Food Security: Climate Change and Biodiversity Loss

Baroness Boycott Excerpts

Tuesday 17th May 2022 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Boycott]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the impacts of climate change and biodiversity loss on food security.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Lord Benyon) (Con)]

My Lords, in 2021 Defra published the United Kingdom Food Security Report, which examined the impacts of climate change and biodiversity loss. We have received the Climate Change Committee’s latest assessments of climate risks to the UK, which will inform the third national adaptation programme, due in 2023. Improving water security and soil health is crucial to food security and closely linked to the significant action we are taking to tackle climate change and biodiversity loss.

[Baroness Boycott (CB)]

I thank the Minister very much for his Answer. While the immediate situation in Ukraine is, as we all know, putting incredible pressure on the world’s food security and this will undoubtedly get more acute, we must not be lulled into thinking that this is the only driving factor. As the Minister said, droughts, fires, floods, desertification and deforestation are the drivers and causes of climate change and biodiversity loss, and indeed of food insecurity. Will the Minister give us a clear assurance from the Dispatch Box that the Government will not use any legislation from this Session to reduce the high environmental standards that have already been set, in the pursuit of getting more cheap food into the system?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

The noble Baroness has long experience in this area, and I assure her that the Government take this area of our responsibilities really seriously, not just domestically but internationally, where I believe we are a leader in trying to get the world community to come together to address global food security risks. The Pentagon, in a paper it published, called climate change the “risk escalator”, and it is. It will lead to further pressures on populations right across the world, and it is an absolute priority for this Government to help resolve it.