Tim Farron

I strongly support my hon. Friend’s food security Bill, and I will come to that in a moment. The loss of Gulf crude oil output since Donald Trump’s war began has been partly offset by draining stockpiles and other temporary reliefs. In the developed world, prices have risen and crippled many communities that I represent in Westmorland, as well communities across the whole country. So far, we have yet to run out, but the International Energy Agency warned just last week that oil inventories are being depleted at a record pace. Governments, companies and consumers therefore need to be ready. Are we? I do not think so. Energy security is now utterly urgent. If I cannot convince hon. Members of all the science that points to the need to tackle the catastrophic blight of human-made climate change, surely I can convince them that our energy security rests on domestically produced renewable energy: Putin cannot turn off the sun, the wind or our waves. Surely we should therefore rejoin the European international energy market and invest massively in the national grid. It is vital that we recognise, as my hon. Friend the Member for Glastonbury and Somerton (Sarah Dyke) wisely said, the importance of food security in all this. The United Kingdom is only 55% food secure. The outsourcing of our agriculture has become a national security liability. We need more short, diversified food chains, with more incentives to primary producers to grow food domestically. The problem is that England is now the only country in the United Kingdom and the only country in Europe that does not provide support for farmers to produce food. Perhaps we can agree that back in 2020, when the previous Government was drawing up the environmental land management scheme, which this Government adopted, that that was how things felt at the time. But the facts have changed. It is time to change our mind, and back our farmers to produce the food that we need. Food prices are projected to be 50% higher in November this year than they were in 2021. Agricultural inflation is double regular inflation, and is therefore feeding through to food inflation, which will harm our communities. We live against the backdrop of uncertainty. The technological and geopolitical shifts that we are living through include the threat to the very future of NATO, as well as Russian and Chinese aggression. Our energy, food and military resilience matters more now than it ever has before. We are fools if we do not respond. We are not a broken country. We are a brilliant country. But we are a vulnerable country. We should not be energy insecure or food insecure, should not have the smallest Army we have had in 200 years, and should not be decoupled from our allies in Europe, but the good news is that we can fix all those things if we have the will. That will mean uncomfortable choices and changed stances for many, but the facts have changed, so we need to change our minds.