BY JIM WEBSTER

In the UK both major parties have been promising that there will be more money spent on environmental regeneration. Also politicians are now starting to pay lip service to food security. Sir Keir Starmer promised that “the next Labour government will commit to this – 50% of all food purchased by the public sector will be food produced locally and sustainably”. He also said that “food security is national security”.

The problem is that now there is another call on the money. I hate to mention it, but when Russian tanks rolled into the Ukraine, the world changed.

How much money has Britain given to Ukraine?

Ahead of meeting President Zelensky, Rishi Sunak confirmed the UK will provide £2.5 billion in military aid to Ukraine in 2024/25, an increase of £200 million on the previous two years.

In comparison, in the years 2022 and 2023, Defra planned to spend £2.3 billion as part of our planned trajectory for the agricultural transition. This sum is supposed to increase slightly as government has committed to spend an average of £2.4 billion per year across the Parliament.

So, in simple terms, our aid to Ukraine is about equivalent to our agricultural spending.

But we are not alone. The CAP accounts for 33.1% of the 2021 EU-27 budget (EUR 55.71 billion). Similarly EU leaders are promising Ukraine will still get its €50 billion aid package to help prop up its war-shattered economy.

So, given we’re already taxed to the hilt and are teetering on the brink of recession, where is the extra money coming from for the environment?

The Russian invasion has had a mixed impact on the environment. On the positive side, perhaps, it has helped speed the process of weaning Europe off fossil fuels and encouraged renewables. On the negative side, China and India are buying considerable quantities of crude oil at ‘fire sale’ prices from Russia to fuel their economies.

Looking at the bigger picture, if you want net zero to be achieved by 2050, how are you going to achieve it without the agreement of Russia and China, among others?

I have talked to East Europeans of my own age. They grew up under the gentle guidance of the Soviet Union. They did not get rid of the Russians once to have them back again as the Russian Federation.

If Russia isn’t stopped in the Ukraine, will it have to be stopped in Poland? The Baltic States? Would an EU commission acceptable to an expanded Russian Federation be able to ban the use of fossil fuel? At what point does the West drop the war crimes charges against Putin and others with no more than a sense of quiet embarrassment?

As Radek Sikorski, Polish Minister of Foreign Affairs, said the other day, “there’s never a shortage of pocket Chamberlains willing to sacrifice someone else’s land and freedom for their own peace of mind”.

Jim Webster farms at the bottom end of South Cumbria. Jim was encouraged to collect together into a book some blog posts he’d written because of their insight into Cumbrian farming and rural life (rain, sheep, quad-bikes and dogs) It’s available here.