Davey calls for £1bn farming lifeline and urgent Bluetongue taskforce to protect British food security

4 Sep 2026

EMBARGO: 0001 Friday 4th September

During a visit to a farm in Cumbria on Friday [4th September 2026], Liberal Democrat leader Ed Davey will join Liberal Democrat Environment spokesperson, Tim Farron MP to call on the Government to deploy a rapid taskforce to lead on Bluetongue vaccination, and to inject £1 billion into British agriculture to prevent a mounting food security crisis.

Whilst in Cumbria alongside Environment spokesperson Tim Farron MP, Davey will urge ministers to act immediately to save livestock from the accelerating Bluetongue virus outbreak and fix a "fundamentally broken" farm payment system.

Whilst speaking to local farmers and the NFU in Cumbria, the Liberal Democrat Leader will challenge the Government to address a fundamental policy failure: England is now the only country in Europe where the farm payments system does not actively support farmers to produce food.

This traces back to the Conservatives’ reforms on farm payments in 2020 which disincentivised the production of food - a shift which the Liberal Democrats say has left the UK and English farmers dangerously exposed to global shocks.

The party is warning that the Government’s current approach leaves farmers dangerously exposed, particularly to climate shocks and international conflicts. Livestock farmers are facing catastrophic losses from Bluetongue restrictions and culls, while the broader agricultural transition away from basic payments has stripped away the financial safety net that European competitors rely on to maintain resilient domestic food supplies.

The Liberal Democrats are calling on the Government to act immediately with a dedicated taskforce to ensure successful delivery of vaccinations against Bluetongue become an urgent Government priority, as well demanding a rewriting of the farming payment system to explicitly reward and protect British food production.

Liberal Democrat Leader, Ed Davey, said:

"British farmers are facing a terrible perfect storm this year. The Bluetongue outbreak is devastating our livestock sector, yet farmers are being left to navigate this crisis without the fundamental backing of their own government. We need a Bluetongue taskforce in place immediately.

“It is frankly an outrage that England is the only country in Europe where the farm payments system fails to support food production. My party would solve this by committing an additional £1 billion funding for farmers.

“Burnham has already shown he does not understand our rural communities, but they cannot wait for Whitehall to wake up.”

Liberal Democrat Environment, Food and Rural Affairs spokesperson, Tim Farron MP, added:

"The current system is entirely detached from the reality of farming. While our European and UK neighbours use their agricultural budgets to secure their food supply, English farmers are being hung out to dry during one of the worst livestock health crises in recent memory.

“This is the Conservative legacy - they stripped away support for food production and left our farmers uniquely exposed, and the Labour government has done nothing to fix it.

“By failing to support food production directly, the Government is not just abandoning farmers, they are jeopardising the food security of the entire nation.”

ENDS

Notes to Editors:

The UK livestock sector has been heavily disrupted by the ongoing Bluetongue virus (BTV) outbreak, severely impacting cattle and sheep farmers with strict control zones, movement restrictions, and stock losses.
Following the phase-out of the Basic Payment Scheme (BPS), England's Environmental Land Management schemes (ELMs) have prioritized environmental actions without a baseline mechanism to support direct food production, contrasting sharply with the EU's Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) and devolved agricultural policies in Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland.
Liberal Democrat MPs Danny Chambers, Tim Farron and David Chadwick wrote to the Secretary of State earlier this week to implore them to support farmers tackling the Bluetongue crisis, available here.
The Liberal Democrats are calling for an emergency Bluetongue Taskforce to immediately bring together leaders from across England, Scotland and Wales as well as key stakeholders from the farming community, veterinary science, and the agricultural and pharmaceutical sectors. Taking learnings from the Covid era vaccine taskforce, it should accelerate vaccine procurement, coordinate targeted rollouts especially in hard to reach areas, and ensure information and guidance is reaching all farming communities.