Environmental Improvement Plan 2023 Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
Viscount Hailsham
Main Page: Viscount Hailsham (Conservative - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Viscount Hailsham's debates with the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
Environmental Improvement Plan 2023
Viscount Hailsham Excerpts(1 year, 3 months ago)
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Viscount Hailsham (Con)
Will my noble friend reassure this House that the UK production of foodstuffs—preferably an expansion in the UK production of foodstuffs—remains a priority for this Government?
Lord Benyon (Con)
I can assure my noble friend that it does remain a priority for this Government. If he looks at the very first few lines of the Agriculture Act, he will see that it is beholden on the Secretary of State of the day to make sure that farmers are able to produce food sustainably. That remains an absolutely determined view right across government, but we also want to make sure that we are accepting that, if you deplete your natural capital, you are destroying the life chances of farmers of the future and you are not allowing the industry to produce the kind of food that the public want to eat. So we want to assist farmers, where they need it, to go on that journey to produce food sustainably; it is absolutely at the heart of our agricultural policy.