National Resilience and Preparedness

Debate between Richard Foord and Edward Morello

Tuesday 7th January 2025 Westminster Hall

[Richard Foord]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and I shall now get into the subject of food security. She draws attention to the Government’s food security report. Since the 1980s the UK’s self-sufficiency in food production has declined, going from 78% in 1984 to just 60% today. The statistics emphasise what my hon. Friend said. As for the Groceries Code Adjudicator, my hon. Friend is dead right: we need supermarkets to honour their deals and pay on time.

[Edward Morello (West Dorset) (LD)]

I thank my hon. Friend for securing this debate. On the point about the reduction in food security—I think it is actually below 60%, at 58%—he, as my constituency neighbour in the west country, will know the importance of the role that farmers and food producers play in our community, but we have also just seen 18 months of the wettest months on record, following swiftly on from one of the driest summers on record, in 2022, and we know there will be a devastating effect on food production as we see increased extreme weather conditions. Does my hon. Friend agree that climate resilience and action on climate change will also be an important part of the national resilience strategy?

[Richard Foord]

My hon. Friend is spot on. A report produced last October by the University of Exeter and Chatham House highlighted the fact that climate change and environmental degradation are a real weakness in the UK’s national security strategy. Authors Tim Lenton and James Dyke from the University of Exeter contributed to that report, and talked about the national security strategy having a glaring blind spot for climate threats. The report specifically identified risks to the food supply chain as a critical concern, no doubt exacerbated by some of the challenges we have seen lately from Government policy around agricultural property relief and the proposed changes to inheritance tax.

By contrast, Finland is a shining example, not just on food security but in many respects in relation to resilience. Finland has strategic food reserves, whereas the UK very much depends on real-time logistics, which poses severe risks when we see severe weather events, fuel shortages, or conflict.

Another factor is the UK’s departure from the European Union. Until 2021 a significant portion of our imports came from the EU, and trade disruptions following the UK’s departure from that bloc have heightened the risks. Between 2018 and 2023, import volumes from the EU decreased by 6%, and it is not yet evident how the UK is compensating for the lost relationships with our European partners in terms of food supply resilience.

The UK’s self-sufficiency in fresh vegetables—key in supporting the health of our nation—is at its lowest since records began. We are at just 53% for vegetable self-sufficiency. I have been involved in a campaign to have sections of British supermarkets that illustrate where products are grown in Britain or sourced in the UK, because at the moment it is easy in supermarkets not to know where food comes from. People are able to buy food from all around the globe, all year round. While that may be good in times of peace, we have seen during recent threats to global security that it may not persist.

Threats to food security have reminded us of what we could see in the future for our national security, so let me move finally to the issue of defence and hybrid threats. Defence is no longer just about protecting against armed attacks. Over the Christmas period I read Keir Giles’s book “Who Will Defend Europe?” The chapter on hybrid threats is excellent at illustrating how such threats range from cyber-attacks to disinformation. Those forms of aggression from states such as Russia mean that when we think about defence, we must think so much more broadly than just bullets and bombs.

Community Pharmacies: Devon and the South-west

Debate between Richard Foord and Edward Morello

Tuesday 17th December 2024 Westminster Hall

[Richard Foord (Honiton and Sidmouth) (LD)]

It is an honour to serve under your chairship, Mr Betts. Growing up, people used to talk about going to the chemist, and at the time I saw that alongside going to the butcher or shoe shop—it was where we went to buy stuff. What I did not realise was how crucial pharmacies are to prescriptions and thus to people’s health and wellbeing, and I am ever so aware of that now that I represent a constituency in Devon.

Under the previous Government, in the last two years alone, Devon has seen the closure of nine pharmacies, leaving the county with just 133. For the people I represent in Honiton and Sidmouth, that translates to just 16 pharmacies per 100,000 people—even fewer than in West Dorset. That is partly because income for pharmacies has stagnated, particularly what they receive from the NHS, and that is combined with rising costs, including energy bills and wages, as well as the cost of medication. Altogether, it makes for an unsustainable financial model. Yet pharmacies provide over 1.3 million consultations each week for people’s health concerns, which is keeping people out of the NHS and saving 38 million GP appointments every year. Just last month, a pharmacist in Devon noted that his team spends over two hours per day providing free, unfunded clinical consultations, and those prevent health conditions from deteriorating, and prevent hospital visits and additional strain on the NHS.

[Edward Morello]

My hon. Friend raises a very important point: under the current funding model, pharmacists are reimbursed only if the consultation results in a prescription being issued. That results in a medicalisation of the process, which means that pharmacists are less likely to provide other sorts of solutions, such as community care. Does my hon. Friend agree that the model is fundamentally flawed and creates a medicalisation issue?

[Richard Foord]

It is flawed, particularly for those parts of the country that are rural and coastal, such as those represented by my hon. Friend and myself. In Honiton and Sidmouth, the average age of my constituents is 56. I went to a meeting of the all-party parliamentary group on ageing and older people last week, and we hosted Sir Chris Whitty, the chief medical officer for England. He described how, while in some societies people move away from the coast and rural areas to seek comfort and care in towns and cities, in England we do quite the reverse. That makes it even more crucial that we maintain our pharmacies in those rural and coastal communities.

In short, we are calling for the Government to provide funding to halt the closures and stabilise the sector, ensuring that rural communities such as those in Devon are not left behind. We want to see the role of pharmacists expanded to give them greater prescribing rights and allow them to take on bigger public health responsibilities.