Richard Foord

My hon. Friend is spot on. A report produced last October by the University of Exeter and Chatham House highlighted the fact that climate change and environmental degradation are a real weakness in the UK’s national security strategy. Authors Tim Lenton and James Dyke from the University of Exeter contributed to that report, and talked about the national security strategy having a glaring blind spot for climate threats. The report specifically identified risks to the food supply chain as a critical concern, no doubt exacerbated by some of the challenges we have seen lately from Government policy around agricultural property relief and the proposed changes to inheritance tax. By contrast, Finland is a shining example, not just on food security but in many respects in relation to resilience. Finland has strategic food reserves, whereas the UK very much depends on real-time logistics, which poses severe risks when we see severe weather events, fuel shortages, or conflict. Another factor is the UK’s departure from the European Union. Until 2021 a significant portion of our imports came from the EU, and trade disruptions following the UK’s departure from that bloc have heightened the risks. Between 2018 and 2023, import volumes from the EU decreased by 6%, and it is not yet evident how the UK is compensating for the lost relationships with our European partners in terms of food supply resilience. The UK’s self-sufficiency in fresh vegetables—key in supporting the health of our nation—is at its lowest since records began. We are at just 53% for vegetable self-sufficiency. I have been involved in a campaign to have sections of British supermarkets that illustrate where products are grown in Britain or sourced in the UK, because at the moment it is easy in supermarkets not to know where food comes from. People are able to buy food from all around the globe, all year round. While that may be good in times of peace, we have seen during recent threats to global security that it may not persist. Threats to food security have reminded us of what we could see in the future for our national security, so let me move finally to the issue of defence and hybrid threats. Defence is no longer just about protecting against armed attacks. Over the Christmas period I read Keir Giles’s book “Who Will Defend Europe?” The chapter on hybrid threats is excellent at illustrating how such threats range from cyber-attacks to disinformation. Those forms of aggression from states such as Russia mean that when we think about defence, we must think so much more broadly than just bullets and bombs.