El Niño

Baroness Grender Excerpts

Tuesday 8th September 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Katz (Lab)]

The noble Baroness is right to point out the importance of the Cunliffe report and the need to reform the water industry, but this is a very complex matter. As she noted, or at least implied, we are due to have a water Bill and, as was announced in the King’s Speech, it is coming. We will unveil further reforms as part of that process.

[Baroness Grender (LD)]

My Lords, does the Minister agree that it is faintly ironic for the Secretary of State to advise households to stockpile food when the UK has fallen to being 65% self-sufficient in what we eat? Given the UN’s warning that 50 million people worldwide face acute hunger from this super El Niño, what assessment have the Government made specifically of risks to British food security?

[Lord Katz (Lab)]

The comments my colleague the Secretary of State made simply called for awareness and preparedness. That is a precautionary route to take, rightly. As I said in answer to my noble friend, as it stands, the intelligence we have is that there is no evidence that the El Niño event will lead to food security issues for the UK. Of course, we work with organisations, including the UK Agriculture Market Monitoring Group, which monitors UK agriculture markets around issues of price, supply, inputs, trade and other recent developments, to keep this under review. As I said, as it stands, there is no evidence that this event will cause food security problems for our country.