Baroness Rock’s review produced a fantastic report with many excellent recommendations. My DEFRA colleagues and I are in close interaction with Baroness Rock and are working our way through her many recommendations. If we are rolling out schemes, it is vital that any innovation or productivity grants, along with any sustainable farming incentive schemes or others that fall under the environmental land management schemes, are available to all applicants to ensure that we can get the best out of the land that they farm.
Building on the recommendations made, the £427 million of funding for measures announced at the National Farmers Union conference doubles the investment going into productivity schemes, growing the grant offer from £91 million last year to £220 million this year. We have already awarded £120 million in grant funding to farmers through the farming investment fund and have committed £120 million to 185 projects as part of the farming innovation programme. The Government will also provide £15 million in funding to stop millions of tonnes of good, fresh farm food going to waste, by redirecting that surplus into the hands of those who need it. Together, these funds will support innovation and productivity and will improve animal health and the environment.
We will continue to work across Government to ensure that we carry out the commitments made in the UK food strategy and at the farm-to-fork summit in respect of the national planning policy framework. We want to ensure that this fully reflects our shared food security and climate and environment ambitions. The national planning policy framework sets out clearly that local planning authorities should consider all the benefits of the best and most versatile agricultural land when making plans or taking decisions on new development proposals. This point builds on the intervention from my hon. Friend the Member for Central Suffolk and North Ipswich (Dr Poulter). Where significant development of agricultural land is shown to be necessary, planning authorities should use poorer-quality land in preference to a higher quality.
Food supply is one of the UK’s 13 critical national infrastructure sectors. DEFRA and the Food Standards Agency are joint lead Government Departments, with DEFRA leading on supply and the FSA on food safety. We work closely with the Cabinet Office and other Departments to ensure that food supply is fully incorporated as part of emergency preparedness, including consideration of dependencies on other sectors.
In the Agriculture Act 2020, the Government made a commitment to produce an assessment of our food security at least once every three years. The first UK food security report was published in December 2021, and the next food security report will be published in December 2024. To ensure our continued food security, the Prime Minister has also announced that a food security index will be published annually—that has been welcomed by the sector—and will complement the three-yearly UK food security report. We are currently developing the content of the index, but we expect the index to present the key data and analysis needed to monitor how we are maintaining overall food security. Productivity, resilience and environmental sustainability are incredibly important to domestic food production and are a key element of our food security.
At the National Farmers Union conference, the Prime Minister also made an announcement about ensuring that we are giving internal drainage boards more support. We know how important lowland farmland is for producing food, which is why the £75 million of funding announced by the Government during the spring Budget and earlier at the NFU conference is so important to ensure that we can give our internal drainage boards the support that they need to mitigate flooding downstream as well as possible.
On health and wellbeing, I want to pick up on a point that the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome made about the Farm Safety Foundation. I know that James Chapman, the chair of the trustees, is doing an excellent job; he has been involved in the organisation since 2014, I believe. I wish him and his team well with the Farm Safety Foundation, as I know just how important that organisation is to improving not only farm safety, but the general health and wellbeing of our farming community.
The hon. Member for Somerton and Frome referred to the land use framework. I reassure her that the Secretary of State wants to ensure that food productivity is at the heart of the land use framework, which is why we are scrutinising it before it is released. Not only does it have to cover energy security, biodiversity offsetting, net zero and other measures, but we want to ensure that
food security is at the heart of it before it is released. Our food security is strong, but we are not taking it for granted; we will continue to work across the supply chain to maintain and enhance it.
I thank all hon. Members who have contributed to the debate. I assure them that the Government consider food security to be incredibly important and will keep it as a top priority for the DEFRA ministerial team.
Question put and agreed to.
11.29 am
Sitting suspended.