Reservoirs: Protection from Contamination

Debate between Baroness Hayman of Ullock and Lord Harris of Haringey

Tuesday 3rd June 2025 Lords Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Baroness Hayman of Ullock) (Lab)]

My Lords, the Government’s first duty is to protect our national security and keep our country safe. Defra recognises that the drinking water supply is a potential target for hostile actors. It works with water companies and partners across government to understand and monitor threats to water supply and to consider responses as appropriate to protect the security of our water system.

[Lord Harris of Haringey (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend the Minister for that reply. As she knows, yesterday’s strategic defence review talked a lot about hostile actors sabotaging critical infrastructure. I wonder whether my noble friend’s department is being a tad complacent in talking simply about monitoring the threat rather than looking at what practical arrangements can be made. For example, how do we deal with a drone which is flown over a reservoir and deposits something in there? The panic effects of that being known to have happened and not necessarily knowing what the substance is would be enormous. Is my noble friend able to tell us what further steps are going to be taken to address this, perhaps with a little more urgency given yesterday’s defence review?

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

I refer my noble friend to a lot of the cross-government work that is taking place regarding security and state threats. Tackling the diverse range of state threats—not just drones but many other threats—requires a cross-government and cross-society response. We need to draw on the skills, the resources and the remits of different departments and operational partners. In Defra, we work closely to look at the threats and the appropriate levels of response, specifically drawing on expert advice from the National Protective Security Authority, the National Cyber Security Centre and the Home Office, as well as carrying out threat assessment with policing partners.

Food Security

Debate between Baroness Hayman of Ullock and Lord Harris of Haringey

Monday 2nd December 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

My Lords, clearly it is important that we have good nutrition for our children, which is why we have worked with schools around breakfast clubs, for example, because it is very important that children receive nutrition, especially at a young age. This is something we are working with the Department of Health and Social Care on. One of the important things this Government are doing is working much more across departmental policy areas in order to ensure that we get the kinds of results that support the policy areas the noble Baroness referred to.

[Lord Harris of Haringey (Lab)]

My Lords, the Minister has talked about food security and we have heard a number of issues raised about different challenges to it—there are in fact a huge number. My noble friend Lord Browne talked about the weaponisation of food supplies. We know about disruptions to transport and about climate interruptions. Is not strange, therefore, that the national risk register put forward by the previous Government barely mentions food security, except in the context of contamination. Can my noble friend the Minister tell us whether this will be looked at, so the potential threats to food security in this country are looked at in the round, to coin a phrase?

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

Absolutely; my noble friend makes an important point. We look at overall household food security. In the financial year ending 2022, some 7% of households in the UK were considered to be food insecure. The Family Resources Survey 2022-23 found that the proportion of food-secure households decreased from 92% in 2019-20 to 90% in 2022-23. So this is something we do look at in the round.

Storm Bert: National Preparedness

Debate between Baroness Hayman of Ullock and Lord Harris of Haringey

Thursday 28th November 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

The answer is twofold. First, what do we need to do to reduce the likelihood of surface flooding? A lot of the nature-based solutions that we have been bringing in and discussing in the water Bill will help towards that. Climate change is having a serious impact, so we need to review the effectiveness of how we are working and have a long-term model. We have set up the new flood resilience forum, which will look across the board to consider floods that have taken place and how we can react better in future.

[Lord Harris of Haringey (Lab)]

My Lords, I refer to my interest as chair of the National Preparedness Commission. Given the need to mitigate surface water problems in all sorts of areas, what consideration is being given to tightening up the planning guidelines, which at the moment make it very easy for people to pave over what would otherwise be grassed areas or areas where there could be natural drainage?

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

This is a really important question. We have a planning Bill coming up, during the passage of which, as I understand it, we can look at this issue. As a Government, we have committed to ensuring that when we build, we build more high-quality, better-designed, sustainable homes, because we need to ensure that our built areas increase climate resilience and promote nature recovery. We have the National Planning Policy Framework, which has been consulted on, and that will inform better planning and sustainable growth for our built environment.