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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether her Department routinely undertakes assessments of the potential impacts of restrictions to water for the (a) agriculture and (b) horticulture sectors by water companies on the availability of food.

Restriction of water by water companies are primely targeted at households and reducing demand to help conserve supplies. Water companies will impose restrictions on a tiered approach, starting with a temporary use ban and if the drought continues then apply for a drought order to ban non-essential use of water (such as window cleaning). Neither will impact the availability of food production. Only in the most severe droughts, where water supplies are threatened, would this become an issue. To impose this level of restrictions would require an emergency drought order from the Secretary of State.

Farmers involved in food production will usually take water direct from the environment. This is regulated by the Environment Agency using its abstraction licensing regime. The NFU are part of the National Drought Group, who monitor droughts and work collaboratively to manage water.’

During periods of exceptional drought, the Environment Agency has the power to apply restrictions on spray irrigation users through S57 of the Water Resources Act 1991. This is done to protect the environment. The Agency needs to have “regard to costs and benefits in exercising powers” before implementing them as outlined in Section 39 of the Environment Act 1995.

Food is produced and grown across the country. The UK has a highly resilient food supply chain, as demonstrated throughout the Covid-19 response and 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 61% of all the food we need, and 74% of food which we can grow or rear in the UK for all or part of the year, and these figures have changed little over the last 20 years.

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.

We continue to keep weather situations and any impact on our agri-food sectors under close review, including through the UK Agriculture Market Monitoring Group (UKAMMG). This was set up by Defra and the Devolved Administrations to monitor the UK market situation across all key agricultural commodities whilst also considering that the situation will vary by region, area, crop and soil type. We have also increased engagement with our valued industry colleagues to supplement Government analysis with real-time intelligence.