Asked by: Tim Farron (Liberal Democrat - Westmorland and Lonsdale)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps his Department is taking to help increase food security in the context of trends in the level of flooding brought about by climate change.
Answered by Mark Spencer - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The UK has a highly resilient food supply chain, as demonstrated throughout the Covid-19 response. It is well equipped to deal with situations with the potential to cause disruption.
Our high degree of food security is built on supply from diverse sources; strong domestic production as well as imports through stable trade routes. We produce 60% of all the food we need, and 73% of food which we can grow or rear in the UK for all or part of the year.
These figures have changed little over the last 20 years, and the Government is committed to maintaining the amount of food produced domestically to support our farmers and uphold our high food security.
Recent wet weather has created challenging conditions for farmers; however, the food industry is adept at managing disruption and securing alternative sources of supply when necessary.
UK consumers have access through international trade to food products that cannot be produced here, or at least not on a year-round basis. This supplements domestic production, and also ensures that any disruption from risks such as adverse weather or disease does not affect the UK's overall security of supply.
The government is in regular contact with the food industry to ensure it is well prepared for a range of scenarios, and we continue to take all the necessary steps to ensure people across the country have the food and supplies they need.
Asked by: Tim Farron (Liberal Democrat - Westmorland and Lonsdale)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, with reference to his Department's policy statement entitled Flood and coastal erosion risk management, published in July 2020, how much and what proportion of the £5.2 billion of funding for flood mitigation has been allocated to nature-based flood-prevention solutions.
Answered by Robbie Moore - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Environment Agency has estimated that between March 2015 and April 2021 it spent £20 million on natural flood management elements of wider flood defence schemes. This was in addition to the £15m natural flood management programme. There will be even more natural flood management in the £5.2bn flood defence programme from 2021-27, including £25 million funding to improve flood resilience through natural flood management, launched by the Environment Agency and Defra in September 2023.
Asked by: Tim Farron (Liberal Democrat - Westmorland and Lonsdale)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, if his Department will take steps to implement a comprehensive agricultural water management strategy.
Answered by Robbie Moore - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Defra recently published its Plan for Water to deliver a safe, reliable, resilient supply of clean and plentiful water – for our homes, businesses, for leisure and for wildlife that rely on.
We are working with the sector to put in place funding to encourage the establishment of Water Abstractor Groups for agriculture. These groups will conduct supply-demand balance assessments for Agricultural Water Resource Management Planning and conduct Local Resource Options studies to identify potential local infrastructure projects, to improve agricultural water supply resilience.
The Government and the Environment Agency also support the agricultural sector through the Water Management Grant, under the Farming Transformation Fund, for the construction of new irrigation reservoirs and the adoption of best practice irrigation application equipment, helping to ensure farmers have access to water when they need it most. Over the coming months, Defra will consider the option of launching a third round of the grant in the future.
To drive progress to reduce water pollution from agriculture, we have set a new legally binding target under the Environment Act 2012 to reduce nitrogen, phosphorus and sediment by 40% by 2038. We have published our Plan for Water, which sets out our commitment to implementing a suite of actions to tackle agricultural pollution including increasing the Environment Agency’s farm inspection capacity, doubling the Catchment Sensitive Farming advice programme, investing in slurry management to help farmers improve practices and introducing Environmental Land Schemes to pay farmers for the delivery of environmental benefits.
Asked by: Tim Farron (Liberal Democrat - Westmorland and Lonsdale)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what financial support is available to farmers who have just lost their harvests due to flooding since 1 January 2023.
Answered by Robbie Moore - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Government announced a significant package of support, via the Flood Recovery Framework, to areas in England that have experienced exceptional localised flooding as a result of Storm Babet. The Framework provides funding for eligible households and businesses and includes a £2,500 Business Recovery Grant for SMEs, including farm businesses, which have suffered severe impacts from flooding if unable to be recovered from their farming insurance, and Council Tax discounts. Farmers in eligible areas may also access grants up to £5,000 per property to install Property Flood Resilience measures where they have internal flooding to homes or business premises.
Asked by: Tim Farron (Liberal Democrat - Westmorland and Lonsdale)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what funding his Department has provided to mitigate flooding on agricultural land in each year since 2018.
Answered by Robbie Moore - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
As well as protecting more than 300,000 homes, the 2015-2021 £2.6bn flood investment programme worked with farmers to reduce the risk of flooding to nearly 600,000 acres of agricultural land.
Asked by: Tim Farron (Liberal Democrat - Westmorland and Lonsdale)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what proportion of agricultural land at each agricultural land classification grade was at (a) risk and (b) high risk of flooding in each of the last five years.
Answered by Robbie Moore - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Approximately 12% of agricultural land in England is at flood risk from rivers or the sea. Due to the complexity and processing required it is not possible to provide a breakdown over the last five years or at different risk bands within the time frame of a Parliamentary Question.
Asked by: Tim Farron (Liberal Democrat - Westmorland and Lonsdale)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, with reference to the publication by the Agricultural Industries Confederation entitled Powering productivity for sustainable food security, published on 15 November 2023, whether he plans to accept the recommendation on the creation of an independent food security committee.
Answered by Mark Spencer - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Government takes food security very seriously. The UK Food Security Report (UKFSR) contains a suite of indicators linked to the five food security themes outlined in the report. Defra is in the process of preparing the next iteration of the UKFSR which will be published by December 2024. We have well established ways of working with the industry and across Government to monitor, prepare for and respond to risks to food security. We do not have plans to create an independent food security committee.
Asked by: Tim Farron (Liberal Democrat - Westmorland and Lonsdale)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how many full-time staff worked in Defra Group Communications in each year since 2019.
Answered by Mark Spencer - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The number of staff who worked in the communications directorate since 2019 as of 31 March each year is shown below
Financial year as of 31 March each year | Headcount |
2018/19 | 228 |
2019/20 | 228 |
2020/21 | 234 |
2021/22 | 245 |
2022/23 | 222 |
2023/24 (to 31 Oct) | 238 |
Alongside the core department, the Communications team provides communications support for five of the department’s largest arm’s length bodies including the Environment Agency, Natural England, the Animal and Plant Health Agency, the Forestry Commission and the Rural Payments Agency. The teams work across all communications disciplines in support of the policy and operational priorities within each of these organisations. This includes media, planning, stakeholder engagement, digital communications and internal communications across the six parts of the Defra group.
As Defra Group Communications staff work in an agile way in multiple organisations, it is not possible to provide granular full-time equivalent figures for each part of the group, including the core department.
Asked by: Tim Farron (Liberal Democrat - Westmorland and Lonsdale)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, with reference to the Answer of 24 January 2023 to Question 123903 on Flood Control: Finance, how many properties have been protected by the Government's flood defence scheme since April 2021.
Answered by Rebecca Pow - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Government announced in March 2020 that the amount invested in flood and coastal erosion schemes would be doubled in England to £5.2 billion between 2021 and 2027 to better protect communities across England. Over 67,000 properties have already been better protected from flooding as part of this programme.
Asked by: Tim Farron (Liberal Democrat - Westmorland and Lonsdale)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, with reference to the Answer of 24 January 2023 to Question 123903 on Flood Control: Finance, what assessment her Department has made with the Environment Agency of the potential impact of inflation on the delivery of flood defence infrastructure programmes; and if she will publish that assessment.
Answered by Rebecca Pow - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Government is investing £5.2 billion in the 2021-2027 flood and coastal defence investment programme to better protect properties and communities across England. In April 2020, amendments were made to the Partnership Funding rules including updating payment rates to account for inflation.
We regularly review the impact of inflation over the six-year programme. Higher than expected inflation has caused challenges to delivery of all infrastructure programmes, including the floods capital programme; for instance, costs for materials and contractor fees have increased. Many projects have a contingency in their budgets that can help, and some costs can be managed across the programme.