Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask His Majesty's Government what consideration they have given to establishing an advisory body to provide advice on food security, as recommended in the National Preparedness Commission executive summary report Just in Case: 7 steps to narrow the UK civil food resilience gap, published in January.

Defra recognises the importance of civil preparedness in resilience alongside industry’s role in responding to supply chain disruptions. Officials have been reviewing with interest the recommendations of ‘Just in case: 7 steps to narrow the UK civil food resilience gap’ since its publication on 6 February 2025.

Food is one of the 13 Critical National Infrastructure sectors in the UK and Defra takes its role as Lead Government Department for food supply very seriously. Defra works closely with the resilience and CNI community across government to ensure impacts to food supply are considered in risk assessments and contingency planning.