Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee
15 September 2026
Contents updated on 15 Sept 2026
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Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee House of Commons
Follow its sittings00:03 - 00:34
Speaker 8
Good morning, and welcome to this meeting of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Select Committee. The committee returns this morning to its work in relation to wildfire risk and response. We are delighted to have with us this morning two new ministers. Minister Riddell-Carpenter, welcome back to the committee. Just for the benefit of those who are following our proceedings and for our own official record, can I ask you to introduce yourselves to the committee?
I'll start with you first, Jenny.
00:34 - 00:37
Speaker 2
Jenny Riddell-Carpenter, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defra.
00:37 - 00:44
Speaker 4
Baroness Judith Blake, Parliamentary Under-Secretary from the House of Lords in MHCLG.
00:44 - 00:47
Speaker 1
Peter Lee, Fire Director, MHCLG.
00:47 - 00:52
Speaker 3
Gabrielle Edwards, Director for Strategy, Governance and Climate in Defra.
00:52 - 01:34
Speaker 8
Just acoustically in this room, can I maybe just ask you to keep your voices up when you are answering the questions? Look, it has been a quite remarkable, dreadful summer for wildfires across the United Kingdom. We've seen record numbers, we've seen 19 homes destroyed, over 50,000 acres burned. So, ministers, first of all, what lessons has the government drawn from this year's wildfire season? Jenny, I think it's logical to start with yourself.
01:34 - 02:57
Speaker 6
Yeah, thank you, Chair. First of all, it's wonderful to be back. So, I think I've said this quite a few times in my own constituency. I know that many people in the room have also suffered from wildfires, and many people watching on the session today will have felt the real impact in their locality. I've had a large wildfire in my own constituency of Dunwich Heath, and I've had many conversations, as you'd expect, with constituents and with the local fire service.
And we definitely come out of this summer in a very different place to how we went into the summer. And there are many lessons learned from it: behavior, further need for adaptation, looking abroad as well for examples of how the higher risks of wildfire abroad are real lessons that can be learned here in the UK. And we'll, I'm sure, unpack lots of those lessons throughout the journey of this session today. But I can't overstate enough how we have come out of this summer in a very different place. And evidently, we need to relook at heightened risk.
We've faced the hottest summer on record, which could well be the coolest summer we'll ever have in the future. We've had over 1,300 wildfires, record numbers. It's evident that we have to look at the whole suite of changes that need to be made.