09:30 Clive Efford (Labour)

This Government have shown their commitment to tackling environmental challenges by showing leadership at COP26. They should now consider the national food strategy’s recommendations as part of their approach, because our food system is driving climate change and biodiversity loss, which threaten our future food security. Food production is responsible for 34% of global emissions and is the leading cause of nature’s decline. The current system has driven huge losses in biodiversity, from deforestation in the Amazon to intensive industrial farming in the UK. In the future, climate change threatens to cause crop failures and nature loss, which makes our land less productive. That is a system failure, and not the fault of individual farmers or consumers. The new environmental land management schemes should include payments to farmers to provide public access to nature, which is demonstrably beneficial for mental health. It is essential that the Government hold firm on the transition to an environmentally ambitious ELM.

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10:05 Jim Shannon (DUP)

Mr Efford, I will briefly run through some statistics—I will not go over my time because I will adhere to your guidelines—to emphasise the importance of having a resilient and sustainable food strategy. Our food system is responsible for a third of local greenhouse gas emissions. Some 46% of children from black and ethnic minorities are in poverty and 14% of parents who live with their children have experienced food insecurity. Those are the stats, and although stats can sometimes go over people’s heads, it is important that we focus on them, because they give us an idea of how the food strategy will address some of the issues. We must also look at whether our rivers and lakes have a good ecological status. Some 25% of children born in 2020 will be obese by the time they are 25. Those are big issues, which the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central and others have referred to.

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10:11 Derek Thomas (St Ives) (Con)

How do we balance all these things together? Sometimes we talk about the need to tackle climate change as though it is in competition with food production or levelling up, but I believe they can all complement each other. Supporting the British food sector to move towards a more climate-friendly approach, which it is able and willing to do, would help to produce the food that our nation needs.

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10:28 Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con)

Looking after the soil is also good for dealing with climate change. According to the World Wide Fund for Nature, 34% of global greenhouse gas emissions come from agriculture. We often think, “Well, agriculture can’t be part of the problem. It’s all those diesel-belching buses and coal-fired power stations that are the problem.” But food production around the world is responsible for 34% of greenhouse gas emissions. It need not be like that, because the soil can sequester more carbon than all the plants and trees on the whole planet if we look after it. And if we look after it, we get better-quality food and we will all be healthier. We can do that: we can have less pesticide, fertiliser and so on if we grow more legumes, pulses and lentils. That fixes nitrogen in the soil and is actually better for us. One of the best things you can eat, Mr Efford, is lentils. There is a bit of a virtuous circle here, and I congratulate the Government on getting this with the sustainable farming incentive.

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on his contribution. Does he recognise, as others do, that the National Farmers Union and its sister organisation in Northern Ireland, the Ulster Farmers Union, have already committed to net zero carbon by 2050? That shows that the farming community want to do this; they did not have to be pushed to do it, and they are on their way.

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10:37 Daniel Zeichner (Labour)

The Food Foundation and Sustain made those points powerfully in their briefings. The Agriculture Act 2020, the Environment Act 2021 and the Fisheries Act 2020, which some of us have been involved in over the last couple of years, would have made much more sense if they were not just a post-leaving-the-EU fix, but part of an overall strategy for how we feed ourselves in a fair and sustainable way. It has all been done the wrong way round—it is back to front. Tomorrow we will see the Government sneak out their report on food security on the last possible day that they are allowed to under the Agriculture Act. How much food we wish to produce should have been a key starting point, not an afterthought. As the Climate Change Committee points out, there is still no plan from DEFRA on how we get to net zero. So it is muddle, muddle, muddle—perhaps the Prime Minister is in charge after all.

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