El Niño

My Lords, the Met Office is continually updating forecasts for the ongoing El Niño event. Work is under way across government to assess any potential direct and indirect impacts. El Niño is expected to increase the likelihood of wetter and stormier conditions this autumn and winter. The Government are therefore monitoring potential implications for flooding, international food supply chains, energy resilience and food security. El Niño highlights the importance of climate adaptation and resilience planning work that is under way across government.

My Lords, I thank my noble friend the Minister for his detailed Answer. Only last week, the Secretary-General of the United Nations indicated that the El Niño effect will be more pronounced in the next few months and will have direct implications for food security. I know, and welcome the fact, that our Labour Government have been working on that multi-departmental approach to dealing with the impact of climate change. Therefore, when will the Government unveil the strategy in 2026 to bring the UK closer into line with the EU in terms of emergency preparedness, and what they are likely to recommend to protect food security and to ensure that our rural communities are more resilient to the impact of El Niño?

My noble friend is right to highlight the attention that is being paid to the impact of El Niño. Indeed, the Government Office for Science is undertaking work to assess the potential impacts on the UK, including implications, as I said, for the food system. Defra is working with the Met Office and other government departments to understand this and the wider risks to our national resilience. There is no current evidence that this event will lead to food security issues for the UK, although we continue to assess emerging evidence and forecasts, as well as industry intelligence. The Government published their annual statement on national resilience on 14 July this year, in which we announced a multi-year campaign to direct the public to updated guidance on simple steps that they can take to make sure they are prepared for risks such as power cuts or storms. This campaign, which builds on existing guidance that we already publish on GOV.UK/prepare, will launch later in the year and will indeed bring the UK into line with European peers, most of which already run similar awareness activity.

My Lords, with consecutive droughts followed by a flood, the consequences for the UK are severe. The Government have tools in their toolbox, such as the Cunliffe report and the forthcoming clean water Bill. For what reason has the clean water Bill been delayed until next year, if that is the case?

The noble Baroness is right to point out the importance of the Cunliffe report and the need to reform the water industry, but this is a very complex matter. As she noted, or at least implied, we are due to have a water Bill and, as was announced in the King’s Speech, it is coming. We will unveil further reforms as part of that process.

My Lords, does the Minister agree that it is faintly ironic for the Secretary of State to advise households to stockpile food when the UK has fallen to being 65% self-sufficient in what we eat? Given the UN’s warning that 50 million people worldwide face acute hunger from this super El Niño, what assessment have the Government made specifically of risks to British food security?

The comments my colleague the Secretary of State made simply called for awareness and preparedness. That is a precautionary route to take, rightly. As I said in answer to my noble friend, as it stands, the intelligence we have is that there is no evidence that the El Niño event will lead to food security issues for the UK. Of course, we work with organisations, including the UK Agriculture Market Monitoring Group, which monitors UK agriculture markets around issues of price, supply, inputs, trade and other recent developments, to keep this under review. As I said, as it stands, there is no evidence that this event will cause food security problems for our country.

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My Lords, given the increasingly challenging impact of climate change on households, public services and business, have the Minister and his department given any consideration to ensuring that the UK’s national adaptation plan is a dynamic document that is regularly updated, rather than something that is static and updated every five years? Could he also update the House on any representations that he and his department have made to the new Chancellor to protect long-term funding, for instance for flooding, at future fiscal events?

We are very clear that although there is no clear evidence that climate change is making El Niño events more frequent, it is certainly the case that they are taking place against a backdrop of rising global temperatures and increasingly extreme weather, so they can indeed intensify existing risks. On the noble Lord’s point about the Treasury, we are committed to investing in improvements to water infrastructure and resilience. Indeed, I believe I am right in saying that we expect more than £100 billion in investment to come in to improve the water infrastructure system, which will go some way to help improve the country’s resilience.

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My Lords, I refer to my interest in the register as chair of the National Preparedness Commission. I recall that I asked a very similar Question to my noble friend’s a couple of months ago. I am slightly disconcerted by the assumption that this will somehow not have an impact on food supplies, because directly and indirectly it will. The most likely outcome of the enhanced El Niño—the once-in-a-millennium event that we are now being told it may be—is that far more extreme storms will affect us. My noble friend the Minister has responded very much on behalf of Defra, but I wonder what other departments are doing to prepare the sectors that they are concerned about. How will they withstand and respond to what may be extremely severe weather conditions?

I thank my noble friend for his question and for all his work on national preparedness. To be clear, I am not saying that there will not be any impact on supply chains but, on wider food security, we can at the moment have greater certainly around the evidence that there will be an impact. He raised a very important point about cross-government preparedness for the consequences of wetter weather and flooding. Activities are currently under way. The national flood response centre will be stood up for a testing exercise very shortly. The Floods Resilience Taskforce, which is across departments, government, and local, regional and devolved national Governments, is preparing an assessment of flooding risk and preparedness. It will meet in October to discuss those plans. I also note that Flood Action Week begins next month on 12 October and it coincides with national resilience week, which will help combine the importance of these messages.

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My Lords, given that we will see some effects from these weather patterns and that they will devastate parts of the country, can the Minister assure the House that, in preparing for this, proper consideration is being given to planning and training of Reserve Forces in response to local flooding and other severe weather conditions, given that the military will almost certainly be called on to support the other emergency services?

The noble and gallant Lord raises an important point. The use of both normal and Reserve Forces in these situations is important. That is exactly the sort of issue that the Floods Resilience Taskforce will look at in its preparedness.

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My Lords, when will the Government accept that it is our own brilliant British farmers who can provide food security, but they are being punished for their efforts by the family farms tax? Why are the Government refusing to listen to the NFU and its 43,000 farming members who remain opposed to the policy as the wrong approach, or to major accountancy firms that confirm that the policy will introduce considerable challenges for those affected?

I fear I will repeat the Answer that my noble friend Lady Hayman gave from the Front Bench yesterday. We recognise the importance of our farming sector. We are finding policies that work for rural areas, which include support through rural rate relief, small business rate relief, a high VAT registration threshold and small profits corporation tax rate, as well as things such as reduced red diesel rates. We are working to support the farming sector.

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Oh!

Thank you. The worsening and more erratic behaviour of El Niño is simply because of climate change. We have a climate crisis.

It is not because of climate change. El Niño pre-dates climate change.

Keep quiet, Archie. The fact is that fossil fuel burning is a direct cause of our climate crisis, so why have the Government got the reopening of the Jackdaw and Rosebank oilfields on the menu? Why not just say that that is wrong?

It is lovely that we have had the opportunity to hear from the noble Baroness. A little bird made me think that we might get on to Jackdaw and Rosebank. I want to be very clear: both those fields are subject to a lot of regulatory processes. The public notice periods were open and closed on 10 August and 17 August respectively. We are part of that regulatory process. My colleague, Miatta Fahnbulleh, the Secretary of State, will consider the representations that have been received and will make decisions on each project in due course. I am afraid that noble Lords will not hear anything further from me on that subject.