Source · Select Committees · Public Accounts Committee
Recommendation 29
29
We asked whether the design of ELM meant that land would be taken out of...
Conclusion
We asked whether the design of ELM meant that land would be taken out of production and the UK would therefore either need to import more food or food prices would rise as a result. Professor Rob Fraser told us that the UK was a large net importer of food, importing around £18 billion of food each year and exporting less than £5 billion. He explained that, while the UK could import food and energy, it could not import environmental benefits. He explained that as a result of ELM’s ambition to “maximise the value to society of the landscape in this country”, the UK was likely to become increasingly reliant on food imports.79 The National Farmers’ Union told us it was important for the UK to consider its self-sufficiency in food production to avoid having to import food from countries with 72 Qq 76–78, 82 73 Q 3 74 Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy, Net Zero Strategy: Build Back Greener, October 2021, https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/net-zero-strategy 75 Q 18 76 Q 15 77 Q 60 78 Q 13 79 Qq 21–22 Environmental Land Management Scheme 21 lower environmental standards and the risk of there being no net improvement for the environment.80 Our recent report on net zero highlighted a risk in the short term that policies to reduce emissions transfers them abroad instead,81 and the National Farmers’ Union emphasised that “we cannot simply export our environmental conscience”.82
Government Response
Not Addressed
HM Government
Not Addressed
3: PAC conclusion: We are not convinced that the Department sufficiently understands how its environmental and productivity ambitions will impact the food and farming sector over the next decade. 3: PAC recommendation: The Department should urgently explain to the Committee, showing its forecasts both for changes in land use and resulting changes in payments to farmers, how it expects its farming programmes to affect food production and farm productivity in England and report annually to Parliament on the level of food price inflation together with any changes to the proportion of the food we consume that is produced in the UK, which was 53% in 2018. 3.1 The government agrees with the Committee’s recommendation. Target implementation date: end of March 2022 3.2 The government agrees that it is important to understand the impacts of reforms on the food and farming sector and, with that in mind published a detailed analysis in 2018 and 2019 that set out the likely impacts of direct payment reductions on different types of farm business. 3.3 The 2019 Future Farming and Environment Evidence Compendium sets out a comprehensive analysis of the impact of removing direct payments alongside an analysis of routes to improve productivity and grow farm incomes. 3.4 The government is currently updating this analysis to reflect data on farm incomes immediately preceding the start of the agricultural transition and will publish an update by 31 March 2022. 3.5 The government agrees it is important to publish regular data on food price inflation and food self-sufficiency. Food price inflation and self-sufficiency is reported annually in the Food Statistics Pocketbook sections 6, 7 and 9 (a National Statistics publication, Food Statistics in your pocket: Summary.