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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what estimate her Department has made of the (a) amount of crops ruined and (b) number of animal deaths caused by extreme heat in each of the last three years.

Defra has made no estimates of crops ruined by extreme heat in the last 3 years. Doing so will be extremely complex as the horticulture and arable sectors cover a broad spectrum of crops harvested at different times of the year. Yield, growth, and quality of crops will continue to vary by region, area, crop, soil type, water availability and fertilizer applications amongst other factors.

The UK has a highly resilient food supply chain which has coped well in responding to unprecedented challenges in the past few years.

We have no annual estimate of the number of animals (farmed, companion or zoo animals) that have died in extreme heat events in the last three years, although in July 2022 at least 4 million meat chickens died in the extreme heat in England.