Dr Roz Savage
MP for South Cotswolds · Liberal Democrat · United Kingdom
“I express my gratitude to the Minister and to the Government for delivering this second nature and climate statement, as they promised to do during the conversations around the time of my Climate and Nature Bill last year. It may not be exactly what I had envisaged, but I welcome it none the less.”
“Q8. My constituency is the ninth most sewage-polluted constituency in the entire country, with thousands of hours of sewage pouring into the Thames, Avon and Coln, but that metric of hours conceals the truth. It does not convey the actual volume, and clearly a trickle is very different from a gush.”
“T7. The Government recently shelved plans to require solar panels on new car parks, despite the significant potential to generate clean electricity, support electric vehicle charging and provide greater shade cover.”
“First past the post encourages parties to focus their policies on core marginal seats that they want to influence. That means the kind of policies they present and whether they suit a constituency will depend largely on the postcode and political history of that constituency.”
“I feel like I now personally have a representative in Westminster.” At the last general election, the current Government got 30% of the vote, 60% of the seats and they now have 100% of the power. How can that be fair? In effect, that means that 70% of votes have no power.”
“I wish the Government had gone further and introduced alternative vote for those single-position elections. The proof is in the result. In last year’s mayoral elections, the Mayor of the West of England won with just 25% of the vote. That is clearly not democracy.”
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“I express my gratitude to the Minister and to the Government for delivering this second nature and climate statement, as they promised to do during the conversations around the time of my Climate and Nature Bill last year. It may not be exactly what I had envisaged, but I welcome it none the less. Perhaps we can discuss it further in our meeting on Wednesday. Despite all the money being put into various climate and nature measures, there seems to be agreement among the environmental non-governmental organisations that the 30 by 30 plan will not deliver on 30 by 30. For example, in the last three years, Natural England has not designated any new sites of special scientific interest, and over the last 20 years the area covered by those sites has increased by only 2.8%.”
“Q8. My constituency is the ninth most sewage-polluted constituency in the entire country, with thousands of hours of sewage pouring into the Thames, Avon and Coln, but that metric of hours conceals the truth. It does not convey the actual volume, and clearly a trickle is very different from a gush. Will the Deputy Prime Minister arrange for me to meet the relevant Minister on requiring water companies to report on the volume and concentration of sewage discharges, as well as the number of hours?”
“T7. The Government recently shelved plans to require solar panels on new car parks, despite the significant potential to generate clean electricity, support electric vehicle charging and provide greater shade cover. What assessment has the Minister made of the impact of abandoning those proposals on the Government’s clean power and net zero ambitions?”
“That would help hit the reset button on our democracy and restore faith that the Government truly represent the will of the people.”
“I wish the Government had gone further and introduced alternative vote for those single-position elections. The proof is in the result. In last year’s mayoral elections, the Mayor of the West of England won with just 25% of the vote. That is clearly not democracy. If first past the post is not fit for purpose in mayoral elections, the Government should be honest and admit that it is not fit for purpose anywhere. I have some specific asks. We should move from first past the post to a form of PR, and I would love that to happen in a rigorous, transparent and democratic way, starting as we mean to go on, with a citizens’ assembly, fully selected by sortition, and the national commission on electoral reform serving as its secretariat. It should be fully livestreamed and available to anybody who wants to watch it.”
“We hear from so many parts of the country that communities feel left behind, voiceless and unrepresented. That voicelessness—that powerlessness—is creating fertile ground for people and parties who come along promising to give back control, whether or not they actually mean it. That, frankly, terrifies me, but I want to keep this a clean discussion about voting systems. We are not trying to create a system that favours one party or another; we want a genuinely democratic system. On the systems used in different elections, it was welcome that the Government reintroduced supplementary vote for mayoral and police and crime commissioner elections. It corrected a deliberate act of Conservative vandalism in the Elections Act 2022, but it is still not proportional representation.”
“First past the post encourages parties to focus their policies on core marginal seats that they want to influence. That means the kind of policies they present and whether they suit a constituency will depend largely on the postcode and political history of that constituency. As other colleagues have mentioned, the winner-takes-all system creates a similar adversarial tone in our politics. We only have to look at today’s Prime Minister’s questions where there seemed to be a special amount of nastiness from the Leader of the Opposition. Mr Speaker, not in connection with that, reminded us generally that the way we conduct ourselves here sets the tone for public discourse across the whole of the country. We lead by example, and at the moment that example is not good. There is a deeper argument to be made about power and agency.”
“I feel like I now personally have a representative in Westminster.” At the last general election, the current Government got 30% of the vote, 60% of the seats and they now have 100% of the power. How can that be fair? In effect, that means that 70% of votes have no power. As a Lib Dem who regularly traipses through the opposite voting Lobby to the Government, I know how that feels. Looking forward, I am even more worried about the next general election. The system that we have now was essentially designed for a two-party system and we now have seats being fought by five, six or even more viable parties. If we combine that with declining voter turnout, the results of the next general election could look like a random number generator. I cannot see that that will do anything to enhance trust in our democratic system.”
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Turner. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park (Sarah Olney) for securing this important and urgent debate. We have a crisis of trust in our democracy. Under first past the post, 70% of votes do not actually count. In a safe seat any extra votes cast for the winning candidate are effectively pointless, as are any votes cast for the other candidates. It is no wonder that so much of the electorate feel that they have no real voice or influence. We may be told that electoral reform is not a doorstep issue, but I wonder how many colleagues here have heard constituents say, “I am so pleased that I finally voted for somebody who won.”
“I ask the Minister to honour the commitment in schedule 17 to the Environment Act 2021 with robust, enforceable regulations; restore the overseas aid budget; protect the Darwin grants and the nature earmark; and release the national security assessment. The time to act is now.”
“When Bella met Iman, the rhino was calling out—a distinctive kind of call, a searching call looking for others of her kind, but there were none. Bella described how she stood there, looking into the rhino’s eyes—this ancient creature with leather-thick skin and a face that seems to have come straight out of prehistory—and understood viscerally in a way that no statistic can quite convey what extinction actually means. The name Iman means faith. She died in November 2019. The Malaysian Sumatran rhino is gone forever, but the Bornean orangutan is not yet gone. The peatlands of Sabangau are not yet destroyed; there is still time.”
“Although elements have apparently been shared informally outside Government with the media, the EAC should not be the last to know about a document that the Government say concerns national security. The Minister must release it. I will close with a story told to me by a young friend that really brought home to me what is at stake here. Bella is a passionate young conservationist. A few years ago, she visited Malaysian Borneo and went to see an animal called Iman. Iman was the last Malaysian Sumatran rhino on Earth—a species more than 20 million years old, reduced to one animal. Her keeper, Dr Zainal, had spent almost his entire career protecting Sumatran rhinos in Borneo. He had watched them go one by one. He was there in 2017 when Puntung was euthanised and there in May 2019 when Tam, the last male, died.”
“Institutions like Kew Gardens and the Natural History Museum have deep, productive partnerships with their Indonesian counterparts—the kind of long-term scientific relationships that take decades to build but moments to break. We should be strengthening them, not withdrawing. That brings me to the Government’s national security assessment, which concludes that global biodiversity loss poses a direct threat to UK national security. I sit on the Environmental Audit Committee, which scrutinises exactly these questions. We know that a fuller version of the national security assessment exists, and we have asked to see it repeatedly, even under confidentiality arrangements, and that has been refused.”
“We have set out concrete, alternative ways to meet our defence commitments without cutting international aid, including defence bonds and an increase to the digital services tax. The false choice between security and aid is one we reject. That matters, because UK-funded conservation in Indonesia is working. Indonesia has reduced its primary forest loss more than any other country in recent years, and British investment has contributed to that, yet the Darwin grants, which have supported vital terrestrial conservation work, including in rainforests, have been cut. Projects and marine environments retain some funding, but projects in terrestrial spaces, including the rainforest, have been left without support. The ringfenced nature funding in the international climate fund renewal is also at risk. We are heading in the wrong direction.”
“They will cover only illegal deforestation in the host country, not all deforestation, meaning that products from forests legally cleared could still reach British supermarket shelves. The Government say that a fully deforestation-free standard is their ambition for the future. Liberal Democrats believe it should be made the standard now. When these regulations arrive, they must be robust and not leave the door open to destruction that happens technically to be lawful. They must also cover indigenous people’s land rights alongside deforestation, which are frequently the first casualty when forests fall. On aid, the Liberal Democrats believe that the UK’s commitment to spending 0.7% of gross national income on overseas development is both a moral obligation and a matter of national interest.”
“They expect the UK to be a reliable partner but right now we are falling short in two concrete ways. Today, the Government announced plans to consult on new rules requiring businesses to check that products—such as palm oil, soy, cocoa and rubber—in their supply chains have not come from illegally deforested land. Liberal Democrats have pressed for that since the Environment Act 2021 was passed, so we welcome today’s development—five years late is better than never. The Government’s own figures show that, in 2023 alone, UK consumption was linked to roughly 29,000 hectares of deforestation worldwide. In keeping with today’s trend, I will point out that that is equivalent to 15 Cirencesters. The rules will be aligned with the EU’s equivalent regulation, which has been weakened and delayed multiple times under industry pressure.”
“We visited Sabangau national park, one of the largest peatland ecosystems outside the northern hemisphere. I saw the Nyaru Menteng Orangutan Rescue and Rehabilitation Centre, where 228 orangutans that have been orphaned, many because of the palm oil trade, were being prepared for a return to the wild. The hon. Member for Bristol East mentioned the forest school for young orangutans, where we saw orphaned orangutans being taught to climb by their human surrogate mothers, and that memory will stay with me for the rest of my life. We met scientists, such as Nadine, who have spent decades studying the flora and fauna of Indonesia. We met Indonesian officials and conservationists who are doing extraordinary work to protect their vital, natural heritage.”
“That requires the UK to show up as a serious partner, not just in words, but in the consistency of our commitments. Indonesia’s forests are among the most biodiverse on Earth and are home to between 10% and 15% of all known plants, mammals and birds. The hon. Member for Brent West (Barry Gardiner) particularly appreciated that during our visit. The forests also store billions of tonnes of carbon. As I mentioned, I was fortunate enough to go to Kalimantan on the Indonesian side of Borneo in March as part of a cross-party parliamentary delegation funded by ICCF-UK and the Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation. It is wonderful to see representatives from both those organisations in the Public Gallery. I would like to report back on what I saw and what I believe it requires of us in this country.”
“I thank the hon. Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy) for her passionate opening speech, and for the many hours we spent in each other’s company on a long-tail boat when we were fortunate enough to visit Indonesia earlier this year. In honour of this debate, I am wearing my Indonesian jacket that I bought in Jakarta. On a day like this, in an increasingly tropical London, it is blissfully lightweight. The UK-Indonesia relationship is at a crucial point. In January, our Government signed a strategic partnership, committing to stronger ties on climate and nature and recognising that, despite our differences, we share a particular vulnerability to climate change as island nations. The Liberal Democrats welcome that partnership warmly and would like to see it deepened.”
“Let us remember that human aspect throughout the debate. I am sure I do not need to point out to colleagues that in rural areas the situation is often even more challenging. The ambulance takes longer to reach people, the journey to A&E is longer and, when services at a community hospital have been reduced to a limited number, as is currently happening in my constituency, there might be no early safety net to catch the patient before a crisis becomes a catastrophe.”
“I beg to move, That this House has considered community hospitals. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Jeremy, and I am grateful to have secured this debate. I want to begin by thanking Jo Posnette and Dr Helen Tucker from the Community Hospitals Association, who have been an enormous help in preparing for the debate. I welcome Jo, who is in the Gallery. Last year, according to the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, around 15,860 patients died in NHS A&E departments in England while waiting for care that could have saved them. That is roughly 1,300 people every month—nearly 10 times the figure recorded in 2015. Every week, more than 300 people died a preventable death simply because they waited too long. Those numbers are shocking, but behind every number there is a real-life tragedy.”
“My hon. Friend makes a good point. Not everybody can time their minor injuries to fall conveniently within the unit’s opening hours, so I absolutely sympathise with the challenge facing her local hospital.”
“It will not be news to anybody in this room that our NHS is under pressure, yet, against the odds, community hospitals continue to perform. The Care Quality Commission reports that between 75% and 92% of community hospitals are rated good or outstanding, which is remarkable given that the number of district nurses working in them fell by around 55% between 2009 and 2024, with underinvestment and the loss of EU staff after Brexit cited as key causes.”
“I thank the hon. Gentleman for his perceptive intervention. Community hospitals often do feel more like a home from home. They are more accessible for a patient’s friends and family to visit, and they deliver better outcomes for patients and clinicians alike. In the south-west, ambulance handovers at acute hospitals took more than 30 minutes in more than half of cases in January 2025—nearly 30% above the England average. A few months ago, I had the privilege to ride in an ambulance for a day. In what ended up being a 13-hour shift we attended only three call-outs. Maybe it was a quiet day—I am definitely not saying I wish there had been more grief out there—but we spent much of the day on the road and/or waiting outside hospitals, which did not seem the best use of a highly qualified ambulance crew and an expensive resource.”
“That is a very good question that I hope the Minister will be able to answer. I pay tribute to the absolute heroism of the people who staff our community hospitals; they are delivering an incredible return on investment.”
“Since the day surgery unit was suspended last year, I have heard so many moving stories from constituents, their fond memories of being in hospital, and how much that hospital, right at the heart of their community, meant to them when their children, parents or spouses were sick. But over the years the services there have been eroded one by one: first A&E, then acute wards, paediatrics, maternity and blood services. In 2025, the day surgery unit was paused as part of NHS Gloucestershire’s centres of excellence trial. Each change came with reassurances, but each one left residents further from care. My constituents have become deeply and rightly sceptical that a trial closure will ever be reversed.”
“What is actually needed—prompt assessment, a bed close to home and blood tests that do not require a 25-mile journey to Cheltenham on rural roads—may not be available. That is the reality for many people across my constituency right now, and it is getting worse. Community hospitals have been an honoured part of our healthcare system for over 150 years. Research published in the Journal of Community Nursing in 2024 describes them as bridging “the gap between primary and secondary care.” They are person-centred, nurse-led and multidisciplinary settings that help people to recover, maintain independence and enjoy visits from friends and family. They are not a quaint historical relic; they are precisely what the NHS says it wants more of. The Cirencester community hospital was exactly that kind of place.”
“I absolutely agree that a lot of the frustration felt on the frontline is due to lack of clarity of communication. Community hospitals are institutions, and I pay tribute to the people who work at them, who do more with less, year after year. They deserve better than for services to be quietly wound down. I invite Members to imagine for a moment that they are 80 years old—it is less of a feat of imagination for some of us than for others—and living in a village outside Cirencester. Maybe they can no longer drive due to poor eyesight. They wake up one morning with chest pain. There is a hospital in town, but the services have dwindled one by one: no A&E, acute ward or surgery, and the theatre may be currently paused.”
“More than 1.1 million people are currently waiting for community care in England, with the steepest rise among children and young people. A hospital where the theatre has been paused cannot absorb more community care. A maternity unit closed for three years cannot deliver neighbourhood health. A community health system with 1.1 million people already waiting cannot become the landing ground for patients displaced from acute settings unless it is properly resourced to do so. As so often, rural areas pay the highest price when the gap between ambition and delivery opens up. There is no slack in the system and no easily accessible option down the road.”
“That sounds like a very good idea, but a Nuffield Trust report published in September 2025 makes a point that needs to be heard: this ambition is not new. Successive Governments have promised to move care closer to home, and most have fallen short, almost always because the community infrastructure needed to enable the shift is simply not there, and nor is the investment. Ireland, which has pursued reform for nearly a decade, had the wisdom to invest up front in new facilities, digital systems and community workforce capacity. Unfortunately, the Nuffield Trust found that England’s 10-year plan contains no equivalent ringfenced funding. The expectation appears to be that hospitals cut waiting lists and simultaneously release funds to build community capacity. Again, the maths just does not work. The starting point is already challenging.”
“Heart failure and pneumonia rehabilitation can be managed closer to home by staff who know the patient and their family. In Italy, the Government have committed to building or renovating 400 community hospitals using European recovery funds, backed by research from the Emilia-Romagna region showing that they deliver better integration among care sectors, between primary and specialist staff, and between healthcare and the communities it serves. Last October, more than 150 people from 23 countries joined an international webinar co-hosted by the Community Hospitals Association, and the conclusion was consistent: community hospitals anchor care in local communities, support home-based care and help people to live better for longer. The Government’s NHS 10-year plan commits to shifting care from hospital to community.”
“Will the Minister provide a timeline, with dates, for the full restoration of maternity services in Gloucestershire, including the Aveta ward in Cheltenham, which is currently closed for labour and births? Will she provide details of the specific workforce support the Government are providing to make that happen? In other countries, the decline of community hospitals is not seen as inevitable. Other countries are under the same pressures, but they are making different choices. In Sweden, research found that rural GPs value community hospitals because they provide exactly the things that cannot be replicated in a large acute centre, including proximity, continuity and a holistic understanding of elderly patients and others with multiple conditions.”
“I would like to hear from the Minister how those two things can be reconciled. A few miles to the north-west of my constituency, post-natal beds at Stroud maternity hospital were suspended in 2022. That year, the Care Quality Commission rated Gloucestershire’s maternity services as inadequate—a rating they retained on reinspection the following year. The hon. Member for Stroud (Dr Opher), who is a GP, has made the valid point that post-natal care saves money downstream because it is the time when mothers and babies bond, when breastfeeding is established and when families who need extra support get it on a timely basis. If we lose that support, the costs will appear elsewhere later on.”
“10. The South Cotswolds population is growing rapidly, largely due to the Government’s housing targets. Thousands of new houses are being built around Cirencester, and there are plans for many more housing developments that will swallow up nearby villages. It does not make mathematical sense for communities to grow while the services that support them shrink. The numbers just do not add up. NHS bodies often describe these changes as reconfigurations—a shift in how care is delivered rather than a reduction in what is available. For a rural resident with no car and negligible public transport, a 25-mile journey to Cheltenham is a significant barrier to care. The Government’s own 10-year plan talks about “neighbourhood health” and care “closer to home”, but Gloucestershire is heading in the direct opposite direction.”
“That is what we are talking about when we talk about community hospitals, and that is what the trial closure of a ward potentially puts at risk. Another constituent—a former GP who started practicing in Cirencester 40 years ago, in 1986—told me about a child who, after the surgical ward closed, waited 20 hours in Cheltenham for an appendix operation. Previously, that operation could have been done in Cirencester much more quickly. That is a family sitting in a corridor in an unfamiliar hospital at 2 in the morning, feeling anxious and far from home, because the local service they relied on had gone. A month or so ago I launched a petition, in collaboration with a local county councillor, to protect community hospitals across the Cotswolds. Within a couple of weeks, well over 3,000 people had signed it, and last week we handed it in at No.”
“I absolutely agree with the hon. Lady’s point. I have been pressing the NHS to find out the criteria by which they will judge the trial closure, but the criteria have not been forthcoming. I am concerned that there is a circular logic: “Well, you’ve managed without that ward for six months or a year, so you can continue to manage without it.” A constituent described a cardiac arrest at Cirencester, handled with what she called “absolute skill and excellence” by a team of senior staff working together to stabilise the patient before transfer to an acute hospital. She told me that the nursing care on the wards is excellent, and that patients nearing the end of their lives are cared for with compassion and great dignity.”
“I would very much welcome the opportunity to sit down with her, alongside local NHS leaders and the Community Hospitals Association, to discuss the long-term future of Cirencester hospital, its role and resourcing, and its place in the vision of care closer to home, which this Government say they believe in. My constituents are not asking for anything exceptional. They just want to know that, if they get ill, there is somewhere to go that they can get to. The NHS was founded on that promise, and that promise must be kept.”
“Thirdly, will the Government give an honest account of how the shift from hospital to community will actually be delivered in rural areas? What oversight will there be? What protections are in place? What prevents the same pattern of managed reduction from continuing in the name of the 10-year plan? Fourthly, will the Government commit to work with the Community Hospitals Association towards a national definition and dataset for community hospitals in England, so that our 500 community hospitals can finally be planned for, funded and properly valued? Finally, will the Minister agree to a meeting?”
“I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend’s point. We need a more joined-up approach. From conversations that I have had with nurses in my constituency, I know that those on the pointy end can see very clearly where the bottlenecks in the system are. We need to relieve the pressure on those bottlenecks. I will conclude with five asks for the Minister. First, will the Government give a clear commitment to protect and properly resource Cirencester hospital as a local health hub, with the operating theatre restored, not paused indefinitely while the trial closure quietly becomes permanent? Secondly, will the Government give a timeline, with dates, for the full restoration of maternity services in Gloucestershire, including post-natal provision at Stroud?”
“It is so important to recovery that patients do not feel scared and do not feel far from home, their community, or their family, friends and neighbours, but feel that they are not so far from home and are still in the bosom of their community. Anything we can do to minimise their stress and maximise their sense of connection and comfort can only ever help the speed and quality of their recovery. I thank all colleagues for their contributions today, and I thank you, Sir Jeremy. Question put and agreed to. Resolved, That this House has considered community hospitals.”
“While I welcome the announcement of 250 neighbourhood health centres, I would like the message to go back to the relevant Minister that we already have community hospitals that are well known and well loved in our constituencies, so I very much hope they will form an integral part of the NHS’s plans for the future. I thank the Minister for passing on my requests to the relevant Minister; I look forward to hearing more about them in due course. I will end with a reminder to all of us that we are talking about human beings at a very vulnerable moment in their life. I was especially moved to hear about the urgency of the husband of my hon. Friend the Member for Frome and East Somerset (Anna Sabine) suffering anaphylactic shock. Local medicine delivery is not just sentimental or about harking back to a bygone era.”
“I thank all Members who have contributed to this debate with wonderful and sometimes moving stories about the role that community hospitals have played in the lives of their constituents and who have shared their concerns. I also thank the Minister—I appreciate that this is not her brief—for stepping up today. I echo the words of the hon. Member for Cumbernauld and Kirkintilloch (Katrina Murray) that community hospitals are “much more than buildings”. There is the expertise of the staff working there, and they are an important hub for healthcare in a community.”
“One of my constituents had a stroke last year. While he jumped through all the hoops required by the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency to get his driving licence restored, he was stranded in a rural village with no bus service, struggling to get to shops, medical appointments and so on. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that both DVLA delays and the lack of rural bus services need to be addressed by the Government?”
“I echo the sympathies expressed by the Prime Minister for the families recently bereaved, particularly the family of Henry Nowak. Corruption appears to be endemic in donations to British political parties. We have had years of Conservative cronyism. We have had allegations of embezzlement in Scotland. We have had undisclosed donations from crypto billionaires and foreign oligarchs. We have even had freebies dished out to some of the hon. Members sitting on the Labour Benches. The Government have already cracked down on some specific sources of donations that favour their political opponents, such as crypto and foreign money. Will the Prime Minister now commit to restoring the faith of the British public in the integrity of our British democracy by putting a cap on all political donations?”
“Crop failures, intensified natural disasters, infectious disease outbreaks, geopolitical competition for food and water—these are the inevitable consequences that the assessment identifies will happen if we continue on our current trajectory.”
“The fourth sentence of the King’s Speech was: “My Ministers will take decisions that protect the energy, defence and economic security of the United Kingdom for the long-term.” In my view, those decisions absolutely have to factor-in nature. Natural security is an essential part of our national security. At the beginning of this year, the Government published a national security assessment on biodiversity loss and ecosystem collapse. It was not written by campaigners or charities, and certainly not by the Green party; it was written by the intelligence community using the same analytical frameworks that it applies to terrorism and state threats. Its conclusion was absolutely unambiguous: global ecosystem degradation threatens UK national security and future prosperity.”
“Far be it from me to presume to guess what His Majesty might have wished to add to it, but having had the privilege of visiting his beautiful gardens at Highgrove House in my constituency on numerous occasions—sadly, not as a guest of their Majesties, but as a paying punter on a guided tour—I would like to think that His Majesty might have chosen to mention nature, which was not mentioned at all in the speech. Nature is a subject dear to my heart, as it is to those of my constituents, including the many farmers who farm in South Cotswolds. We have talked about many different aspects of security today, but I would like to connect nature to security.”
“It is a great honour to speak in this debate. I add my voice to the many voices of appreciation from across the House for the two magnificent speeches from the hon. Members for Bradford West (Naz Shah) and for Harlow (Chris Vince), which were inspiring, moving and entertaining. There is much to reflect on in the King’s Speech. There are 37 Bills, many of which have been amply covered by colleagues across the House. Of course, the King’s Speech is not truly the King’s Speech; it is the Government’s speech that His Majesty the King has the great joy, I am sure, of reading out in the other place. I would like to pick up on a matter that was not actually in the speech.”
“Disrupting that support harms not just farms but the rest of us. I would like to hear about a good food Bill. Food is essential and we need to secure its future. The national security assessment is explicit that ecosystem collapse is potentially irreversible; once those habitats are destroyed, they cannot be recreated with an offset calculation on a spreadsheet. Degraded ancient meadows and woodlands, fragmented hedgerows and lost wetlands and peatlands cannot simply be replaced elsewhere. We will pay the cost of their losses for generations.”
“We are talking about the very real prospect of food and water shortages, not just in other countries but right here, if we carry on with the current trajectory. What is to be done? Farmers are facing a tough time at the moment. Energy costs have risen sharply, fertiliser prices remain volatile, and rural crime is a growing burden. The abrupt cap and closure of the sustainable farming incentive was a decision that pulled the rug out from under farmers who had been planning to enter the scheme, with small-scale family farms being the hardest hit. That matters far beyond the farm gate. Around 70% of the UK’s land is under the stewardship of farmers. If we want cleaner rivers, healthier soils and more pollinators, then farmers need reliable and well-funded support for environmental stewardship into the future.”