This month in Parliament in a House of Commons Debate, Dr Neil Hudson MP for Epping Forest and Shadow DEFRA Minister of State pushed the Government to heed the warnings of a landmark report on biodiversity loss and ecosystem collapse.
The Nature Security Assessment on global biodiversity loss, ecosystem collapse and national security, published earlier this year and debated this month in Parliament, starkly warned of the devastating effects of biodiversity loss and ecosystem collapse on aspects of UK security such as food, water and supply chains.
The wide-ranging speech saw Dr Hudson remind the House that the previous Conservative Government set an agenda for protecting nature that the current Government needs to fulfil, including targets for:
- 10% greater species abundance by 2042
- Restoring or creating more than 500,000 hectares of wildlife-rich habitats outside protected sites by 2050
- Protecting 30% of global land and oceans
However, he noted that the decisions of the current Labour administration are actively failing to get a grip of the current situation in key areas such as biodiversity and tackling climate change, from its Family Farm Tax and Fertiliser Tax (fertiliser resilience being named in the report), to its failures to protect our biosecurity, amidst the ongoing illegal meat crisis at our borders.
Dr Hudson also highlighted the water outage crisis that affected thousands of Epping Forest residents this Summer, leaving many without water for up to a week during extremely hot weather, and vulnerable constituents on the Priority Services Register not receiving the water they should have.
During that incident, Dr Hudson repeatedly pressed Thames Water and DEFRA to urge them to co-ordinate so residents could get help with access to the water they needed. Just last week Epping Forest again faced unacceptable water outages from Thames Water.
He urged the Government to ensure our country is better prepared for such hot Summers and take heed of this stark report, so we can better handle such crises in future.
Following the Commons debate, Dr Hudson said:
“This report has laid bare the stark reality of the impacts of biodiversity loss and ecosystem collapse on our national security.
At the heart of it is also an urgent message Shadow DEFRA have warned the Government for a long time: our climate, our food security, our water security, and our biosecurity are deeply interconnected, and we need to act now.
Epping Forest saw this only this Summer, when water outages during the extreme heat showed us we are unprepared in responding to a crisis situation.
The Government need to get a grip on this and act.”
ENDS
