Climate Change and Biodiversity: Food Security

Viscount Stansgate Excerpts

Thursday 8th September 2022 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Stansgate (Lab)]

My Lords, what a pleasure to rise to congratulate the noble Baroness on her maiden speech, which I do on behalf of everyone present here today. She put a powerful and persuasive argument utilising all the expertise she could bring to bear. You would never know that the noble Baroness has been a Member of this House for such a short time. The House will recall that she took her seat on the last day before the Summer Recess, and here she is making her maiden speech four sitting days later. I do not know what the record is for the gap between being introduced and making a maiden speech—I dare say some Minister holds the record—but nevertheless for a Cross-Bencher it is a very distinguished way to start.

The research to which the noble Baroness modestly alluded, whether conducted at the Universities of Oxford, Cambridge or Bergen, or at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, is an example of how important it is that the House of Lords Appointments Commission can produce for this House people of the noble Baroness’s calibre. We are due tomorrow—though I understand a statement is to be made at 6 pm tonight—to discuss the Appointments Commission, but we will see. In the meantime, I congratulate the Cross Benches on the arrival of their latest Member. I hope she will not mind if I say this, but I have found since my relatively recent arrival that it is the almost intolerable good will of this House that is sometimes difficult to bear. I hope that I have conveyed just a hint of it in welcoming her speech today. The trouble is that I now have to make some remarks of my own.

I begin, like others, by saying that we all owe a debt of gratitude to the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, for introducing the debate in the way in which she did. You cannot imagine a more important debate than one on the future of the planet earth and our ability to feed ourselves. It is very timely, and I compliment the noble Baroness on the way she introduced it.

In my short contribution, I want to mention some of the risks of biodiversity loss, because biodiversity loss and climate change are two sides of the same coin. Biodiversity is a term we use to describe the variety and variability of life on the planet, from the biggest mammals to microscopic single-cell organisms. The diversity of life and the interactions between organisms are what create the natural ecosystems that in turn regulate the environment and make the earth habitable.

As the House will know, the Royal Institute of International Affairs, Chatham House, among many others, has drawn attention to the fact that biodiversity loss is accelerating by stating:

“Despite increasing recognition of the crucial role of biodiversity in maintaining human and planetary health, biodiversity is declining faster than at any time in human history, and perhaps as fast as during any mass extinction”.


That is a serious warning we need to take seriously.

I heard the other day that it is thought that by 2035 the National Health Service will be spending more money on the complications arising from type 2 diabetes than on cancer. That is a result, in part, of what might be called the “junk food culture” of the western world, because we are not necessarily eating the best or most healthy food. When it comes to mind-blowing statistics, I understand that the world is going to need to produce in the next 40 years more food than it has produced in its entire human history—which shows the scale of the challenge we face.

As the noble Baroness correctly pointed out, I think about two-thirds of the world’s plant-based food comes from just nine species of crop. The House really needs to know how vulnerable we are when we read a statistic like that, and the noble Baroness speaks with much greater authority than I do. The noble Baroness also referred to the resilience of plants, which is going to be crucial to our survival. Converting land to agriculture does not just destroy natural ecosystems such as prairies, grasslands and forests. It also deprives wildlife of the food sources and shelter that it depends upon to survive.

Beyond the destruction of ecosystems, the intensification of farming is also driving biodiversity loss. I think it is estimated that about 100,000 species of insects, as well as birds and mammals, pollinate more than two-thirds of the food plants that are responsible for about one-third of the world’s crop production. I am only in many ways repeating in a pale form some of the points made by the noble Baroness. The variability and availability of living organisms are essential to agriculture as they ensure that the natural processes can take place, contributing to important functions such as soil fertility.

There are one or two things that are going wrong, and I will briefly draw attention to them. Land use, which has been mentioned, is a major driver of biodiversity loss and many agricultural practices are unsustainable in the long term. I suppose the deforestation of the Amazon is the most obvious example.

Then there is corn. We have been growing corn for 9,000 years but, as demand for it has soared, one of the most worrying aspects is the loss of diversity within the crop itself. Studies have pointed to a troubling erosion of genetic diversity within corn crops that could impact the crop’s ability to be sustained and grown in future.

In the last 40 years there has been a reduction of about one-third in all insect pollinator species where they have been measured, while biodiversity loss in marine fisheries is likely to continue and global heating can threaten that recovery completely as the oceans warm and become increasingly acidified. That matters because about 3 billion people on the planet rely on fish for a whole host of their food intake. In light of the time, I shall close by saying that biodiversity loss is as great a threat to the world as the phasing out of fossil fuels.

Perhaps I could conclude with a word of hope. I think I am right in saying, although I am sure I will be corrected if not, that there has been some fascinating scientific research that hints at breakthroughs in the productivity of plants and the possibility of significant increases in, for example, the yields of soya plants that could make a big difference in a world with a growing population and significantly amounts of farmland lost to climate change.

I hope the Minister might say a word about the current COP 15 process in relation to biodiversity and when we might expect a White Paper from the Government in response to the recommendations of the national food strategy, as referred to by my noble friend among others. I look forward to hearing from the Minister in his reply, and I end by congratulating once again the new expert Member of the Cross Benches on biodiversity, the noble Baroness, Lady Willis of Summertown.