Question to the Department for Business and Trade:

To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the risks to the UK's supply chains of essential goods, including food, fuel and medicines, arising from the conflict in the Middle East; and what steps they are taking to strengthen resilience and contingency planning.

DBT continuously assesses supply chain risks, mitigations, and potential interventions. The UK’s economic fundamentals remain strong. Supply of inputs and commodities remains stable and generally well diversified.

As the UK imports very low amounts of petrol, diesel and crude oil from the Middle East, we have not experienced supply issues. The Middle East is not a major source of UK food imports. Government does not currently expect any impact on food availability for consumers.

Government has already acted to strengthen UK economic resilience, including expanding the forthcoming British Industrial Competitiveness Scheme (BICS) and restarting production at the Ensus plant.