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Agriculture: Global Food Security

My Lords, I thank everyone who has taken part in this debate, which reflected the enormity of the challenge that we face—not just within the UK but globally. I am very grateful for the variety of contributions that we received. As my noble friend has just said, the report warns that doing nothing is not an option. That was the thing that struck me straightaway. Another thing that struck me was the huge urgency of this. The sad thing is that while we have food on our shelves 24 hours a day, people do not stop and think that it may not always be there. Clearly, the Foresight report draws to our attention the challenges that are coming with coping with greater numbers of people. Many noble Lords spoke about GM technology. I was particularly grateful to my noble friend Lord Marlesford for saying that it is nothing new. It is not, but for some reason the general public people think that it is new and it is bad news. In fact, it is an extension of what has happened over the years as we have managed to increase yields. Our continued care for water and soil quality is the most important thing we can do. It is of huge import for the future. Volatility was mentioned, particularly in terms of the cost of imports. My noble friend Lord Shrewsbury talked about the egg industry. At the age of 16 that was the profession I wanted to go into. The problem was raised with me only this week by one of our big suppliers of eggs. He said that he could not get GM-free feed and how difficult the problem is, not only the expense, but in getting hold of it. It is something that the debate has highlighted, which is well worth while. I again thank noble Lords for participating in the debate. I also take the opportunity to thank the noble Baroness, Lady Quin, for the work that she did when she was in another place and was an Agriculture Minister. We are grateful for the way she has done her work and led for the Opposition in this House. My sincere thanks go to everybody for enabling this debate to take place. I wish it would go across all government departments to say, ““Wake up, there is a huge challenge ahead””. With that, I beg leave to withdraw my Motion. Motion withdrawn.