertiliser tax imposed by the government on the 1st of January, it does seem to me a bit as though on both instances Defra are behind the curve. What can you do to make sure that Defra is more prepared for these quite seismic world events, which affect the resilience of our food and farming?
10:03
Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
Thanks, chair. I mean, I wouldn't recognise your characterization as Defra being behind the curve, but I would absolutely recognise your characterization of the challenges facing farming at the moment, and particularly over the last couple of years. And for your assurance, nobody in Defra, at official or ministerial level is under any illusions about how difficult it has been over the last year or two years in particular. For many farmers, it varies. As your witness on Monday pointed out, it varies by sector and it varies by area of the country.
But overall it is definitely the case that farmers had have had a particularly difficult time over the last couple of years in terms of how that plays into questions about the overall food system. And perhaps if I just start by offering a reflection on the report itself, which isn't about farming, but is about the broader food system. I mean, I would say we would absolutely recognise what the report is setting out. I think we would share its analysis almost entirely.
It's a very helpful report. It's very well timed report from our perspective as we ramp up a programme of work. What it sets out is a food system which is actually extremely resilient, probably one of the most resilient food systems in the world in terms of its ability to respond to some of the acute challenges that it has faced over recent years. Be that as a result of geopolitical events, or whether it's as a result of the pandemic or the changes with the exit from the European Union, what we've discovered is we have a very resilient food system led by the private sector.
Actually, there is a role for government, but the resilience comes from a sophisticated private sector food chain when it comes to farming as the underpinning domestic production underpinning that food system, which would absolutely recognise the government has set out a clear commitment. I think this is unusual for government. It has set out a clear commitment to at least maintain and ideally grow domestic production over the coming years. That was set out in the land use framework earlier this year and also in the farming roadmap, which again, I think is the first time a government has set out a long term vision for farming in quite some time.
That is underpinned by sector growth plans. We're currently developing two sector growth plans around poultry and horticulture. Our other plans we I think we published the organic farm plan yesterday. So there's a lot of work going on to try and build the growth potential of the food system as a whole, both from domestic farming and from other parts of the food system, including manufacturing as well. And then in terms of government funding in this area, I think it's worth recognising that we are coming to the end now of what at very least, has been a seven year transition away from basic payments.
Some might argue that transition has actually been going on for decades, as we've moved away from unlinked payments, and government funding now is focused broadly in two areas. One is around the sustainable farming incentive and Elms more broadly to support farmers to move to more resilient farming that works alongside food production. So that's good for food production and good for the long term resilience. In terms of addressing some of the climate issues that you were just referencing.
And the second sort of funding we put out to farmers is, is more in the sort of innovation technology space again, to try and move to higher productivity farming. That's how the government now spends its money or taxpayers money for farmers rather than the unlinked payments previously. That's a that is a huge change for the sector, as they were sort of coming to the end of that enormous change which has taken place over the last seven years. And we are now seeing record levels of demand from farmers for SFI schemes.
Maybe we'll come on a bit more, I don't know, into the SFI particulars that you mention, but I think this year, for example, we have committed close to £800 million worth of new funding for farmers to support them to move to more resilient systems over the coming years. That's in addition to pre-existing commitments that will be out there through Elms, etc..
But overall it is definitely the case that farmers had have had a particularly difficult time over the last couple of years in terms of how that plays into questions about the overall food system. And perhaps if I just start by offering a reflection on the report itself, which isn't about farming, but is about the broader food system. I mean, I would say we would absolutely recognise what the report is setting out. I think we would share its analysis almost entirely.
It's a very helpful report. It's very well timed report from our perspective as we ramp up a programme of work. What it sets out is a food system which is actually extremely resilient, probably one of the most resilient food systems in the world in terms of its ability to respond to some of the acute challenges that it has faced over recent years. Be that as a result of geopolitical events, or whether it's as a result of the pandemic or the changes with the exit from the European Union, what we've discovered is we have a very resilient food system led by the private sector.
Actually, there is a role for government, but the resilience comes from a sophisticated private sector food chain when it comes to farming as the underpinning domestic production underpinning that food system, which would absolutely recognise the government has set out a clear commitment. I think this is unusual for government. It has set out a clear commitment to at least maintain and ideally grow domestic production over the coming years. That was set out in the land use framework earlier this year and also in the farming roadmap, which again, I think is the first time a government has set out a long term vision for farming in quite some time.
That is underpinned by sector growth plans. We're currently developing two sector growth plans around poultry and horticulture. Our other plans we I think we published the organic farm plan yesterday. So there's a lot of work going on to try and build the growth potential of the food system as a whole, both from domestic farming and from other parts of the food system, including manufacturing as well. And then in terms of government funding in this area, I think it's worth recognising that we are coming to the end now of what at very least, has been a seven year transition away from basic payments.
Some might argue that transition has actually been going on for decades, as we've moved away from unlinked payments, and government funding now is focused broadly in two areas. One is around the sustainable farming incentive and Elms more broadly to support farmers to move to more resilient farming that works alongside food production. So that's good for food production and good for the long term resilience. In terms of addressing some of the climate issues that you were just referencing.
And the second sort of funding we put out to farmers is, is more in the sort of innovation technology space again, to try and move to higher productivity farming. That's how the government now spends its money or taxpayers money for farmers rather than the unlinked payments previously. That's a that is a huge change for the sector, as they were sort of coming to the end of that enormous change which has taken place over the last seven years. And we are now seeing record levels of demand from farmers for SFI schemes.
Maybe we'll come on a bit more, I don't know, into the SFI particulars that you mention, but I think this year, for example, we have committed close to £800 million worth of new funding for farmers to support them to move to more resilient systems over the coming years. That's in addition to pre-existing commitments that will be out there through Elms, etc..
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10:07
Geoffrey Clifton-Brown
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Geoffrey Clifton-Brown
The the land use strategy. You cited that. Savills estimate that the loss of land farmland averaged 26,000 hectares every year since 2000. That would be more than 500,000 over two decades, nearly 10%, as the land use strategy envisages. If we carry on taking that amount of land out, if we get world shocks in terms of world events, if we get climate change, how is it that the government is going to maintain farming outputs as they are at the moment?
10:07
Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
So I heard you use those figures earlier in the week and did what good people do when they hear and go, is that true? And we've gone back in and looked at some of the data. I think that's a UK figure rather than an England figure. And as the as the Defra better placed, I think, to talk about the England figure, if you look at the amount of farmland there is in England, it is just shy of 9 million hectares.
That is about 68% of the total land of England. That is by far a larger proportion of our landmass than any comparable country. I think if you looked at most European countries, if you look at the states, it's much, much closer to about 50%. So we are very unusual in England in having quite so much of our land under agriculture. I don't see that as a good or a bad thing, just as a statement of fact in terms of how much land we have now compared with where we might have been 10 or 15 years ago, we have 1% more land in England under agriculture than we did 15 years ago.
That is about 68% of the total land of England. That is by far a larger proportion of our landmass than any comparable country. I think if you looked at most European countries, if you look at the states, it's much, much closer to about 50%. So we are very unusual in England in having quite so much of our land under agriculture. I don't see that as a good or a bad thing, just as a statement of fact in terms of how much land we have now compared with where we might have been 10 or 15 years ago, we have 1% more land in England under agriculture than we did 15 years ago.
10:08
Geoffrey Clifton-Brown
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Geoffrey Clifton-Brown
I'd like to examine that in greater detail, and we will do some work on that. In terms of food resilience, there's been quite a lot of criticism, as you see from the report, that Defra has worked up some plans, but it hasn't worked up those plans well enough in concert with the private sector and tested them out and discussed them with the private sector. It's all very well working out plans, but if you don't have the buy in of the people that are going to operate them, they cannot be as effective as they should be.
What do you plan to do to change that?
What do you plan to do to change that?
10:09
Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
Yeah, I think I think that's a very fair analysis. So I completely agree with it. Just just to clarify, I think the reference in the report is to our playbooks and the fact that we haven't shared those playbooks. I wouldn't share those playbooks. And the reason I wouldn't share them is I don't think they'll add any value to the people we would share them with. It's basically a playbook of how we stand up particular operations within the department, how we set up teams, how we communicate with ministers, with the press office, etc.
they're very much internal manuals for Defra to make sure that we are equipped to set things up fast. We similarly have a playbook on a national power outage that we all hold in hard copy. As you can imagine for what happens in a national power outage. So they are internal manuals of how we respond quickly in the event of certain crises. And that said, I think the gap that the Nao identify about having a shared plan with different stakeholders for different events is absolutely correct, and we are working towards exactly that.
We had a first meeting of a new group, a food readiness group, I think it was last week or the week before where we were. We are bringing together people from right across the food chain, including logistics and the cold chain and retailers, and then also a lot of the local responders as well, be they lrfs or the voluntary sector, to try and form a clearer national framework that will run through various different scenarios that we all need to collectively respond to and have clearer agreements on the sort of triggers and intervention points and the roles and responsibilities.
And that will be a shared plan both in its development and then in its in who can.
they're very much internal manuals for Defra to make sure that we are equipped to set things up fast. We similarly have a playbook on a national power outage that we all hold in hard copy. As you can imagine for what happens in a national power outage. So they are internal manuals of how we respond quickly in the event of certain crises. And that said, I think the gap that the Nao identify about having a shared plan with different stakeholders for different events is absolutely correct, and we are working towards exactly that.
We had a first meeting of a new group, a food readiness group, I think it was last week or the week before where we were. We are bringing together people from right across the food chain, including logistics and the cold chain and retailers, and then also a lot of the local responders as well, be they lrfs or the voluntary sector, to try and form a clearer national framework that will run through various different scenarios that we all need to collectively respond to and have clearer agreements on the sort of triggers and intervention points and the roles and responsibilities.
And that will be a shared plan both in its development and then in its in who can.
10:10
Geoffrey Clifton-Brown
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Geoffrey Clifton-Brown
Access it from me. Something, again, I raised on Monday, and it's what the NFU call in their submission multiple and compound threats to our food resilience. You've got a major climate change problem as we had this year. You then go and get a massive disease outbreak somewhere else. When your discussions with that, those private sector or parts of the food chain, did you discuss this whole issue of compound and several different disruptions occurring at the same time?
10:11
Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
So, so perhaps a couple of points on that. And and the short answer is yes, that is exactly the sort of thing we want to talk about with this group, which will meet on a regular basis. The first thing, just distinguishing a bit between different sorts of risks that we face. And I think the again, the report helps a bit with this. When we say we think the food system is pretty resilient and has demonstrated itself to be resilient, we are primarily talking about acute risks there, and we know it's resilient because we face a number of acute risks, and we've therefore sort of stress tested it in in real to real effect.
And what I'm more worried about are two different sorts of risks. So one, are chronic risks. The most obvious being what we're seeing in terms of the changing climate and, and more extreme weather that we are facing. And that is what, you know, increasingly as I talk to farmers, that is the thing they are talking about. And and to be honest, they were talking about that before the summer and, and the heat waves and the droughts. And indeed for some, the wildfires.
So that is a that is a sort of systemic challenge that we face both in this country and globally about the changing nature of the climate and indeed, the loss of biodiversity. So so that is absolutely something we are we are focused on to my earlier point, that is why we are investing in the environmental land management schemes. We are to help farmers become more resilient to that. And then the second sort of risk that I worry about are the what we call the catastrophic risks.
They are untested. It is a good thing they are untested. We don't want to face catastrophic risks and have to have to have to face those. But, you know, the changing geopolitical circumstances mean that they are becoming more apparent. A national power outage is a particular risk. That would be very challenging, not just for the food sector, but of course, for many critical national infrastructures. So it is understanding not just the compounding effect of those different risks, but but how you respond to different sort of varieties of risk over time.
And then perhaps just to finish, worth noting that I think over probably the last five years, Defra has moved from being so therefore mainly not under my watch prior to me, but I've continued this process, I think five years ago as we went into the process of or six years ago into some of the EU exit planning, but also particularly the pandemic, we were not set up in the way that you might expect a national security department to be set up in terms of a central professional cadre with clear lines into Cobra and the national security.
We very much are now, over the last five years, we have built up that capacity, and there's a particular role for that central resilience unit to deal with concurrent risks and ensure that we are moving resource and capability around the department to do that.
And what I'm more worried about are two different sorts of risks. So one, are chronic risks. The most obvious being what we're seeing in terms of the changing climate and, and more extreme weather that we are facing. And that is what, you know, increasingly as I talk to farmers, that is the thing they are talking about. And and to be honest, they were talking about that before the summer and, and the heat waves and the droughts. And indeed for some, the wildfires.
So that is a that is a sort of systemic challenge that we face both in this country and globally about the changing nature of the climate and indeed, the loss of biodiversity. So so that is absolutely something we are we are focused on to my earlier point, that is why we are investing in the environmental land management schemes. We are to help farmers become more resilient to that. And then the second sort of risk that I worry about are the what we call the catastrophic risks.
They are untested. It is a good thing they are untested. We don't want to face catastrophic risks and have to have to have to face those. But, you know, the changing geopolitical circumstances mean that they are becoming more apparent. A national power outage is a particular risk. That would be very challenging, not just for the food sector, but of course, for many critical national infrastructures. So it is understanding not just the compounding effect of those different risks, but but how you respond to different sort of varieties of risk over time.
And then perhaps just to finish, worth noting that I think over probably the last five years, Defra has moved from being so therefore mainly not under my watch prior to me, but I've continued this process, I think five years ago as we went into the process of or six years ago into some of the EU exit planning, but also particularly the pandemic, we were not set up in the way that you might expect a national security department to be set up in terms of a central professional cadre with clear lines into Cobra and the national security.
We very much are now, over the last five years, we have built up that capacity, and there's a particular role for that central resilience unit to deal with concurrent risks and ensure that we are moving resource and capability around the department to do that.
10:13
Geoffrey Clifton-Brown
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Geoffrey Clifton-Brown
So there are other questions which I'm sure members will wish to probe there. This isn't totally a matter for your department. It's an interdependency with other departments, and it's all to do with the critical national infrastructure planning as well. But I'm sure members will wish to probe that. In the meantime, I'm going to move to Rachel Gilmore, please. Question two.
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10:14
Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
So, I mean, we already monitor a very wide range of data on exactly that question. So every three years, as required by statute, we produce a food security report which is published. I can't remember which chapter it is. I think it might be chapter three of that is specifically about food chain resilience. So that sets out a range of information. They are not targets and metrics in that sense, but it's a range of information, including data, which we track to see how we are doing on the overall state of food resilience and security in the country.
Alongside that, last year we produced the good Food Cycle Outcomes ten outcomes, which are referenced, I think, in the Nao report. I think one of the criticisms we faced is we haven't produced metrics underpinning those. We are in the process of producing metrics underpinning those, and I'd expect us to be putting those out relatively early next year, all being well. And of course, there are a range of other sort of public data and statistics that come out for further statistics came out today, which putting together, we can use to judge the overall resilience of the system.
One thing I would say is I don't think there's a single metric you can use. The report includes the production to supply ratio. That is quite useful metric, but if I'm honest, I don't think it's that useful a metric. When we're talking about food, food security and resilience. There's quite a lot of flaws with it. So it needs to be used alongside quite a lot of other things that you have a sort of basket that we can that we can assess.
Alongside that, last year we produced the good Food Cycle Outcomes ten outcomes, which are referenced, I think, in the Nao report. I think one of the criticisms we faced is we haven't produced metrics underpinning those. We are in the process of producing metrics underpinning those, and I'd expect us to be putting those out relatively early next year, all being well. And of course, there are a range of other sort of public data and statistics that come out for further statistics came out today, which putting together, we can use to judge the overall resilience of the system.
One thing I would say is I don't think there's a single metric you can use. The report includes the production to supply ratio. That is quite useful metric, but if I'm honest, I don't think it's that useful a metric. When we're talking about food, food security and resilience. There's quite a lot of flaws with it. So it needs to be used alongside quite a lot of other things that you have a sort of basket that we can that we can assess.
10:15
Rachel Gilmour
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Rachel Gilmour
So I don't know if you picked up in the news on Monday that there was a severe problem in France where refrigerators were hacked and the temperatures were increased, which of course led to disastrous outcomes. So with that sort of thing in mind, where have you got to with the planned update to your departmental outcomes framework? Have you got anything that sort of reflects incidents like that? And the very complex and yeah, complex hacking and things like that.
10:16
Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
So I might, if I may hand over to Helen to say a bit more about the work we're doing on cyber specifically. I mean, I think the case on Monday was interesting. So so I do worry about cyber. When I think about one of the things I worry about most, I worry about the chronic changes around climate. I worry about things like the national power outage as a sort of catastrophic, but hopefully very low risk.
And I worry a lot about cyber. And the reason I particularly worry about cyber is that the risks are getting greater. The focus on critical national infrastructure is getting greater. As the chief executive of the National Cyber Security Centre has set out publicly, and the degree to which aspects of the food system from from farm to fork are connected to the internet to a degree that some people are sort of not necessarily, you know, okay, with who would have thought that French fridges was going to be the subject of a cyber attack? There are there are lots of areas which could be susceptible to that kind of attack.
Now, the food system as a whole. And this this is it's one of its characteristics, which makes it quite different from some of the other critical national infrastructure systems. It's very, very dispersed. So unlike the energy sector, which has a relatively small number of sort of big critical assets, or the transport sector where you talk about airports, etc., very, very dispersed, but tens of thousands of firms out there. Now, to some degree, that's a vulnerability because you'd have to sort of guarantee the cyber security of all of those tens of thousands of firms.
On the other hand, it's a strength. The fact that, you know, if one of these firms goes down, there are substitute firms who will step in. And even recently, where we have seen a couple of supermarkets, you know, being subject to cyber attack. Actually, the overall food supply was was fine for, for, for the country. And nevertheless, the growing level of risk is something that I am concerned about. Again, I think a couple of years ago, we wouldn't have had a particularly strong understanding within the department about the cyber security risks facing facing the sector.
But I think since then we've made quite a lot of progress. I can I hand over to Helen to say absolutely.
And I worry a lot about cyber. And the reason I particularly worry about cyber is that the risks are getting greater. The focus on critical national infrastructure is getting greater. As the chief executive of the National Cyber Security Centre has set out publicly, and the degree to which aspects of the food system from from farm to fork are connected to the internet to a degree that some people are sort of not necessarily, you know, okay, with who would have thought that French fridges was going to be the subject of a cyber attack? There are there are lots of areas which could be susceptible to that kind of attack.
Now, the food system as a whole. And this this is it's one of its characteristics, which makes it quite different from some of the other critical national infrastructure systems. It's very, very dispersed. So unlike the energy sector, which has a relatively small number of sort of big critical assets, or the transport sector where you talk about airports, etc., very, very dispersed, but tens of thousands of firms out there. Now, to some degree, that's a vulnerability because you'd have to sort of guarantee the cyber security of all of those tens of thousands of firms.
On the other hand, it's a strength. The fact that, you know, if one of these firms goes down, there are substitute firms who will step in. And even recently, where we have seen a couple of supermarkets, you know, being subject to cyber attack. Actually, the overall food supply was was fine for, for, for the country. And nevertheless, the growing level of risk is something that I am concerned about. Again, I think a couple of years ago, we wouldn't have had a particularly strong understanding within the department about the cyber security risks facing facing the sector.
But I think since then we've made quite a lot of progress. I can I hand over to Helen to say absolutely.
10:18
Speaker 3
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Speaker 3
So we obviously learnt a lot as well last year from the attacks on the retailers. And one of the key things there was the relationships across government that need to step into place when those sorts of attacks happen. So working with National Cyber Security Centre and across the Cabinet Office and with us as well, we have been doing a lot of work, more intensive work at the retail end of the supply chain, doing some benchmarking exercises on what their cyber security levels are looking like, and using the cyber Assessment Framework, which is a national cyber Security centre tool.
And then because, as Paul says, there are tens of thousands of businesses, getting that intensive reach is incredibly difficult and not possible. So we also have things like there's has 96 guidance, which has the title of food defence protection and prevention from Deliberate Acts, which provides a wealth of guidance to businesses mostly aimed at SMEs, about how to protect themselves against these things. And I think the French supermarket attack is a really good example of how quickly when we heard that news, we stepped up National Cyber Security Centre, we're in touch with our retailers and we were checking with our stakeholders as well to see if there were any impacts here.
And then because, as Paul says, there are tens of thousands of businesses, getting that intensive reach is incredibly difficult and not possible. So we also have things like there's has 96 guidance, which has the title of food defence protection and prevention from Deliberate Acts, which provides a wealth of guidance to businesses mostly aimed at SMEs, about how to protect themselves against these things. And I think the French supermarket attack is a really good example of how quickly when we heard that news, we stepped up National Cyber Security Centre, we're in touch with our retailers and we were checking with our stakeholders as well to see if there were any impacts here.
10:19
10:19
10:19
Geoffrey Clifton-Brown
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Geoffrey Clifton-Brown
Can I just I mean, this is one of the committee's sort of continuing themes and this is legacy equipment, and the government has got an awful lot of it. And I think Defra has got an awful lot on it. And in its albs they are much more susceptible. Susceptible to hyper cyber attacks. Is this a real priority of debtors to do something about that.
10:20
Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
For its own systems? Yes, yes it is so. When I think about the department's own risk register, cyber is always at the top of that. There are 1 or 2 other things which are there as well, like the current position of the Weybridge site, the National Biosecurity Centre sites. But cyber security is basically at the top of the list, and we get quite a lot of time to it as a as an executive committee to understanding where we've got to in terms of our overall position.
You're right that we've got a very large legacy stack. So I think I think the Nao identified a few years ago that we had I think it was the second largest legacy stack in Whitehall. I've always wondered who has the largest. Are we? About 300 applications were in that legacy stack, which we thought were potentially vulnerable. We have remediated over 200 of them. We continue to work through that. So we are in a much stronger place now.
There is also quite a strong cross-government drive is now led out of DCMs, making sure that all departments are applying a clear framework, which is which is regularly testing our cybersecurity. We've also, within the department, identified a small set of business critical systems where we want to do even further work on those just to sort of double check cybersecurity. The biggest challenge is on cybersecurity, actually for both for department like ours, but also for the sector. Sometimes it's not actually the most sophisticated of cyber attacks.
It's sometimes relatively unsophisticated cyber attacks and human behaviour within large organisations that that makes them open. So some of this also is about training our staff to, to be able to sort of guard against that.
You're right that we've got a very large legacy stack. So I think I think the Nao identified a few years ago that we had I think it was the second largest legacy stack in Whitehall. I've always wondered who has the largest. Are we? About 300 applications were in that legacy stack, which we thought were potentially vulnerable. We have remediated over 200 of them. We continue to work through that. So we are in a much stronger place now.
There is also quite a strong cross-government drive is now led out of DCMs, making sure that all departments are applying a clear framework, which is which is regularly testing our cybersecurity. We've also, within the department, identified a small set of business critical systems where we want to do even further work on those just to sort of double check cybersecurity. The biggest challenge is on cybersecurity, actually for both for department like ours, but also for the sector. Sometimes it's not actually the most sophisticated of cyber attacks.
It's sometimes relatively unsophisticated cyber attacks and human behaviour within large organisations that that makes them open. So some of this also is about training our staff to, to be able to sort of guard against that.
10:21
Rupert Lowe
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Rupert Lowe
Thank you Geoffrey. Well, like you, I should declare that I've been an active farmer for 40 years in the Cotswolds with arable and sheep operations. And you mentioned the SFI, Paul. I'm one of the farmers who missed out on the bugger's muddle that I would describe your opening and closing of the window within less than a day, large numbers of farmers have missed out. They don't know what's happening now. You underspent your critical agricultural budget by over 350 million across consecutive cycles while you've cut direct support to farmers.
So I think most farmers would like to know fairly quickly what you're going to replace or what you're going to do to put right the fact that most people or a lot of people didn't get into this short term window. So I, I think that that is to me. And the first question I wanted to ask you is, do you think farming is a long term and food production and food resilience? Is it a long term or a short term project?
So I think most farmers would like to know fairly quickly what you're going to replace or what you're going to do to put right the fact that most people or a lot of people didn't get into this short term window. So I, I think that that is to me. And the first question I wanted to ask you is, do you think farming is a long term and food production and food resilience? Is it a long term or a short term project?
10:23
10:23
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10:23
Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
The scenario we're facing as a department is that we have gone from a world where three years ago we would open an SFI window and very few farmers would come forward seeking SFI agreements. We are now in a world where the opposite happens, where we open a window and the demand from farmers far exceeds the finite sum of money that we have to pay them, and we need to work out what do we do in that scenario? Now we we did various things in this SFI, SFI 26 to try and mitigate that risk.
So the first thing we did is we opened a window which was available to small farmers, only to give them privileged access. And to those who had no Elm agreement, you know, standing already. That window which went live in sometime in the summer, worked very well, was very orderly. We made £70 million available, and I think we spent 67 before basically the demand ran out. And we knew going into window two that demand was going to outstrip the available resources.
I think at the beginning in about August, the amount of money available in that in that pot for SFI window two was about £180 million. The Prime Minister, having visited farms over the summer and seen some drought, added £50 million into that pot. And we've subsequently added a further £20 million. And then finally, we added the £3 million that hadn't been spent. So we increased the pot by 40% in the weeks leading up. Even that was not enough.
When the window opened, the level of demand from farmers far exceeded the amount of money available.
So the first thing we did is we opened a window which was available to small farmers, only to give them privileged access. And to those who had no Elm agreement, you know, standing already. That window which went live in sometime in the summer, worked very well, was very orderly. We made £70 million available, and I think we spent 67 before basically the demand ran out. And we knew going into window two that demand was going to outstrip the available resources.
I think at the beginning in about August, the amount of money available in that in that pot for SFI window two was about £180 million. The Prime Minister, having visited farms over the summer and seen some drought, added £50 million into that pot. And we've subsequently added a further £20 million. And then finally, we added the £3 million that hadn't been spent. So we increased the pot by 40% in the weeks leading up. Even that was not enough.
When the window opened, the level of demand from farmers far exceeded the amount of money available.
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10:25
10:25
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10:25
Rupert Lowe
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Rupert Lowe
That level down a rabbit hole. I asked you the question. I think in most people's view that is not good management. So I think if we just park that for now, what I wanted to go on to, because the committee is very concerned about, I think, the long term resilience of food. And as we saw in Covid, it was largely the private sector that dealt with the issue, not the government. And I was quite concerned when I when I read that Defra is less confident about the ability of businesses to withstand shocks without government intervention in the next five years to ten years because of increasing risks and the potential for more severe disruptions.
Now, that to me says it all because I actually think, and I disagree with you when you say you're not behind the curve. I think Defra is massively behind the curve. So if you just indulge me for a couple of seconds, I'd like to just go through why I think you've been systemically weakening our food production and our entire food distribution, our machinery distribution chains, everything that basically we rely on for a long term plan for food resilience, which in an overpopulated island is crucial.
So I would say the British countryside is in a state of manufactured crisis. Decades of top down eco bureaucracy, ideological tax rates, structural underfunding and urban bias planning laws have pushed our foundational rural economies to the brink of collapse. That's that's my view. Okay. I think you've got farmers have been repeatedly let down, both financially and culturally by Defra's poor administration, decades of chaotic mismanagement under successive secretaries of state. Global events such as the Ukraine and Iran have caused massive spikes in energy, fuel and fertiliser prices and as a result, the UK's food industry and food supply, security and supply chain is fractured.
That's that's where I think it is. And I look at what you've done over my 40 years in farming. We've most recently had a PR on agricultural land that is going to dissuade people from investing in farms, as it is in small businesses. With BP, we've had fertiliser tax yesterday on top of massive increases in fertiliser. We've had staff continuity at Defra and ability at Defra is appalling and I've had first hand experience of that.
We've had the banning of sprays such as pyrethroids and fungal fungicides, as well as tinkering with seed dressings. We've had no no addressing of the supermarket oligopolies. We've got planning complexities, stopping diversification, we've got energy costs as a result of net zero, which are now the highest in the world. We have a weakening supply chain as a result of a lack of profitability. We've got an ageing workforce that is now on average.
Farming, as you know, is about 63 years of age, which is not an ideal situation if you're looking for long term security. The health and safety mafia has has caused endless problems and the farmers are going bust. So, so in your roadmap, which which I've had a look at, you mention resilience 15 times more often than you mention income, profit prices, etc.. So I think it's, I'm afraid, verbal baby food. And I look at things like this and I think, what on earth does that mean? Not much to me.
So I actually think, Paul, this is a systemic problem. And when you go into a company that's got a cultural problem, you have to change the culture. So do you think you need to change the culture at Defra? That's my question. As an elected MP and somebody who is concerned about Britain's food resilience.
Now, that to me says it all because I actually think, and I disagree with you when you say you're not behind the curve. I think Defra is massively behind the curve. So if you just indulge me for a couple of seconds, I'd like to just go through why I think you've been systemically weakening our food production and our entire food distribution, our machinery distribution chains, everything that basically we rely on for a long term plan for food resilience, which in an overpopulated island is crucial.
So I would say the British countryside is in a state of manufactured crisis. Decades of top down eco bureaucracy, ideological tax rates, structural underfunding and urban bias planning laws have pushed our foundational rural economies to the brink of collapse. That's that's my view. Okay. I think you've got farmers have been repeatedly let down, both financially and culturally by Defra's poor administration, decades of chaotic mismanagement under successive secretaries of state. Global events such as the Ukraine and Iran have caused massive spikes in energy, fuel and fertiliser prices and as a result, the UK's food industry and food supply, security and supply chain is fractured.
That's that's where I think it is. And I look at what you've done over my 40 years in farming. We've most recently had a PR on agricultural land that is going to dissuade people from investing in farms, as it is in small businesses. With BP, we've had fertiliser tax yesterday on top of massive increases in fertiliser. We've had staff continuity at Defra and ability at Defra is appalling and I've had first hand experience of that.
We've had the banning of sprays such as pyrethroids and fungal fungicides, as well as tinkering with seed dressings. We've had no no addressing of the supermarket oligopolies. We've got planning complexities, stopping diversification, we've got energy costs as a result of net zero, which are now the highest in the world. We have a weakening supply chain as a result of a lack of profitability. We've got an ageing workforce that is now on average.
Farming, as you know, is about 63 years of age, which is not an ideal situation if you're looking for long term security. The health and safety mafia has has caused endless problems and the farmers are going bust. So, so in your roadmap, which which I've had a look at, you mention resilience 15 times more often than you mention income, profit prices, etc.. So I think it's, I'm afraid, verbal baby food. And I look at things like this and I think, what on earth does that mean? Not much to me.
So I actually think, Paul, this is a systemic problem. And when you go into a company that's got a cultural problem, you have to change the culture. So do you think you need to change the culture at Defra? That's my question. As an elected MP and somebody who is concerned about Britain's food resilience.
10:29
Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
Well, I'm always open to feedback on what do you think is doing, do you think? I think the department is getting an enormous number of things right, and various things that I'd like to improve, and that is always going to be the case in an organisation which is large and complex and trying to deliver difficult things. If I talk about the SFI just from an administrative perspective, and we could have been sat here in a world where the system fell over because the RPA could administer it.
We're not we're in a world where the RPA administered a new application every two seconds during that window. And, I mean, that is an extraordinary achievement by the people in that organisation. So do I think they're broken? No, I do not. I think they're administering things in extraordinarily difficult circumstances when it comes to the overall state of farming in this country. It's also it's worth remembering that production, domestic production of food in this country, across most sectors is going up and has been over ten years.
The the supply ratio that I referenced earlier, that is in the annual report has been stable for about 20 years. So we're producing about 60% of the food that we eat in this country. In this country. That's twice as much as we were doing before the Second World War. There is a degree to which it continues to be a success story. British farming in this country, which we should be proud of. There is a role for Defra in supporting it through what are incredibly difficult circumstances at the moment, which are playing out on the ground through extreme weather, through drought, and that is what we're focused on doing, both through investing in environmental land management, which farmers want.
And it turns out they want more than we're able to afford to pay for or paying them through innovation grants and other productivity grants to move to robotics and more precision farming. That is what we're doing to try and help modernize the farming sector, and we're putting more money into the sector than ever before as a result of the spending review settlement that we've got.
We're not we're in a world where the RPA administered a new application every two seconds during that window. And, I mean, that is an extraordinary achievement by the people in that organisation. So do I think they're broken? No, I do not. I think they're administering things in extraordinarily difficult circumstances when it comes to the overall state of farming in this country. It's also it's worth remembering that production, domestic production of food in this country, across most sectors is going up and has been over ten years.
The the supply ratio that I referenced earlier, that is in the annual report has been stable for about 20 years. So we're producing about 60% of the food that we eat in this country. In this country. That's twice as much as we were doing before the Second World War. There is a degree to which it continues to be a success story. British farming in this country, which we should be proud of. There is a role for Defra in supporting it through what are incredibly difficult circumstances at the moment, which are playing out on the ground through extreme weather, through drought, and that is what we're focused on doing, both through investing in environmental land management, which farmers want.
And it turns out they want more than we're able to afford to pay for or paying them through innovation grants and other productivity grants to move to robotics and more precision farming. That is what we're doing to try and help modernize the farming sector, and we're putting more money into the sector than ever before as a result of the spending review settlement that we've got.
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10:31
Rupert Lowe
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Rupert Lowe
Clarity, the state undermine farming and and turn farmers. I mean, the question is, are you turning farmers into gardeners? Is that what you're trying to do? Because you are you heard in on Monday's hearing, you know, Harry was saying he has he has to take a risk planting crops now. You know, he's being encouraged not to plant food, not to grow crops, not to do the vocational things that a farmer is designed to do.
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10:31
Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
The Sustainable Farming incentive is specifically designed to work alongside food production. If anything, under this government, I would say there has been a shift in emphasis around SFI and Elms towards more support for food production to make sure that the schemes we run work alongside food production, and actually the future of food production on these farms depends on the quality of the soils, the quality of the water, the things that we are investing in now, which demonstrate a seriousness about the long term future of resilient and profitable farming.
10:32
10:32
Geoffrey Clifton-Brown
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Geoffrey Clifton-Brown
So, I mean, you heard Harry in our session on Monday. I have quarterly meetings with my farmers. I've been doing this for 34 years. I've been a member of Parliament. I have never heard those farmers before saying that they are thinking about whether they plant crops or not, because they don't know when they plant, whether they'll make a profit or not. That seems to me a pretty downcast industry. Add on that, whatever you think, and it was a gloss you put on it.
The management of that SFI was appalling, was appalling. And it does mean, I think it's self-defeating, because I think some of my farmers who had SFI or its predecessor schemes before now not having got it, will plough up all the environmental benefits that have been gained by this country over 20 or 30 years of subsidy. That seems to me ultimately self-defeating. Add to that the fertiliser tax which I referred to earlier, you as a minister.
If you're really thinking about the future of farming, having seen the spike in fertiliser prices and most farmers, whatever they farm, do , require to use fertiliser to a greater or lesser degree to actually impose a fertiliser tax. On the 1st of February, when you've seen those huge spikes in fertiliser cost, you cannot say that you as a ministry are really considering the future of agriculture because otherwise you would have altered and amended both those factors.
The management of that SFI was appalling, was appalling. And it does mean, I think it's self-defeating, because I think some of my farmers who had SFI or its predecessor schemes before now not having got it, will plough up all the environmental benefits that have been gained by this country over 20 or 30 years of subsidy. That seems to me ultimately self-defeating. Add to that the fertiliser tax which I referred to earlier, you as a minister.
If you're really thinking about the future of farming, having seen the spike in fertiliser prices and most farmers, whatever they farm, do , require to use fertiliser to a greater or lesser degree to actually impose a fertiliser tax. On the 1st of February, when you've seen those huge spikes in fertiliser cost, you cannot say that you as a ministry are really considering the future of agriculture because otherwise you would have altered and amended both those factors.
10:33
Rachel Gilmour
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Rachel Gilmour
But the geopolitical changes mean you must be able to take that sort of thing into consideration. You know, fertiliser is going up in price because of what's happening in the Middle East. And to add it, as Sir Jeffrey says, as an additional burden to farmers, certainly in my constituency, some of the most resilient farmers in the country on Exmoor who are absolutely on their knees. And the SFI thing, I mean, was just a disgrace.
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Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
I obviously can't talk about what representations we might make within government between different departments, but suffice to say, whether it is about fertiliser or the fuel costs that have gone up or any of the other things which some of your witnesses earlier in the week were talking about when the Middle East crisis hit. Our ministers are involved in cross-government conversations about how we could spend taxpayers money to support different sectors. We're always involved in those conversations.
There are difficult judgments that ministers have to reach within those. So I can't get into the detail of individual sectors, but I'll just say I'm not here to to respond to questions on tax policy, because that is not what I'm here to. leave the tax. I am happy to respond on the SFI. Yeah.
There are difficult judgments that ministers have to reach within those. So I can't get into the detail of individual sectors, but I'll just say I'm not here to to respond to questions on tax policy, because that is not what I'm here to. leave the tax. I am happy to respond on the SFI. Yeah.
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10:35
Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
And and and I agree with you, that worries me. I'm not here to try and put a positive gloss on the SFI window. I absolutely appreciate the level of frustration and indeed anger that is out there, and so do all ministers. I'm simply trying to explain the cause of that is that the budget available to my department is not sufficient to pay all of the farmers who wish now to do environmental land actions. If the committee has a sort of suggestion as to what I do about that, I'm all ears, but I have to administer the budget I have got.
It has always been administered on a first come, first serve basis. That has been the approach that's been taken through multiple sfi's it's, you know, inherently that's not an unfair way of doing it. And I think when you get into the scenario where now in where the demand for SFI is so far exceeds the potential budget, it is right that we look again at whether there is a different way of doing that. And ministers have signalled that that is their intention.
But, you know, the fundamental challenge we have is, you know, I can only administer the budget that I've got.
It has always been administered on a first come, first serve basis. That has been the approach that's been taken through multiple sfi's it's, you know, inherently that's not an unfair way of doing it. And I think when you get into the scenario where now in where the demand for SFI is so far exceeds the potential budget, it is right that we look again at whether there is a different way of doing that. And ministers have signalled that that is their intention.
But, you know, the fundamental challenge we have is, you know, I can only administer the budget that I've got.
10:36
Geoffrey Clifton-Brown
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Geoffrey Clifton-Brown
I understand that just as just as a comment rather than a question on the SFI issue. It was, to my mind, and the rest of the farming industries view entirely predictable because of the economic situation that farmers now find themselves in. So it was entirely predictable. And therefore, I think you should have been able to actually think about it and do something different rather than have this chaos that ensued.
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Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
And can I just say, I think we did. So I go back to the we increased the budget by 40% in the final weeks before. So we found every bit of money we could to put into into that budget. That's probably the most effective thing we could do. And we capped payments as well so that we could stretch the available money to more farmers. So previously, a quarter of all SFI funding went to just 4% of farmers.
And that's why we introduced a cap so that the money could be spread across more farms than was previously the case. And we supported farms as far as we possibly could by providing much more simple guidance in the run into the window seat that people were prepared, we actually reduced the number of actions available in order to simplify it. So we took numerous actions, and then we ran a first window so that small farms and those who weren't in Elm schemes could access it.
And that was a very, very orderly window. So we took a number of actions for exactly the reasons you're suggesting. In anticipation of the excess demand, there are only certain amount of actions that we can take to smooth that out.
And that's why we introduced a cap so that the money could be spread across more farms than was previously the case. And we supported farms as far as we possibly could by providing much more simple guidance in the run into the window seat that people were prepared, we actually reduced the number of actions available in order to simplify it. So we took numerous actions, and then we ran a first window so that small farms and those who weren't in Elm schemes could access it.
And that was a very, very orderly window. So we took a number of actions for exactly the reasons you're suggesting. In anticipation of the excess demand, there are only certain amount of actions that we can take to smooth that out.
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10:37
Clive Betts
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Clive Betts
Thank you. Chair, just coming back to the the supply chain, it's clearly very important, but it's a very complicated chain with lots of businesses. So engagement with those businesses and involving them in the process and preparedness is really important. The feedback I think comes in the report is that it got quite good during Covid, where there was a real need for that to happen, and then it sort of dropped off. Since then, there hasn't been as much engagement.
The various committees that were set up and working groups don't meet as often as they did. Is there a need to recognise the need for improvement in that?
The various committees that were set up and working groups don't meet as often as they did. Is there a need to recognise the need for improvement in that?
10:38
Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
Yeah. So this was actually probably the one bit of the report, which I didn't quite recognise the critique. And I know it's not coming from the now, it's coming from stakeholders. So I mean, either way, we would take it very seriously. The idea that in some way we have stepped back from engagement with the sector. I think there's a specific question about one forum that we used to run during Covid, which was very highly regarded, which was the Food Resilience Industry Forum, which was set up with, I think, over 150 organisations to help manage the crisis.
And to Mr. Lowe's point, actually, it was a coordination mechanism. The leadership was coming from from businesses. They were the ones solving the problems, but they were coming to the government and saying, look, if you could fix this issue, road haulier hours or this issue in the Competition Act, it will help us. And so we were in a sort of convening and response role, and that was very popular with the industry. We shut it down because it was a response mechanism to a particular crisis in in effect, it still exists.
We can stand it up very quickly. And, you know, it's all there, ready to be stood up if we need it. Thankfully, we haven't needed to. So it's a sort of success factor. And what we do do is we have a whole range of different fora that we do run on a usually a quarterly basis. Some of those are run by officials. Some of them are ministerial chairs, food strategy advisory board farming and food Partnership board.
I attended a number of those ones which ministers run. They will they will talk about issues of resilience, but they won't necessarily be specifically focused. They're not resilience forums, if that makes sense. So if you're talking at the Farming and Food Partnership Board about opportunities for sector growth, you are talking about the resilience of the of the farming sector, but you're not necessarily having the kind of conversation at the now invites around specific events. So what we have done is set up a new forum to address that, which is the food readiness group that I referenced earlier, which brings together people from right across the food chain, ads in local resilience forums, voluntary sector and other government departments with a view to developing a plan.
And that is both a forward looking rather than reactive and specifically focused on resilience.
And to Mr. Lowe's point, actually, it was a coordination mechanism. The leadership was coming from from businesses. They were the ones solving the problems, but they were coming to the government and saying, look, if you could fix this issue, road haulier hours or this issue in the Competition Act, it will help us. And so we were in a sort of convening and response role, and that was very popular with the industry. We shut it down because it was a response mechanism to a particular crisis in in effect, it still exists.
We can stand it up very quickly. And, you know, it's all there, ready to be stood up if we need it. Thankfully, we haven't needed to. So it's a sort of success factor. And what we do do is we have a whole range of different fora that we do run on a usually a quarterly basis. Some of those are run by officials. Some of them are ministerial chairs, food strategy advisory board farming and food Partnership board.
I attended a number of those ones which ministers run. They will they will talk about issues of resilience, but they won't necessarily be specifically focused. They're not resilience forums, if that makes sense. So if you're talking at the Farming and Food Partnership Board about opportunities for sector growth, you are talking about the resilience of the of the farming sector, but you're not necessarily having the kind of conversation at the now invites around specific events. So what we have done is set up a new forum to address that, which is the food readiness group that I referenced earlier, which brings together people from right across the food chain, ads in local resilience forums, voluntary sector and other government departments with a view to developing a plan.
And that is both a forward looking rather than reactive and specifically focused on resilience.
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10:40
Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
So I think this goes back to the question the chair raised earlier, where I think that was specifically about the playbook, which is our internal manual, and we have a set of playbooks which are for how Defra works internally. And I think it is absolutely fair to say that we don't have a single overarching framework or plan, which sets out the roles and responsibilities, every part of the system, that is the piece of work that we have begun. And we will use this Food Readiness Forum to readiness group to help us develop that, and we'll work on that over the coming months.
10:41
Clive Betts
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Clive Betts
Right. And will that also look at the the exercises you do to test resilience? And the fact, again, that businesses have said, well, they've not really been involved in those. And clearly that's absolutely key that if the exercise is going to be meaningful, those who are going to be actually engaged at the sharp end in responding to any crisis should be engaged in those.
10:41
Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
Yeah, I totally agree. So I think over the last four years, I'll bring Helen in to say a bit more. I think over the last four years, the Food Resilience team has been engaged with about seven different exercises for around cyber security and three others. And we definitely take the approach that exercising is absolutely critical to testing the plans that we have. That's very much government policy across the whole of whole of government. It's right that industry haven't always been involved.
They have been involved in some and actually the farming industry have been involved in a few more than is suggested in the report, which is about the food sector, if that makes sense. We also learn from actual ongoing crises. So, you know, over the summer we have obviously been dealing with the Middle East. We've been dealing with droughts, wildfires, etc. so we do lessons learnt around there. But I don't know if Helen wants to just add a bit more on exercising.
They have been involved in some and actually the farming industry have been involved in a few more than is suggested in the report, which is about the food sector, if that makes sense. We also learn from actual ongoing crises. So, you know, over the summer we have obviously been dealing with the Middle East. We've been dealing with droughts, wildfires, etc. so we do lessons learnt around there. But I don't know if Helen wants to just add a bit more on exercising.
10:42
Speaker 3
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Speaker 3
Sure, absolutely. So as Paul says, over recent years, we've done seven exercises. One of them was really notable. So one of the cyber exercises was about a cyber incident in retail. And we invited retailers in to join that exercise. It's always been incredibly challenging in terms of how we can do that, because they are all in competition with each other, and so we can't all sit around the same table and have a discussion about how one retailer would respond in front of the other retailer without getting into those blurry lines around competition law and what their approach would be.
But in this one, we found a fantastic format that worked, where they had their own space to discuss within their own business what they'd be doing, and we could come together as a as a group to discuss the bits that were appropriate to discuss together. I'd say that direct involvement isn't the only way that this happens. So in some exercises, what we've done is we've engaged with industry ahead of it to say, this is a scenario.
How would you approach this? What do you think you would be doing so that we can feed that into the exercise? And also, it's important to note that there are other that actually dealing with incidents is also how we learn and can be just as powerful as exercises themselves. And of course, industry are involved with those.
But in this one, we found a fantastic format that worked, where they had their own space to discuss within their own business what they'd be doing, and we could come together as a as a group to discuss the bits that were appropriate to discuss together. I'd say that direct involvement isn't the only way that this happens. So in some exercises, what we've done is we've engaged with industry ahead of it to say, this is a scenario.
How would you approach this? What do you think you would be doing so that we can feed that into the exercise? And also, it's important to note that there are other that actually dealing with incidents is also how we learn and can be just as powerful as exercises themselves. And of course, industry are involved with those.
10:43
Speaker 3
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Speaker 3
So the exercise that I referred to of where the retailers were involved is the one that's mentioned in the report as being the key one where the food sector were involved. We already were discussing with industry ahead of exercises without actually involving them in the actual exercises. And we completely acknowledge the report's suggestion that we need to do this more. And actually, the food group that met last week did a workshop on a national power outage scenario, where we did quite a desk based exercise of what could we be doing? How can we tackle the problems in this particular scenario? And that's something we'll also be taking forward.
So involving them in proper exercising, but also doing those desk based scenarios with that group.
So involving them in proper exercising, but also doing those desk based scenarios with that group.
10:44
10:44
Clive Betts
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Clive Betts
Okay. Let's move on to lessons learned elsewhere from elsewhere. Often it's the view. We tend to take a very narrow view. We can, you know, do it all and learn all our lessons. But obviously other countries have got similar problems. And just interestingly, you're coming on to the issue of the food supply chain and supermarkets and the problems they had in France the other day. Yeah. So how far are you learning from what other countries do? Are there examples where they are doing it better already that we can learn from?
10:45
10:45
Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
Yeah. Again, sorry, Helen, I might come to you to ask to to answer a bit more detail, but I mean, overall it's worth saying. So we do learn quite a bit from other countries. We're part of a NATO panel in this area. So we discuss regularly with allies what different allies are doing in terms of their own food security and resilience approaches. I think it's fair to say that as we develop the, the the new framework that I've been describing through this food preparedness group, we will want to be looking at different international examples.
We might be able to learn from a couple that sort of come up quite a lot, which perhaps we're talking about. So one is stockpiling. So the question is sometimes raised, why doesn't the government have a sort of central food stockpile or a grain stockpile? I mean, we used to as a country, I think we ceased sometime in the early 1990s, if I'm correct, or sometime in the 1990s. There isn't an in-principle objection, you know, some some sort of principal reason why the UK government doesn't have stockpiles.
Indeed, I think we do have stockpiles in certain other areas, like critical minerals or medical supplies. It basically comes down to a value for money judgment. And, you know, ministers collectively across government and indeed within Defra, thinking about the food system will have a range of options of what they can spend taxpayers money on to try and improve the resilience of the system. And it is not clear that having a national stockpile of food would be the most value for money way of enhancing the resilience of our current system.
That's not to sort of rule it out for all time, but just to say like, you know, it isn't clear that it would represent value for money for the UK in a way that it does for some countries because of their particular circumstances and geography. Perhaps the other thing which we are sometimes people would point to , where I think I'm more sympathetic to to learning the lessons is actually around household readiness, where I think there is a greater focus on communication and perhaps a different sort of social norm culture around being prepared for different events.
So we are working with the Cabinet Office at the moment about a a new readiness campaign that I expect will be rolled out in due course. Just asking people to take sensible steps around having, you know, bottled water and non-perishable food in the house so that they can cope, particularly in some of the sort of more catastrophic events that we're talking about, which hopefully will never happen. But a national power outage. Do you have enough food in the house that would get you through a few days? Things like that.
I think other countries tend to have more deliberate approaches on that than we've had traditionally. We do have an approach. We have a Prepare website, but actually we know that awareness and use of that website is very low.
We might be able to learn from a couple that sort of come up quite a lot, which perhaps we're talking about. So one is stockpiling. So the question is sometimes raised, why doesn't the government have a sort of central food stockpile or a grain stockpile? I mean, we used to as a country, I think we ceased sometime in the early 1990s, if I'm correct, or sometime in the 1990s. There isn't an in-principle objection, you know, some some sort of principal reason why the UK government doesn't have stockpiles.
Indeed, I think we do have stockpiles in certain other areas, like critical minerals or medical supplies. It basically comes down to a value for money judgment. And, you know, ministers collectively across government and indeed within Defra, thinking about the food system will have a range of options of what they can spend taxpayers money on to try and improve the resilience of the system. And it is not clear that having a national stockpile of food would be the most value for money way of enhancing the resilience of our current system.
That's not to sort of rule it out for all time, but just to say like, you know, it isn't clear that it would represent value for money for the UK in a way that it does for some countries because of their particular circumstances and geography. Perhaps the other thing which we are sometimes people would point to , where I think I'm more sympathetic to to learning the lessons is actually around household readiness, where I think there is a greater focus on communication and perhaps a different sort of social norm culture around being prepared for different events.
So we are working with the Cabinet Office at the moment about a a new readiness campaign that I expect will be rolled out in due course. Just asking people to take sensible steps around having, you know, bottled water and non-perishable food in the house so that they can cope, particularly in some of the sort of more catastrophic events that we're talking about, which hopefully will never happen. But a national power outage. Do you have enough food in the house that would get you through a few days? Things like that.
I think other countries tend to have more deliberate approaches on that than we've had traditionally. We do have an approach. We have a Prepare website, but actually we know that awareness and use of that website is very low.
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Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
Yeah, I think it's it's a really important question. So a couple of things. One is that the way in which families can or households can help prepare. Not all of it requires cost. Some of it actually some of the advice that I think will come out is already on the Prepare website or sort of cost free things that people can do, which is just sort of knowing where your torch is. If you've got a torch and, you know, bringing these things together.
I used to live in New Zealand for a few years, and it was absolutely common for everybody to have a sort of grab bag in the event of an earthquake or a tsunami where I happen to live. Luckily, we don't face those kind of things, but there's something about just having a kind of culture where people just know where things are. I think when it comes to sort of food and water, I think the message really is, you know, do it if you can, if you can.
For those of us who are able to afford having that, it is a good thing to do for everybody else because it means that when if there is some kind of event, you are able to look after yourself for a few days and it allows emergency responders to respond to those who are not.
I used to live in New Zealand for a few years, and it was absolutely common for everybody to have a sort of grab bag in the event of an earthquake or a tsunami where I happen to live. Luckily, we don't face those kind of things, but there's something about just having a kind of culture where people just know where things are. I think when it comes to sort of food and water, I think the message really is, you know, do it if you can, if you can.
For those of us who are able to afford having that, it is a good thing to do for everybody else because it means that when if there is some kind of event, you are able to look after yourself for a few days and it allows emergency responders to respond to those who are not.
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Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
Yeah, completely. So so actually, if I go back to the, I mean, we did a bit of a workshop last week on a national power outage, and we were talking with a national charity, which has a sort of reach in sort of 8000 different communities and organisations about exactly this, this kind of question. But how do you get food to people in the in the event of a sort of catastrophic failure like that? Just getting back to one of the lessons we learned from Covid was, you know, the existing system, private sector system is incredibly effective at responding to acute crises and getting food to the community level, but it's not as strong, doesn't know how to get it to the final mile as it was called, so we can get it to stores.
But how do you get it to households? And that's where actually that is where the government did play a role supporting voluntary community groups and others to make sure food got to households at that level. So it's very much part of the conversation we want to have through this, through this group.
But how do you get it to households? And that's where actually that is where the government did play a role supporting voluntary community groups and others to make sure food got to households at that level. So it's very much part of the conversation we want to have through this, through this group.
10:50
Clive Betts
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Clive Betts
So in terms of other sectors where you mentioned perhaps more awareness of the need to have a a resilience plan like energy, are you learning any lessons from them about how they go about it? They're recognising they're much more regulated and perhaps there's more powers with the regulator to organize the industry than there is in food.
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Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
Yeah. So I mean, one of the things that the, the Cobra unit does at the Cabinet Office is bring together lessons across the different 13 critical national infrastructures. One of the things we find in those lessons, actually, to some degree, is that food is a bit of an outlier because it is, unusually for a CNI, it is all essentially within the private sector and it is very, very dispersed across a large number of organisations. And that creates a bit of a challenge for us actually, to sometimes docking into the to to the systems.
And that is reflected in one of the comments that the Nao picks up in the report. From our own self-assessment around our CNI capabilities. But that doesn't stop us. You know, looking at those lessons, the particular question you have about sort of regulatory powers, I mean, in essence, we do not hold we government do not hold a set of resilience powers over the food sector. You know, the food sector is various regulations it has to respond to around, you know, everything from health and safety to labour laws to, you know, food standards, etc.
but there aren't a set of resilience standards in the way that there are for the energy sector, the water sector, etc.. That is one of the questions the Nao report I think is raising. Is that right? Should there be standards? Should there be a set of powers that government holds over the food sector if there is a catastrophic event? I think our sense of that is, well, as we've gone through quite a series of acute events, we haven't felt the need to reach for a particular lever.
There are things we've done through the legal system that are provided additional flexibilities in those circumstances, as I mentioned earlier, but it's not inconceivable. You could have an event which was so catastrophic that the government would need to reach for a lever, and it's at least sensible for us to be looking at that. I just think we need to make sure we you know, we will advise ministers when the time comes. We've got to set a reasonably high bar for a new regulatory imposition on the food sector.
You know, it has to be justified by, you know, whatever the event is we're looking at. I think last time I was in front of the committee, I was being held to account for how much we regulate and whether we can simplify and lighten regulations. So there's a sort of constant challenge to get that right.
And that is reflected in one of the comments that the Nao picks up in the report. From our own self-assessment around our CNI capabilities. But that doesn't stop us. You know, looking at those lessons, the particular question you have about sort of regulatory powers, I mean, in essence, we do not hold we government do not hold a set of resilience powers over the food sector. You know, the food sector is various regulations it has to respond to around, you know, everything from health and safety to labour laws to, you know, food standards, etc.
but there aren't a set of resilience standards in the way that there are for the energy sector, the water sector, etc.. That is one of the questions the Nao report I think is raising. Is that right? Should there be standards? Should there be a set of powers that government holds over the food sector if there is a catastrophic event? I think our sense of that is, well, as we've gone through quite a series of acute events, we haven't felt the need to reach for a particular lever.
There are things we've done through the legal system that are provided additional flexibilities in those circumstances, as I mentioned earlier, but it's not inconceivable. You could have an event which was so catastrophic that the government would need to reach for a lever, and it's at least sensible for us to be looking at that. I just think we need to make sure we you know, we will advise ministers when the time comes. We've got to set a reasonably high bar for a new regulatory imposition on the food sector.
You know, it has to be justified by, you know, whatever the event is we're looking at. I think last time I was in front of the committee, I was being held to account for how much we regulate and whether we can simplify and lighten regulations. So there's a sort of constant challenge to get that right.
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Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
I don't want to speculate too much on what are essentially sort of policy options, which ultimately I think would be the decision for Parliament, let alone ministers. But I mean, as I say, I don't think when we look at the recent history as the food sector has gone through various events, we have felt or, you know what, if we had the following big regulatory lever, we would have used it because actually businesses have responded brilliantly to these to these changing circumstances. But you could imagine a world where we're in a national power outage, where actually government intervention needed to be far greater for some reason.
And we want to know that we had the legal basis for doing that. We all always have, of course, the backstop of the Civil Contingencies Act. So if we were in a very extreme circumstance that that act would probably give us, again, the report touches on that. That would probably give us the legislative framework that we needed.
And we want to know that we had the legal basis for doing that. We all always have, of course, the backstop of the Civil Contingencies Act. So if we were in a very extreme circumstance that that act would probably give us, again, the report touches on that. That would probably give us the legislative framework that we needed.
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10:53
Geoffrey Clifton-Brown
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Geoffrey Clifton-Brown
I'd just like to in in follow up your first question, ask Helen. I think we need to consider the food sector as a holistic whole. We've spent a lot of time today talking about farming, the primary producers. You then go on to the how you transport goods from the farm and within the food chain sector. You go on to processing in one form or another, be it mills, slaughterhouses, food processing, or one thing or another.
And that, I think, has a problem in itself in that more and more of our food processing is being done outside this country, which is a systemic risk. You then go on to the retailers. When you consult with industry, will you be sure to consult with all those different parts?
And that, I think, has a problem in itself in that more and more of our food processing is being done outside this country, which is a systemic risk. You then go on to the retailers. When you consult with industry, will you be sure to consult with all those different parts?
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Speaker 3
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Speaker 3
Absolutely. So it's been really important in the setting up of this food group to make sure that we have representation from end to end. So it goes all the way from farming all the way through to hospitality with. So we want the group to be able to have a really strong operational conversations. And so we didn't want it to be too big, which has been an incredible challenge because of the size of the sector. So it is trade associations who can represent their part of the supply chain, but they represent the entire supply chain.
Because I completely agree with you. Everything has to work together.
Because I completely agree with you. Everything has to work together.
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Geoffrey Clifton-Brown
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Geoffrey Clifton-Brown
So just to follow up your emergency legislation, because I was going to ask about that, it'll save me asking you later on during Covid, Parliament obtained pretty strong powers pretty quickly from the Civil Contingencies Act 2004. So if you do need any particular powers, you could use that mechanism which would be more specific to the individual risk as it was with the Coronavirus Act 2020. Rather than having a blanket type of legislation now, which may not necessarily fit the individual emergency.
Yes. Good. Thank you. Good. Rachel Gilmore, please.
Yes. Good. Thank you. Good. Rachel Gilmore, please.
10:55
Rachel Gilmour
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Rachel Gilmour
Thank you, thank you, thank you. So, Helen, are you now saying that your playbook is has got the right amount of operational detail to respond to a severe food supply disruption? Because that wasn't what the suggestion of the NAR report was. So are you now saying categorically that you do have the operational detail?
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Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
What we're talking about developing is the sort of plan the now are suggesting that we develop, and that will set out the operational detail, and it will set out the roles and responsibilities of different parts of the sector in order that we can respond to different scenarios that may play out, if that if that makes sense. So so the short answer is no, we would not sit here and say, we've got all of that detail laid out. I think what we would say, and certainly when I talk to people who were involved in the pandemic response, which which I wasn't within, they would say it worked really well.
What we could really do with sort of codifying some of it. So we were sort of making it up as we went along. We'd be pretty confident we'd be able to do it again, but can we just actually write it down so that we're all really clear what we are doing? And that doesn't feel to me, sort of beyond the, you know.
What we could really do with sort of codifying some of it. So we were sort of making it up as we went along. We'd be pretty confident we'd be able to do it again, but can we just actually write it down so that we're all really clear what we are doing? And that doesn't feel to me, sort of beyond the, you know.
10:56
Rachel Gilmour
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Rachel Gilmour
You don't want to reinvent the wheel if the wheel is already there. Correct. You use the wheel again. Yeah. And I see that, you know, you're now talking about having done a detailed national plan, or at least having discussion around a national plan for food supply in the event of a national power outages. Because again, you were you were urged to do that in 2023. Are you now saying that you have done that, or is it part of an ongoing plan of action?
10:57
Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
It's part of ongoing work. So we've done quite a lot of work since the Mighty Oak exercise. That was a couple of years ago. We're focusing our efforts in three areas within Defra. So the first is around household preparedness. Talking about the issue earlier on that actually, that is one of the most effective things to build resilience and actually not just resilience in the food system, but just resilience nationally within, within communities.
And the second is looking at how we would get food to the most vulnerable. So that picks up Mr. Betts point as well. So that's the second area that we're focusing in on. And the third is actually recovery after a power outage and how we get the food chain up and running as quickly as possible. So we get it back as close to normal. So we're taking a fairly proportionate, focused approach in the work.
But they're the three priorities that we have at the moment.
And the second is looking at how we would get food to the most vulnerable. So that picks up Mr. Betts point as well. So that's the second area that we're focusing in on. And the third is actually recovery after a power outage and how we get the food chain up and running as quickly as possible. So we get it back as close to normal. So we're taking a fairly proportionate, focused approach in the work.
But they're the three priorities that we have at the moment.
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10:58
Speaker 3
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Speaker 3
So that's in our in our plan that we're going to have it independently assured. We're going to get somebody external, probably more than one person externally to test it. And also the actual process of doing it, that we will be running it by various parts of industry and the local tier as well to test it. But there will be an official independent assurance process of the external.
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11:00
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Speaker 3
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Speaker 3
The food system as a system is on the database that you're referring to. Knowledge base, cabinet office, critical national assets. This comes a bit back to the point I made earlier, that some of the ways in which government across government thinks about critical national infrastructure doesn't fit. brilliantly with a food system which is so dispersed. So as a starting point, the system at system level is is on there. But what we are now trying to do, we've learnt a huge amount about different aspects of the of the supply chain over recent years, partly because you go through these kind of events and you have to learn pretty fast.
And what we're now trying to do is. identify individual assets from within the food supply chain that would go on as individual assets within into knowledge base. What I'm not allowed to do is
And what we're now trying to do is. identify individual assets from within the food supply chain that would go on as individual assets within into knowledge base. What I'm not allowed to do is
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11:01
Sarah Hall
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Sarah Hall
Better in future. Correct. Is there a time scale? So there's different phases to the work. So there's some easier parts of the work where there are some very obvious assets that we'll need to go on there that we should have completed in about the next four months. There's a longer piece of work because of the complexity of the supply chain. We are looking at a set of products that in extreme crisis, you would want to still be.
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11:43
Speaker 6
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Speaker 6
We commence with Clive Betts. Please. Just to follow on with the issue about, you know. families who are strapped for cash, basically, and how they would deal with getting themselves resilient for any significant disruption in their food supplies. When I asked you before, we talked about poor families and particularly the reliance on food banks and what you could do there, I think some research has been done which indicates that to have a resilient package of food in the house, families have to spend about.
11:43
11:43
Speaker 6
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Speaker 6
Which is more than many of them spend on a month's worth of supplies food, let alone something they can just go out and buy tomorrow in the supermarket. So have you actually got a plan whereby you can actually fund supermarkets or get food to supermarkets, to, sorry, to food banks, you know, probably with the help of. supermarkets in a crisis so that the poorest families in the end, who are otherwise going to have no food at all and .
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