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Food Security

I draw the House's attention to my declaration of interests in the register. In July last year, I asked the Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the hon. Member for Lewisham, Deptford (Joan Ruddock), about food security, and she replied that"““the hon. Gentleman knows that we are pretty confident about the position here because of the diversity of sources from which we draw our food supplies and our very effective international trade.””—[Official Report, 19 July 2007; Vol. 463, c. 417.]" That was a fairly good answer, but what disappointed many of us was that there was no mention of British agriculture and the part that it can play in food security.