Soil Health

Thursday 17th November 2016 Westminster Hall

[Relevant documents: First Report from the Environmental Audit Committee of Session 2016-17, on Soil Health, HC 180, and the Government response, HC 650.]

13:30

[Mary Creagh (Wakefield) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the First Report of the Environmental Audit Committee, Soil Health, HC 180, and the Government response, HC 650.

May I say what a pleasure it is to be here with you today, Mr Bone, to discuss the vital issue of the nation’s soil health? I believe this is the first time that the UK Parliament has ever discussed the health of our soil, which is a vital part of the nation’s ecosystems. I warmly welcome the Minister to her post—I know we will have a good discussion today—and my hon. Friend the Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell), who is the Labour Front-Bench spokesperson on this issue. I am grateful to Mr Speaker and to the House for this first ever debate, which is on the Environmental Audit Committee’s report into soil health.

I begin by thanking my Committee colleagues for their work and all the other hon. Members across the House who have a long-standing, informed interest in protecting the environment. One of the first findings of our report is that soil is a Cinderella environmental issue. It is an earthy subject; it is not clear like water, and it receives a lot less attention than air pollution, water quality and climate change. Yet whether we realise it or not, society relies on healthy soil for the food that we eat, for flood prevention and for storing carbon. The UK’s soils are only about 10,000 years old, which is one of the fascinating facts we learnt as we went through our inquiry. Soil supports 95% of the world’s food production —the other 5% is probably fish and perhaps stuff from trees, although trees grow in soil as well—so if soils start going down, human life will follow soon after.

The Government say they want our soil to be sustainably managed by 2030, but we found no evidence that they are putting in place the policies to make that happen. Although healthy soil is a vital tool in the fight against climate change, degraded soils harm the environment and can even contribute to climate change by emitting carbon into the atmosphere, so it is vital that robust mechanisms are put in place to promote soil health and reverse soil degradation. We welcome the Government’s aspiration for UK soils to be managed sustainably, but we need ambitious targets, effective policy and strong enforcement mechanisms to make sure that happens, and we did not see that action.

Let me turn first to the vexatious issue of contaminated land. This is absolutely vital if we are to have a resource-efficient country that uses everything well. That includes brownfield land, rather than taking more land from our beloved greenbelt, which, as we all know as constituency MPs, is a deeply controversial issue.

A key area of concern was the fact that 300,000 hectares of UK soil are contaminated with toxins, including lead, nickel, tar, asbestos and radioactive substances. Those contaminated sites can be a public health risk and can even pollute our water supplies. The contamination is the result of the UK’s proud industrial heritage in areas such as mine and that of the hon. Member for Rochdale (Simon Danczuk). That is not a problem in areas with very high land values, where sites are mostly dealt with through the planning system, so that developers can see what the cost of remediating and cleaning the soil—washing it, which is what actually happens—will be, and they are happy to do that. That happened, for example, at London’s Olympic park: the soil was actually lifted up and washed before the development began. I am sure we are exporting that amazing technology all round the world.

In areas where land values are low, where the local authority owns the land or where rogue developers have failed to clean up before construction, local councils have a statutory duty under part 2A of the Environmental Protection Act 1990 to clean up contaminated land. However, the Government have withdrawn capital grant funding, which enables councils to do that.

Let me give an example from Wakefield of a housing estate in Ossett. It was built in the 1970s on the site of an old paintworks, when environmental regulations were much less stringent than they are today. In 2012, the council discovered that people’s back gardens were contaminated with asbestos, lead, arsenic and a derivative of coal tar, which can cause cancer. Cleaning up that toxic legacy would have cost residents £20,000 to £30,000 each, leaving their homes blighted and unsellable. Thankfully, Wakefield Council secured more than £300,000 from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs in contaminated land grants to clean up the toxic mess.

However, our inquiry heard that the cut to the capital grant has severely undermined local councils’ ability to tackle the problem. It means that sites such as Sand Hill Park in Gunnislake in Cornwall, Upton Court Park in Slough and McCormack Avenue in St Helens will be left untreated. Many councils simply do not have the resources to investigate contaminated sites, and we heard that councils would be reluctant to investigate a site—rightly—knowing that they could not secure funding for remediation.

There is a real danger that contaminated sites are being left unidentified, with potential harm to public health. Ministers have been clear that relying on the planning regime alone does not solve the contaminated land problem and could exacerbate regional inequalities. There is a risk of no remediation being done, and in some cases the houses were built in Victorian times, so there is no developer to pursue. The Government have not produced an impact assessment that we have seen—I am happy if the Minister wants to correct me—on the cessation of the capital grant scheme, but it is wrong to state, as Ministers have, that contamination can be addressed through the revenue support grant. Correspondence published by my Committee from December 2013 shows the then DEFRA Minister, Lord de Mauley, saying that the Government never intended the revenue support grant to take the place of capital grant funding.

The Government have cut £17 million of funding since 2009-10, leaving just half a million pounds, with the funding essentially being phased out in 2016-17. Capital support grants, not revenue support grants, have financed 80% of the cost of cleaning up contaminated sites. Fewer than 2% of cases have been remediated through other public funding, suggesting that the revenue support grant has rarely been used to meet councils’ statutory responsibilities under part 2A.

Revenue support grant—the clue is in the name, is it not? It is there to help councils with their revenue needs, not these sorts of big capital needs. Some councils facing the biggest problems with contaminated sites are coping with the most severe budget cuts. Wakefield Council is cutting £27 million of spending this year. We believe it is essential that DEFRA provides a dedicated funding stream to decontaminate sites, to use brownfield properly and to have a resource-efficient approach to the planning system. It should be set at the level of the previous scheme—around £19.5 million in today’s prices.

I was concerned to learn that since the publication of our report both DEFRA and the Department for Communities and Local Government have proposed amendments to planning regulations in the Neighbourhood Planning Bill that will curtail the right of local planning authorities to attach pre-commencement planning conditions to brownfield development approvals. The requirement for these conditions to be agreed with developers in advance or be subject to appeal will prevent local authorities from ensuring that site investigation, risk assessment and clean-up works take place before development begins. Furthermore, the CL:AIRE national quality mark scheme, which aims to speed up approval for development on brownfield sites, risks negating or potentially replacing the independent, rigorous and accountable role of the local authority’s contaminated land officer. It is wrong for DEFRA to be relying on local authorities to remediate contaminated land while cutting their funding and introducing new legislative measures that reduce their ability to act effectively.

Let me turn to soil degradation, peat lands and climate change. I was unaware before this inquiry that soil is a massive natural carbon capture and storage system. We hear a lot about CCS, but we do not actually understand that the soil around us is capturing and storing carbon all the time. It stores three times as much carbon as the atmosphere, and we want it to stay there. The UK’s arable soils have seen a widespread and ongoing decline in peat soil carbon levels since the ’70s. Soil degradation increases carbon emissions and contributes to climate change. Each tonne of carbon retained in soil helps us to meet our carbon budgets and slows climate change.

At the Paris conference on climate change last year, the Government pledged to increase soil carbon levels by 0.4% a year. That is a great pledge, and we welcome the ratification today of the climate change treaty, but the Government need a plan to put that pledge into action. I would like to hear from the Minister where that plan is. Without a national soil monitoring scheme to establish a baseline for the nation’s soil, we will not know whether the target is met. The carbon content of soil is vital for growing food—95% of food, apart from fish. Soil degradation could mean that some of our most productive agricultural land, particularly in East Anglia, becomes unprofitable to farm within a generation.

The degradation and decline of peat bogs is particularly troubling, given that peat lands store about 40% of our soil carbon. The Government need to crack down on land use practices that degrade peat, such as the burning and draining of bogs. I welcome the Government’s commitment to publish their report on the carbon and greenhouse gas balance of low-lying peat lands in England and Wales before the end of the year. That research will fill an important knowledge gap, and the Government should use the report to accelerate and improve their peat land restoration programme.

The upcoming 25-year environment plan—we are keen to hear the latest timings for that from the Minister—should set out measurable and time-bound actions that will halt, then reverse, peat land degradation while minimising the impact on farmers. DEFRA’S single departmental plan contains £100 million for the natural environment. Will the Minister tell us how much of that money will be spent on improving soil health? I am concerned that a majority of the projects are based in upland peat land areas, whereas our report highlighted that the problem is in the lowland peat areas. They are the emissions hotspots, and that is where the Government should target their efforts.

I mentioned the need for a proper soil monitoring system. Again, because soil is earthy and dark, we do not tend to see it as something that is important to us as an ecosystem. DEFRA’s ad hoc approach to soil health surveys is inadequate. We would like the Government to introduce a rolling national monitoring scheme, very similar to the one in Wales that we heard about, to ensure that we get a rich picture of our nation’s soils. Data collection is a cornerstone of effective policy, because what gets measured gets done. Without a national soil monitoring scheme, we do not know whether our soils are getting healthier or sicker. Ad hoc studies are just not enough; one survey in eight years is not enough.

A proposal to undertake a repeat of the soil sampling carried out in 2007, which would cost just £156,000 a year, has been submitted to DEFRA since the release of our report. Is the Minister aware of that and does she have any comments about that proposal? Compared with the costs of monitoring air and water quality, this is very small beer, but it is a crucial platform for knowledge building. Soils receive nowhere near equal status with water, biodiversity and air.

The Government have suggested that we could use farmers’ own soil analysis to monitor soil health. That is fine. That approach may provide useful additional data, but it is not a solution because it would be an unrepresentative sample. I know the Minister has a degree in these—

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Dr Thérèse Coffey)]

In chemistry.

[Mary Creagh]

Yes, the Minister has a degree in chemistry, so she will know about the importance of representative sampling. Such an analysis would only deal with agricultural soil, but would neglect conservation land, urban and coastal land, forests and most peat lands.

Let me turn to the cross-compliance regime. The Government’s reliance on cross-compliance rules with farm payments to regulate agricultural soil health is not sufficient to meet their ambition to manage our soil sustainably by 2030. The regime is too weak. The rules are too loosely enforced and they rely only on preventing further damage to soil, rather than on promoting activity to encourage the restoration and improvement of our soils.

Crucial elements of soil health, such as soil structure and biology, are not assessed at all in the cross-compliance regime, and there is a minimal inspection regime. Two figures really illustrate the changes in the past couple of years. In 2014 there were 478 discovered breaches of the cross-compliance soil regime, but in 2015, under the new common agricultural policy rules, there were just two discovered breaches of the new conditions, both on the same farm. I am pretty certain that the only reason those breaches were discovered was because there was soil run-off, which probably went into a watercourse. It was not Government inspectors, but the Environment Agency, that saw a polluting incident in a river, allowing the breach to be discovered. In theory, an outcome-based approach is fine, but we need adequate inspection and monitoring. Rules with greater scope, force and ambition are required to meet the Government’s goal to manage soil sustainably by 2030.

I turn briefly to subsidies for maize production and anaerobic digestion. We heard that maize production, when managed incorrectly, also damages soil. This is not just a question for fans of “The Archers”, in which Adam is trying to restore the soil structure in the face of opposition from evil Rob Titchener, who is evil not just because of what he did to Helen, but because of his approach to soil monitoring and restoration. We send Adam every good wish in his low-till approach to improving the land.

Maize production can increase flood risk and contribute to soil erosion. My Committee heard evidence that up to three quarters of a field could be sealed to—or become impervious to—rainfall in maize stubble fields over the winter, which results in the soil run-off that, as I said earlier, damages rivers. There is a very simple method to avoid that, which is roughly ploughing back in the maize stubble. If the Government could think of ways to incentivise farmers to do that, we would be only too happy to hear about them. We need effective regulation of high-risk practices.

Maize produced for anaerobic digestion receives a double subsidy: first through the CAP and then from the UK’s own renewable energy incentives. That is counterproductive and has contributed to an increase in the land used for maize production. The Government’s plan to restrict the subsidy for energy generated using crop-based feedstock is a move in the right direction, but it fails to prevent maize from being grown on high-risk soils. I would be grateful if the Minister set out whether she has any specific plans on that issue.

Before I finish, Mr Bone, I would like to say a few words about the referendum result, a topic that I know is very close to your heart.

[Mr Peter Bone (in the Chair)]

Order. When I sit in this Chair, I have no views on anything.

[Mary Creagh]

Excellent; that is great. I shall carry on regardless, then.

Some 80% of our environmental regulations are shaped by Brussels, and soil is no exception. The European Environment Agency researches trends in European soil health and looks at how cross-cutting policy objectives impact on soil management. It is not glamourous work—getting our hands dirty never is—but it is important for member states, including the UK, working towards the European Union’s target to ensure that by 2020 soil erosion is reduced, soil organic matter is increased and remedial work is underway on contaminated sites. It is important that we are able to meet our 0.4% target to improve soil carbon capture, as we have agreed to do in the Paris agreement. As we leave the EU, it is vital that the Government maintain that target and ensure that UK agencies take over the European Environment Agency’s vital work in this area.

Other Members wish to speak, so I will conclude by saying that soil is crucial to life on Earth. Neglecting soil health will damage our food security, increase climate change and damage public health. DEFRA’s upcoming 25-year environment plan gives us a unique opportunity to place soil protection at the heart of our environmental policy. We must stop seeing soil just as a growth medium and treat it as a precious, fragile ecosystem in its own right—it is the Cinderella of all ecosystems.

We need a joined-up soil policy between DEFRA and the Department for Communities and Local Government in relation to planning. We are pleased that the Government have acknowledged those issues, but now we await action. We want to see specific, measurable and time-limited action to protect our soil. I commend our report to the House, and I look forward to the debate and to the Minister’s response.

13:50

[Rebecca Pow (Taunton Deane) (Con)]

I, too, am delighted to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Bone. I am also delighted to follow my Committee colleague, the hon. Member for Wakefield (Mary Creagh), who so ably chaired our inquiry on soil. I was one of the people who persuaded her to hold the inquiry. To many people it might seem a rather odd subject to consider, but I hope that we are demonstrating that we neglect soil at our peril. Soil may not be on your top-10 list of important issues, Mr Bone, but I hope you might change your mind after hearing what we have to say this afternoon and agree that we should all give soil a much higher profile.

The hon. Lady talked about soil and soil contamination, but I will talk about soil in the wider landscape. I hope that some of the ideas in our report will gradually filter into policy, and I am confident that the Minister is listening to some of those views. I am a gardener, I grow fruits and vegetables at home, I was brought up on a mixed farm—such farms treat soil the best—and I have reported on such subjects for many years as a journalist, so I am pleased to be involved in this debate.

Soil is the stuff of life. It is as important as the water we drink and the air we breathe—they are all inextricably linked. Without healthy soils, we cannot produce healthy, sustainable food. Soil is also an important sequester of carbon, as we have already heard, and it plays an important role in climate mitigation. Until we produced our report, many people, even on our Committee, were unaware of that. Soil stores three times as much carbon as is held in the atmosphere, with peat being especially significant. Soil has an important water-cleaning function, as it helps to filter and clean the water as it drains through. Soil also holds water and slows the flow, so it also provides flood resilience. We heard all those things in our inquiry.

I am also a member of the Select Committee on Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, which recently reported on flood resilience. Soil was highlighted in that report. Treating our soil well and increasing the amount of organic matter contained in it will help to hold water and slow the flow into our rivers, which will ultimately help the nation. Taking more care of the land around us would have a cost effect on the economy, because it would save us money if we did not have to react to massive flooding.

I said at the beginning that soil is the stuff of life. Soil is our lifeblood, and it is alive—many people think soil is inert, but it is not. There are more organisms in 1 gram of soil than there are human beings on the planet. Each gram of soil contains: 1 billion bacteria belonging to 10,000 different species; up to 100 invertebrates; and up to 1 km of fungal threads. A square metre of soil can contain between 30 and 300 earthworms.

[Mary Creagh]

The hon. Lady is showing what a brilliant member of the Environmental Audit Committee she has been. I slightly regret that we did not call her as a witness, instead of just as a member of the Committee, because I am learning new things, particularly about fungal threads and water filtration. This is a subject to which Parliament must return.

[Rebecca Pow]

I thank the hon. Lady so much for that intervention. I have talked to many organisations. I literally love soil. It is a fantastic subject in which we all need to get more involved. Darwin described earthworms as nature’s little ploughs. We would not survive without earthworms, because they create the passageways that aerate the soil and allow it to breathe and be healthy, and that allow all the other creatures to go to and fro doing their jobs.

All those creatures are working in the topsoil, directly influencing the food we grow—there is a direct link—yet we understand only 1% of those organisms, which is unbelievable. It is an untapped area. People are getting into it, but it is still so unknown. The hon. Lady mentioned fungi. Trees could not properly uptake nutrients or water without the fungi in the soil, and we would not survive without the trees because they have such an effect on the recycling of the air and all the gases, which is even more reason to look after our soil. That brings me neatly to something I must mention—ancient trees. I am chairman of the all-party parliamentary group on ancient woodland and veteran trees. Ancient woodland is our most biodiverse habitat, but only 2% remains. Ancient woodlands are like our rain forests, and they are a wonderful microcosm of biodiversity, but with the trees we have to include the soil underneath. We should treat it all as one holistic whole.

The soil and those trees should be protected as we protect our national monuments. They are that significant. I am sure that the Minister is listening, and her predecessor was terribly interested in ancient trees. All the diverse little connections are all the more reason to protect our soil.

[Dr Thérèse Coffey]

I reassure my hon. Friend that I am listening. She came to meet me not long ago for a full half-hour discussion on soil health.

[Rebecca Pow]

I am coming to that. There is a major section in my speech about our meeting, but I thank the Minister for drawing attention to it.

It is a sad scenario that brings us here today and that caused us to hold our inquiry. Soil is a finite and deteriorating resource. Soil takes a very long time to develop, as we have heard—1 cm of topsoil can take 1,000 years to form, but can be lost in a moment. Topsoil can be washed away into our waterways if the incorrect crops are grown and it is left open to water, and the carbon in the soil can evaporate into the atmosphere.

According to a UK Government report, the UK is losing 2.2 million tonnes of crucial topsoil each year, which costs the economy some £1.2 billion. That is why we must seriously consider the issue. As we have heard, some calculations say that we have only 100 harvests left in certain arable areas of the south-east of England before we cannot grow anything in the soil. We have to do something to reverse that decline.

I do not want to be completely negative. I applaud the Government in some respects, and I particularly welcome their progress on preventing the degradation of the peatlands—we have already heard about that, so I will not talk about it in great detail. I also applaud the Government on their ambition to manage soil sustainably by 2030. That was highlighted in the 2011 natural environment White Paper, but I urge the Minister to speed up the process. The situation is so serious that we need to address it now, rather than thinking, “2030 is a long time way. Let’s not worry about it now.”

As we have heard, the Government signed an agreement at COP 21 to increase soil carbon by 0.4% a year. I am pleased that that is on the agenda, which I applaud. That is great, but please can we hear from the Minister about how we are pushing it forward? It is serious.

It is not all about carbon and climate change; it is really about changing how we think about soil, which is partly what this debate is about. This is the first ever UK debate on soil, and I hope that it will influence how we think about it. Let us start by treating soil as an ecosystem, not as a medium for growing stuff, because we have used and abused it—not everyone has, but it has often been treated that way—and the ethos of EU policies has been about preventing damage rather than restoring and improving the soil. Brexit provides us with an excellent opportunity to change how we approach the issue and think about how to encourage those who work the land to help restore and improve it. The Soil Association calls for organic matter to be increased on arable land by 20% in 20 years. That is quite a challenge, but we should perhaps consider it.

I come now to the issue of monitoring schemes. One of our report’s main findings was that we needed a decent monitoring scheme. After all, if we do not know what is in the soil, how can we tell people what they ought to do about it? Lord Krebs led the way on climate change by means of a proper monitoring scheme, which is what triggered all the work that we have been able to do on climate change. I was delighted to discuss a soil monitoring scheme with our previous Environment Minister, who was keen on trying to get the idea into the 25-year plan. Again, I applaud the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs for doing so.

I am also delighted that our new Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk Coastal, who has taken over the mantle, has shown so much interest in the subject that she has already met me for half an hour to discuss it, bringing with her lots more of the brains on her team. I was pleased—it was early in her tenure as the new Environment Minister—and I am absolutely sure that she was listening. I would like to hear a little about where those ideas might have gone.

I remind everybody that a royal commission on environmental pollution 20 years ago recommended a monitoring scheme, so we have not come very far since then. In fairness, there is an EU soil monitoring programme, but it is done only once every eight or 10 years, and it is quite cursory. A lot of farmers will tell you that they monitor the soil, but they are monitoring mainly the chemicals in the soil—NPK, or nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium—and that needs to be broadened.

We have so much environmental expertise in this country, as we heard at our inquiry. We have got the brains, and much of the work is already being done. The Centre for Ecology and Hydrology has a scheme that it reckons it could roll out tomorrow, with not too much funding, so that we could monitor our soil as an ecosystem and look not only at the chemical content but the organic and carbon content, and all the organisms—thrips, nematodes, earthworms and all the things that I learned about at university years and years ago—that are mentioned much less than they ought to be. We could make a difference quickly.

I do not think that there should be a blame game against farmers. Many of the ways that farmers have been forced to farm have been directed by our policies of low-cost food. That is why many farmers have gone down the route of monoculture and least-cost production, and our European Community policies have encouraged that. In fairness, lots of farmers are already doing exceptionally good work.

One farmer in my constituency, Tom Morris, is a great friend. He is an organic dairy farmer who has always farmed for the soil. At the Dairy UK breakfast this week, I met a fascinating chap called Lyndon Edwards, who is also an organic farmer, from Severndale farm in Chepstow. He goes around giving workshops showcasing his good practice to other farmers, and has just been to my constituency. We should encourage a lot more of that; I think that people would be receptive to it. One suggestion is that perhaps the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board, the levy board, might be able to put some emphasis on research into soil analysis, to help build up our picture.

More green cover and grass—I am a great advocate of grass—in growing rotations, more deep-rooted crops and many other simple things can be done to address the situation. We should be getting on with it. I reiterate the calls for more joined-up thinking across Departments, particularly between DEFRA and the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, so that when we form our policies on crops grown for energy production, we choose crops that will not destroy the environment. Maize needs serious consideration. I am sure that the Minister is listening.

There is a massive link with well-being and the health of our soil, which links the issue to the Department of Health as well. It is important to have healthy soil and a healthy ecosystem, which basically means a healthy us. That is a no-brainer. I am heartened by the groundswell of interest in the issue. It is not just our Committee here in London; I meet many people who talk about soil, including farmers. I held an environment forum in Taunton last week on flood resilience, but the subject of soil and how better to look after it to control flooding kept coming up.

Soil should not be a Cinderella story. I will end with a final thought that might concentrate our minds. Research in the US has just discovered the first potential in 10 years for a new antibiotic. Guess where? In the soil. That should give us all plenty of food for thought. I know that the Minister, with her scientific mind, will realise how important it is. We neglect soil at our peril.

14:06

[Simon Danczuk (Rochdale) (Ind)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Bone. It is also a delight to follow the hon. Member for Taunton Deane (Rebecca Pow), who made an excellent speech. She certainly educated me on a range of issues. I welcome the Environmental Audit Committee’s recent report on soil health across the UK, and I commend the work by my hon. Friend the Member for Wakefield (Mary Creagh), who secured this important debate.

DEFRA funding for contaminated land has been vital for towns such as Rochdale. The removal of such funding seriously impairs my local council’s ability to tackle this environmental problem. My community’s rich industrial history has had a lasting legacy, not all of which has been positive. The former Turner Brothers Asbestos site in Spodden valley spans 30 hectares. It was the world’s largest asbestos textile factory until it ceased production in the 1990s. Asbestos scourged the lives of many of the men and women who worked in the textile factory. My predecessor, Cyril Smith, who owned shares in the business, did much to protect and promote the industry even when he would have known that it was killing his constituents.

Today, Spodden valley lies barren, depriving the people of Rochdale space for recreation, services or even homes. My ideal is for the site to become an urban park, a green lung in memory of all those killed by asbestos. Whether that is possible, I am unsure; what I do know is that the site is a ticking time bomb. There are strong suggestions that asbestos was tipped on the site and still sits there in the soil. We know for a fact that many of the derelict buildings on the site contain asbestos.

Therefore, for the people of Rochdale, it is imperative that the Government take soil protection seriously and commit to properly funding the investigation and clean-up of contaminated land. The Environment Agency, the Health and Safety Executive and Public Health England also need to do more, particularly in relation to Spodden valley. Such challenges are too great for local authorities to face on their own.

In the past, Rochdale has benefited enormously from the contaminated land capital grants scheme for carrying out work required by the part 2A regime of the Environmental Protection Act 1990, which my hon. Friend the Member for Wakefield mentioned. Among other sites, four former landfills in Rochdale were inspected using such funding, resulting in three determinations of contaminated land and remediation. Once again, Government funding was vital.

Now Rochdale relies on site owners to undertake voluntary inspections. We are fortunate in the case of Spodden valley that the intrusive site work inspection is being undertaken by the site owners themselves. However, we fear that that may not be the case for future sites in Rochdale, which could be left blighted for the foreseeable future as potential developers see investment as unviable.

The council’s estimated costs for the work on the former Turner Brothers Asbestos site are astronomical. Because of the size, history and potential complexity of the site, further investigations are needed to fill the information gaps. The council will continue to work hard to support the site owner, but we know that it simply could not afford to undertake such a monumental task all by itself. Rochdale Council, like many other local authorities throughout the country, believes that councils will struggle to meet their statutory obligations for contaminated land now that funding under part 2A of the Environmental Protection Act 1990 is being phased out. Councils are rightly expected to uphold good environmental standards but will no longer be given adequate financial support by central Government. Such requirements will become burdensome. Intrusive site investigations and comprehensive risk assessments—not to mention clean-up charges—are incredibly costly.

In this matter, as in so many things, the Government are shirking their responsibilities and punishing local authorities by demanding that they do more and more with less and less every year. In Rochdale, an area with high levels of deprivation, cuts to local government have hit hard. Services that local people depend on have been cut to the bone. The local authority simply does not have spare cash lying around. We need central Government support. Throughout the 20th century, factories in Rochdale and throughout the north-west pumped money into the Exchequer, as did their employees. Now that those industries have gone, the Government appear to be turning a blind eye to their environmental legacy and to families who live with threats from land, such as at Spodden valley.

Local authorities are having an incredibly tough time. With their shrinking budgets, it is simply impossible to expect them to pick up the extortionate bill for investigating and cleaning up contaminated land. I therefore urge the Minister to take seriously the recommendations made in the Environmental Audit Committee report.

14:12

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

As ever, Mr Bone, it is a pleasure to see you in the Chair. I am pleased that today we have the opportunity to discuss the importance of soil health, which is something of a Cinderella issue in environmental policy, as other hon. Members have said: it has been neglected for too long. I hope that the Environmental Audit Committee’s report and today’s debate will help to lift it from obscurity and give it the attention it deserves.

Some of our most productive agricultural land could become unprofitable within a generation because of soil erosion and loss of organic carbon. Soil degradation in England and Wales costs an estimated £1.2 billion per year in lost productivity, flood damage, reduced water quality and other costs. Our approach to managing our soil has to change to address those risks and as part of our strategy for tackling climate change and flooding. Any Members who visited flood-hit areas in the north of the country over Christmas will have heard from people there about the impact of soil erosion on flooding—I am sure my hon. Friend the Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell) will have something to say on that point. It is one important reason why we need to address the quality of soil and to protect our soil.

I commend the Environmental Audit Committee for its excellent report. The passion with which two of its members—my hon. Friend the Member for Wakefield (Mary Creagh) and the hon. Member for Taunton Deane (Rebecca Pow)—have spoken today speaks volumes about how seriously they take the issue. I am now a member of the Committee; I am sorry that I was not a member when it conducted the inquiry. It is niche, perhaps, but it does really important work on fascinating topics. As a former chair of the all-party group on agroecology and a current vice-chair of the all-party group on agriculture and food for development, I am particularly interested in this topic. I commend the agroecology group’s soil inquiry, which slightly preceded the work of the Environmental Audit Committee and which came to very similar conclusions.

It has to be said that the Government’s response to the Committee’s recommendations has been pretty weak. As well as taking them to task for that today, I know Members of both Houses will be keen to keep up the pressure on the Government after the debate. I will focus my comments on three areas: how we can better protect our best agricultural soils through the planning system and planning policy; contaminated land, which other Members have already addressed; and the need for a proper plan of action to meet the Government’s laudable aim of ensuring that all soils are sustainably managed by 2030.

First, on planning, there has been a steady loss of our most fertile soils to development. The issue first came to my attention with the proposals to build a bus-only junction on prime agricultural land in and on the edges of my constituency. The site, known as the Blue Finger, consists of highly fertile food-growing soil, which is predominantly grade 1, although some peripheral areas are grade 2 and 3. Those three grades are collectively known as best and most versatile—BMV—soil. At the moment, the site is home to exemplary community food-growing projects, such as “Feed Bristol”, and to allotments. Unfortunately, the construction work is now going ahead, but I campaigned against it with my community because my view is that BMV land ought to be used for growing food, not concreted over.

The protection given to BMV land has been slowly weakened, most recently as a result of changes to the national planning policy framework in March 2012. Although planning practice guidance supports space for growing food, the national planning policy framework does not specifically include local food growing, which tends to mean that local plans do not include it either. When I raised that issue in a Westminster Hall debate that I secured in March last year, the then Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, the hon. Member for Portsmouth North (Penny Mordaunt), assured me that she would look at changes to planning regulations to see how we could better protect high-quality food-growing land. I understand that the NPPF is likely to be amended in the next few months; I would be grateful if the Minister spoke to her colleagues in the Department for Communities and Local Government and tried to persuade them of the need to include protection of our best soil in planning policy. It is too often overlooked.

Secondly, on contaminated land, I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Rochdale (Simon Danczuk) on highlighting how important the issue is to his constituency. I was genuinely disappointed that the Government’s response to the Committee did not even acknowledge, let alone accept responsibility for, the compelling evidence about the impact of withdrawing the capital grant scheme for carrying out remediation work to contaminated land. That means that local authorities will be less likely to identify contaminated sites so they are not burdened with the costs of remediation, especially since, as the report strongly makes clear, 81% of part 2A remediation has depended on funding from the capital grant scheme, and less than 2% is remediated through other public funding. It is simply not credible for the Government to claim that support for part 2A work

“remains in the form of the Revenue Support Grant”,

when in reality that grant has rarely been made available for such work.

I received a similar response from the Government to my written question about the management of more than 1,000 old landfill sites on the coasts of England and Wales. According to recent research commissioned by the Environment Agency, those sites are at increasing risk of being breached by coastal erosion, which could result in toxic pollutants leaching into the local environment and bathing water. The response of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs was that that

“is a matter for local authorities”.

It is true that the statutory duty to remediate contaminated land lies with local authorities, but DEFRA’s failure to acknowledge councils’ reliance on that funding for that work is far too complacent, especially for poorer areas where contamination is less likely to be remediated through the planning system. I would like to hear the Minister’s thoughts on the safety of those sites and whether she is reassured that everything is being done to minimise the risk to the environment and public health in the future.

Thirdly, I would like to focus on the report’s recommendation that the Government set out their plan of action for increasing soil carbon levels. In their response to the Committee, the Government detailed existing guidance and good practice for protecting peatlands, but the damaging practice of burning on upland peat persists. The Committee on Climate Change found that

“the majority of upland areas with carbon-rich peat soils…are in poor condition”

and that 27% of upland peats are regularly burned.

In the Westminster Hall debate on driven grouse shooting a couple of weeks ago, I raised the fact that grouse moors are the only places in England with Natural England’s permission to burn blanket bog on special areas of conservation, even though they receive EU environmental stewardship money for restoring those important sites. Sadly, in responding to that debate, the Minister did not provide much reassurance, other than to unnecessarily clarify that the payments are not paid to support shooting activities, which was not the point I was making, and to say that the Government

“will continue to work with moor owners and stakeholders to further improve management practices and peat condition.”—[Official Report, 31 October 2016; Vol. 616, c. 276WH.]

I hope that we see much tougher action by the Government to tackle land use practices that degrade peat.

The Government’s response was also notably weak on action to address loss of carbon from lowland, drained peat, which, as the Soil Association says, is equivalent to the emissions from all buses in the UK. I hope the Minister will reassure us that she considers lowland peat used for agriculture to be as much of a priority as upland peat. Will she ensure that measures to drastically reduce greenhouse gas emissions targeted at lowland peat areas will be included in the 25-year plans?

After visiting Avalon marshes in Somerset fairly recently, I tabled some written questions to the Department about peat works in the UK and their licences. My first question was to ask

“how many peat works the Government has bought out in each of the last five years; and how much the Government spent on buying out peat works in each of the last five years.”

The Minister’s response was that one licence had been bought out, which rather surprised me because, when he gave evidence to the Select Committee, the former Environment Minister, the hon. Member for Penrith and The Border (Rory Stewart), said:

“We have spent considerable sums of money buying out peat works”,

which I thought implied that there might have been more than one.

As understand it, there are currently 29 valid peat extraction licences, all of which expire by 2042, which clearly is some way off in the distance. Are there any plans to try to buy out any more of the licences so that we can protect the peatland in the intervening years?

[Rebecca Pow]

I wanted to ask not about licensing but about the Avalon marshes. They are managed by the Somerset Wildlife Trust, which does some excellent work on peatland restoration. Will the hon. Lady comment on how valuable that is and how we ought to showcase more of it? As a vice-president of the Somerset Wildlife Trust, I really feel it deserves some credit.

[Kerry McCarthy]

I am happy to join the hon. Lady in congratulating the trust on that work. I visited the marshes with the Heritage Lottery Fund, which is working to discover what has been preserved by the peat going back many centuries. That aspect of my trip was fascinating, as was looking at the biodiversity associated with peatland. As I was travelling there, I spotted peat works in the area, which led me to ask how much peat is still being commercially extracted and whether, given the wonderful restoration work that is being done in the Avalon marshes, we should be trying to protect some more of it and buying up some of the licences.

[Rebecca Pow]

On that point, I know that those in the horticultural industry are working closely together and that the use of peat—that was the main user—has declined dramatically. It is an important issue, but it is very much being tackled by the horticultural industry from that end as well, which I applaud.

[Kerry McCarthy]

I agree. Action is being taken, but although I could not get a firm answer from the Department, which said that data on peat extraction licences are not held centrally, Natural England estimates that there are currently 29 valid peat extraction licences. Five of those licences will expire before 2020; six more will expire by 2030; another four will expire by 2040; and the remaining 14 will expire in 2042. That is quite a lot of peat extraction between now and 2040. I obviously do not have the data on what areas of land are covered; it is all a little vague, which is why I would like the Minister to look into it. The way to tackle the issue is to try to buy out the licences so that the commercial activities do not go ahead. It should be on the record that I would like to see that done.

On the broader issue of carbon in the soil, there is already evidence out there. As Peter Melchett from the Soil Association said to the Select Committee:

“how you get carbon back into the soil is fairly settled science”.

We need a commitment that shows that the Government have fully embraced the need to act on that science. It is welcome that at an event last month the Secretary of State spoke of her own personal commitment to implementing the global “4 per 1000” soil carbon initiative. It is also welcome that the Government have confirmed that measures to increase soil organic matter will be reflected in the 25-year environment plan, but I hope there will be more than just a token reference to soil, and that the plan will set out the

“specific, measureable and time-limited actions”



to increase soil carbon levels by 0.4% per year that the Select Committee recommended.

The protection of agricultural soils should also, of course, be in the other 25-year plan—the food and farming plan. In fact, this illustrates the absurdity of the Government’s decision to have two completely separate plans. It is not possible to separate farming from the natural environment on which it depends and the rural communities that sustain it. It is unwise to look at food and farming purely from an economic, money-making viewpoint and nothing more, particularly if the focus in the food and farming plan on growing more, buying more and selling more British food ends up promoting further intensification, which would lead to more pressure on soils, not to mention more pressure on water and biodiversity, and increased greenhouse gas emissions. We will all end up paying the costs. The Minister will probably say that efforts are being made to cross-reference the two 25-year plans, but I stick by my original views that the issues ought to be incorporated into one report.

The Committee on Climate Change has said that, for the UK to meet the targets in the Climate Change Act 2008, a 15% reduction in agricultural emissions is needed by 2032. That will be achieved in part by action to prevent the degradation of our carbon-rich soils, about which we have already heard from other Members. Will the Minister say whether emissions from agriculture will be included in the Government’s emissions reduction plans? Will the food and farming plan set out how agriculture will deliver its sectoral share of responsibility for reducing carbon emissions?

Other Members have touched on reform to the common agricultural policy. I hope we will also hear today about the Government’s priorities for our agricultural policy framework once we leave the EU, to ensure that in future farm payments are better invested in public goods, from soil health to wildlife and water quality. In drawing up their plans, I hope the Government look to some of the great examples of best practice and forward thinking by UK farmers and growers on restoring our soils, including agroecological approaches.

As we have heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Wakefield, there is currently quite a debate going on in “The Archers”. People will know of Adam’s struggles in trying to improve the long-term fertility of his soil, with his plans looking increasingly likely to be overturned by his land managers, on the advice of the evil Rob Titchener, who has been mentioned already. The previous Environment Minister, the hon. Member for Penrith and The Border, told the Select Committee that the primary incentive for farmers to protect their soils is that it is good for their farm business, as healthy soils are the bedrock of future production—indeed, we heard from the hon. Member for Taunton Deane that we will reach a point where there will be no more harvests, at least in some parts of the country, if we do not protect soil.

As the report says, the benefits of soil health are not always felt by those maintaining it, and the costs of soil degradation are mostly borne by others, from water companies to those living downstream at greater risk of flooding. Adam’s new farming methods are making Borchester Land uneasy. It has been too easy for Rob to paint Adam’s methods as a bit faddish, hippy-ish and self-indulgent, as opposed to his facing the hard-headed economic realities of farming. I hope that, as well as in the other 25-year plan, the Government really seize the chance in the food and farming plan and say that it is not unfriendly towards business to look at agroecological approaches. We need to be protecting soil as one of our most precious resources. It is that that will protect the future productivity of farming, as well as protecting our countryside.

[Mr Peter Bone (in the Chair)]

Before I call Mike Weir to speak for the Scottish National party, I am not sure: are we sub judice on some of the events in Borchester, or has that case passed?

[Kerry McCarthy]

Events involving the evil Rob Titchener?

[Mr Peter Bone (in the Chair)]

Yes.

[Kerry McCarthy]

I think Helen was acquitted at the trial, so his evilness is in no doubt and we can put it on the record.

14:29

[Mike Weir (Angus) (SNP)]

I am very happy to appear under your chairmanship this afternoon, Mr Bone, and to learn so much about what is happening in “The Archers”.

I should perhaps start by declaring an interest, because, like the hon. Member for Taunton Deane (Rebecca Pow), I am a keen gardener. I am an organic gardener and from that I understand the necessity for healthy soil; it is only with a healthy soil that it is possible to have healthy plants, particularly fruit and vegetables. However, healthy soil is not only the growing medium, as she rightly said, but extends the biodiversity and the species in a garden. I have many species of birds in my garden. In fact, at times I think that the entire species of Spuggies and Brechin lives in my garden, because there are so many of them there; for the non-Scots, that is house sparrows.

It is important that we get this right, because if we do not have healthy soil there will be an impact on food production and on species. Later, I will say something about the carbon in the soil.

In introducing the very good report by the Select Committee, the hon. Member for Wakefield (Mary Creagh) made the valuable point that the report is not just about soil as such, as a growing medium, but about soil that has been contaminated as a result of things that have happened in the past, which was a point made very powerfully by the hon. Member for Rochdale (Simon Danczuk) in referring to the Turner Brothers factory. However, it is not just in post-industrial landscapes that such contamination is a problem. Even in my area, there are old buildings that have had industrial or farming uses and that are full of asbestos and various other contaminants.

There are also problems with former Ministry of Defence facilities, because in many periods, specifically in the immediate post-war period, old aircraft were dismantled and waste was put into pits and similar things. For example, Dalgety Bay in Fife has had an ongoing and serious problem with radioactivity from some of the machinery that was dumped just off the coast. Also, much machinery was buried on old military bases throughout the country.

One of the problems is a lack of record-keeping. It is sometimes very difficult to know what contaminants are actually on these sites, which makes it extremely difficult to clean them up for agricultural or development purposes. There is no easy answer to that problem, and I appreciate that it is not the current Government’s fault that in the 1940s and early 1950s records were not necessarily kept, or that records from that time have since been lost. Also, sometimes the difficulties in this regard were not fully appreciated. Nevertheless, we have to deal with that situation now, because soil is so important; indeed, it is increasingly important to us.

The hon. Member for Taunton Deane made a very powerful speech about the necessity for good soil. I specifically liked one point she made, namely, that soil is not an innate substance. I do not know if she has read the excellent book, “The Running Hare: The secret life of farmland”, which I understand recently topped the bestselling list. It is a fascinating book about someone who is trying to regenerate a piece of farmland—a couple of acres—with natural resources, in order to bring back hares, which have disappeared from many parts of modern farmland.

One of the things that the author does first is to dig a square metre in a field to discover how many earthworms are within it and to compare the number with that of neighbouring farmland. Of course, because the land has been chemically farmed, there are very few earthworms. One of the things that happens in the book is that earthworms come back. In turn, that leads to hares coming back; without giving away too much of the plot, they do come back. However, other animals are also brought in, including smaller animals and birds, and birds of prey, and the farmland is regenerated as a result. Throughout the book, the author compares his farmland to the neighbouring farmland, which he refers to, perhaps unkindly, as the land of “the Chemical Brothers”, who are not doing what he does. The book is interesting in showing how relatively simple changes can bring about a substantial difference to farmland.

[Rebecca Pow]

I am so pleased that the hon. Gentleman is highlighting this point. I have not read that book, but I know about it and will now read it. It makes the case for the call for the monitoring scheme to include much more than just chemicals; we should even count the earthworms in a quadrat of soil. He is making a very powerful point.

[Mike Weir]

I thank the hon. Lady for that intervention. It is a very good point and what she has suggested should be done.

[Mary Creagh]

I wanted to ask the hon. Gentleman about hares, which are one of our most iconic native species. I have just seen that there is a close season on hunting hares in Scotland, but I am not aware that we have a close season for hares in England and Wales. That is problematic, because we had a target to restore the hare population to 1990 levels, and that target has consistently been missed. So will he join me in calling on the Minister to consider the need for a close season on hares in England and Wales?

[Mike Weir]

The hon. Lady has made her point. I think the Minister might object to a Scottish MP calling for a close season on hares in England when we have one in Scotland already. Nevertheless, I am sure the Minister has heard her point.

Much of this issue in Scotland is a devolved matter, but, as has been mentioned, the UK Government have signed up to a scheme, COP 21, to increase soil carbon levels by 0.4% per year. Obviously, there will have to be work with the devolved Administrations to achieve that, since all of them have their own separate schemes.

In Scotland, we recognise that soil is a valuable but vulnerable national asset that requires sustainable and effective management. Although we have talked a lot today about farming, this issues goes much further. In Scotland, as well as farming and food production we have forestry and tourism, which are important and rely on a good natural environment, including a good soil structure. So, throughout the economy, soil is important and we should not just look at it as a purely farming matter; we must expand the areas that we are considering.

I think that it was the hon. Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy) who mentioned flooding, saying how soil management also plays an important role in sustainable flood management. Within the common agricultural policy schemes that are currently operating, at least in Scotland, there is an attempt to persuade farmers to take flooding into account in their farming methods, particularly by leaving flood plains in the areas immediately next to rivers and by not building on those flood plains. Often, when flood plains are built on, there is a problem as floodwater is pushed further down the river. In my area, we have probably expended millions of pounds on flood defences to deal with that problem, because when there are changes in farming practices, sometimes the floodwater is pushed further down the river, causing problems that then have to be dealt with by other methods.

Mention was also made of peatlands. Peatlands constitute a third of Scotland’s soil and they provide many economic, environmental and cultural ecosystems, as well as being important habitats for our wildlife. As far as carbon is concerned, it has been estimated that in Scotland’s peatlands the soil contains 3,000 megatonnes of carbon, which is equivalent to nearly 200 times the net annual greenhouse gas emissions. That shows the importance of soil for climate change and, in particular, the importance of peatlands.

The Scottish Government are seeking to maintain soil carbon in place, but we have to bear it in mind that there is always a conflict about some of these things. For example, renewable energy infrastructure—wind farms, for instance—is often built in areas that are less accessible, and often that is peatland or similar land. There is an offset if we have these renewable energies and clearly we are saving carbon, but at the same time there is a cost to them and we should not lose sight of that cost. The Committee’s report says:

“Current policy aims to minimise losses while facilitating development which delivers economic growth that does not entail disproportionate carbon costs.”

I reiterate that there is a cost and we must find ways of offsetting it.

Also, earlier I made the point about species. One of the things that is being done to support peatland restoration is to provide funding through the rural priorities scheme of the Scottish Rural Development Programme. Some landowners, such as the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, have carried out restoration on their land, which, in the case of the RSPB, is mostly to do with wildlife but none the less has an important effect on greenhouse gas emissions and on ensuring that carbon is maintained in the soil. Restoration also has side effects. For example, it leads to other species growing. In many cases there is a regrowth of sphagnum moss and the resumption of carbon sequestration.

To sum up, this issue is not just about farming; there is an economic impact on all our rural areas. One thing that worries me—I am sure the Minister will not say too much about it—is farming payments. In Scotland at least, we have been trying to push much of the farming subsidy towards more environmental means to try to ensure the future. If it should come to pass that we leave the European Union, there will have to be a major realignment of farming payments. I urge the Minister and the devolved Administrations to look at the environmental benefits and how they will be maintained in a post-EU world, should that unfortunate calamity come to pass.

14:41

[Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is good to see you in the Chair this afternoon, Mr Bone. I start by thanking the Environmental Audit Committee for the rigour with which it has conducted its inquiry. It has produced an excellent, evidence-based report. The Government should take heed of its warnings and embrace its solutions. The qualities and properties of our soils are so finely balanced, as we have heard this afternoon. Our understanding of that has led in the past to the degradation of soil and peat bog erosion in the lowlands and the highlands, and it has had a wider impact on biodiversity, natural habitats, and flooding and water management. It now presents issues around public health, climate change and food security. The call for an effective plan with clear targets, which my hon. Friend the Member for Wakefield (Mary Creagh) made at the last Environment, Food and Rural Affairs questions and again in her speech today, is the issue of today’s debate.

Before I move on, I must mention the fascinating speech of the hon. Member for Taunton Deane (Rebecca Pow). It reminded me of David Bellamy in my youth talking about soil, and the interest he created in me. She was right, as were other speakers, to talk about the enthusiasm with which farmers talk about this agenda. They are changing their practices to see better quality soil.

The Paris agreement has set the pace for the world on how we need to address the matter. The cap on temperature rises—it is frightening to see a 1.5 °C rise in global temperatures—will determine how we farm our land. With a 1 °C rise in temperature, we could see a 30% loss in peat. Without action, we could see half of our peat depleted. Likewise, we are losing 2.2 million tonnes of soil each year in the UK, but it takes 100 years to grow back just 1 cm of top soil. Action is needed now to ensure that we have sustainable soils by 2030. I have heard that with current farming techniques, much of our land has only 30 harvests left due to the depletion in soil quality. That puts our food security back under the spotlight. We have not seen the action that we would expect since the signing by Sir David King at COP 21 of the agreement to move forward on this issue. We have had a wasted year.

I have read the Government’s response to the Environmental Audit Committee’s work, and it is worrying. There is too much dependency on voluntary codes that are not delivering the required change for carbon sequestration back into our soils, particularly in the lowland peatlands. We are told that the answers will be found in plans yet to see the light of day. My concern is that we need a framework now. That will ensure that we restore soil health in a comprehensive, managed way. How will the Government monitor soils comprehensively? What will the drivers be to re-carbonise soils? What year-on-year targets will the Government set to ensure that they fulfil their obligations? Even the Committee on Climate Change is worried about the Government’s dependency on a narrow agenda to reach anywhere near what is needed.

Members have mentioned many good examples of farming practices, including changing crop mixes, planting grasses, using green manures, investing in agro-forestation schemes, moving to organic farming and using winter cover crops to secure the soil. There have been good examples of re-wetting peatland in the lowlands. That is so important in the fens, where peats are rapidly drying. We have to look at the agenda, but we also have to question why any form of burning or draining soils continues. We heard about that in the grouse moor shooting debate a couple of weeks back. Surely it is time for action to be taken.

We also need a proper analysis of the state of our soil. We have heard how Wales has put a progressive, systematic process in place. The Committee’s report has drawn that out as best practice. We would be wise to follow the actions of Labour’s initiative, which uses a tiny proportion of rural payments to undertake the work.

I was struck by what Professor Chris Collins said in the report. He talked about the need to define what we mean by “soil health”. He said:

“There needs to be clear policy direction, evidence based, that defines what soil health is, and critically the measure to be used to evaluate it.”

It is so important that we put those things in place.

The report also draws out the need to link monitoring to other important biodiversity measures, such as fauna, micro-diversity and soil structure. While ad hoc data gathering from farmers’ soil testing regimes could add to data, its methodology is not scientific enough to provide the necessary data, so I hope the Government will look again at that. Accurate auditing leads to effective mitigation planning and interventions. That leads me to ask the Minister, how will her Government implement a programme to see a 0.4% annual increase in soil carbon levels? How will she help farmers to achieve that? How will she assist some farmers to go even further? What interventions will the Government make to ensure that that happens? Specific timelines are needed now, not just warm words.

When will we be able to see the UK peatland strategy? I know that we have seen delay with the 25-year plans that my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy) says should be co-joined. When will the strategy come to light? What measures will be in the peatland plan in particular to ensure that lowland peat is restored and is performing its vital role in carbon retention?

The report was published before the referendum, so I want to ask the Minister about the steps the Government will take on leaving the EU to assist farmers in making the transition to improved soil management, perhaps by converting to organic farming. Will they have access to the five-year conversion and maintenance payments, in the light of the fact that we could have left the EU by 2019? If there is no certainty over the next couple of years, the Government are unlikely to see many applications for transition. What future support will they provide for those in transition now? What sticks and carrots will they make available to make the necessary changes in the future? Answers are needed, because farmers are making choices for their futures now.

The three good statutory management requirements used for cross-compliance have failed to provide the necessary incentive to drive soil quality improvement. It is clear that the scheme has failed to properly audit farms, and there are loopholes in the system. What will the Minister’s priorities be in replacing that part of the rural development programme? As we have heard, we also need to examine the impact of anaerobic digestion. I will not go further into that debate due to the time, but I want to mention the issue of offsetting floods. Soil has so many important qualities in achieving that, so it is important that we also examine it as part of flood management.

I also want to touch on the issue of contaminated land, not least because my constituency was drawn out in the plan and because the funding is inadequate in the light of the contaminated land capital grants being removed. There are a number of contaminated sites in my constituency. They are some of the biggest development sites in the whole of Europe. We heard from the hon. Member for Rochdale (Simon Danczuk) how important that is, and I was enlightened by what the hon. Member for Angus (Mike Weir) said about Ministry of Defence sites, particularly as my local barracks has also been listed for closure and may not be suitable for development. It is so important that we support local authorities in their objectives to ensure that they deal with contamination, and put the proper funding in place.

I have asked a number of questions today but we know how important soil is and how important it is to put funding behind that. Most important of all, we are living through an environmental crisis. Soil is a precious element and therefore it is incumbent on Parliament to make sure that we get the right soil health strategy in place now.

14:50

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Dr Thérèse Coffey)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship for this debate, Mr Bone, and I congratulate the hon. Member for Wakefield (Mary Creagh), the chair of the Environmental Audit Committee, on securing this debate through the Liaison Committee. We have heard some eloquent and passionate speeches, some particularly well informed, such as that from my hon. Friend the Member for Taunton Deane (Rebecca Pow). I hope that I will be able to cover most of the questions, if not all of them, during my contribution.

Soil is a finite resource and it must be protected. The Government recognise that good soil health is essential, not least for the range of benefits it provides, including food production, biodiversity, carbon storage and flood protection. The benefits derived from healthy soil are many and they have a very important role to play. It is for those reasons that the protection and sustainable management of our soils is integral to our thinking in the 25-year environment plan and the 25-year food, farming and fisheries plan.

We have already begun to engage with key soil experts to develop best practice for managing and monitoring our soils, and that will increase as part of our engagement for the 25-year environment plan. We hope to publish the framework for that before the end of this year, and the full plan in 2017.

A hare has been set running, and I am pleased to say to the hon. Member for Wakefield that, according to Professor McDonald’s report, the hare population is recovering in England. It is admittedly not at historic levels, but the recovery is nevertheless under way. One of the reasons for not having a close season in England is that breeding happens throughout the year and is highly variable across the country. In the east of England, they tend to be seen as a pest because there are so many. In the west, there are hardly any to be seen. So that is part of the answer.

The hare that is running is that there are only 100 harvests left. I have asked my officials to look at that claim before. The research did not look at how many harvests soil could support. The statement is believed to have come from a PR firm looking at the work from the research group that showed that there are about 100 to 350 years of mineable rock phosphate left. That shows how sometimes a good statistic does not necessarily have all the evidence behind it.

As has been discussed extensively, the Government did recognise in their response to the Committee’s inquiry that the planning process is the main driver for dealing with land contamination issues. I recognise that some hon. Members do not feel that that is enough. I want to point out that local enterprise partnership funding is helping the clean-up of a contaminated tar works on the Tyne and in Merseyside, and that 120 acres of contaminated land is being reclaimed as part of a LEP-funded development. The UK’s risk-based approach ensures that the protection of health and the environment is balanced with the need to enable development and we also promote the use for development of brownfield sites over agricultural land. I will follow up with the Department for Communities and Local Government on the points raised by the hon. Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy).

We recognise that there will be sites that will not be developed that may still pose some level of risk. In those instances, it is clear that the responsibility is with the local authorities, which identify contaminated land in their areas and ensure that risk to human health and the environment is dealt with. They must also identify who is liable for the cost of clean-up and rigorously pursue those deemed responsible. In response to the point made by the hon. Member for Angus (Mike Weir), if the Ministry of Defence is still in charge of the land to which he referred, I am sure that the Scottish Government, to which of course this issue is devolved, know whom to pursue.

Local authorities have the responsibility of deciding the priority given to contaminated land. I would like to commend Wakefield Council, which has committed £750,000 over five years to the investigation and clean-up of contaminated land. In our reply to the report, we committed to determining whether any local authorities were unable to respond to the two most recent surveys. My officials have found that 14 did not do so and we will be investigating the reasons why. No impact assessment has been undertaken.

The hon. Member for Rochdale (Simon Danczuk) spoke passionately about a particular site. I understand that he met my predecessor to discuss the issue and it was agreed that he would speak to Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs officials again, once a site report was available. That offer still stands, but I do not believe that the Department has been contacted.

On soil carbon and climate change, the Secretary of State reaffirmed this Government’s support for the Paris initiative at a climate friendly landscape meeting hosted by the Prince of Wales’s International Sustainability Unit on 26 October. Of course, we must use methods appropriate to our local environmental conditions. Opportunities are limited for most UK soil types to increase carbon stores, except for peatland, of which the United Kingdom has a high proportion. Our focus is therefore their restoration, both through Government funding such as in the Dark Peak nature improvement area and Humberhead peatlands restoration, and through supporting private sector initiatives, such as the Peatland code, to provide businesses with tools and opportunities to invest in nature. We are also supporting the horticulture sector to work towards the removal of peat use in horticulture.

On upland peat, we are committed to continuing to work with moor owners and stakeholders to further improve management practices and peat condition. The Blanket Bog restoration strategy uses an outcome-focused approach and is working to ensure that we have site restoration plans on a site-by-site basis. I think we all agree that dry, degraded peat is not in anyone’s interest and that is why we have been working with the International Union for Conservation of Nature to develop a UK peatland strategy. I am pleased to say that that went out for consultation yesterday. We will provide more detail in due course on how we plan to implement that strategy in England; officials are already working on it.

Some £100 million of capital funding is being invested directly in projects to support the natural environment, including the restoration of peatlands. That figure has not been split up and I do not have a figure for soil health—I am not aware that it has been identified in that sort of way—but it is fair to say that, when we finally have the 25-year environment plan, that will help us to target the resource to the right places.

There has been one peatland buyout. It is not considered to be part of our strategy going forward, but lowland peat will also be considered in the England peat strategy in due course.

We agree that it is important to monitor soil trends, but we need to ensure that we use available public funds cost-effectively. Most soil properties change very slowly over time and soil monitoring is expensive; monitoring is not justified over periods of less than five years. That is why we are looking to innovative methods of gathering the data needed to obtain a strategic picture of soil health, including remote sensing photography using drones and caesium-137 radionuclide as a tracer of non-visible soil erosion.

In the Government’s response, we referred to the potential for using farmer data. I recognise what the hon. Member for Wakefield said about whether that is representative and the need to mention peat and the coastal land. People do farm on the coast of course, but I will reflect on what she said.

Traditionally, soil monitoring has been carried out by expensive one-off monitoring events. The last countryside survey cost around £10 million. An alternative option would be to have a rolling programme of monitoring, where a subset of sites are monitored each year. The approach in Wales was mentioned. The agri-land in Wales is considerably smaller than that of England and extrapolating that would cost a very high sum indeed, but we do have an ambitious research programme that is exploring how we can improve our understanding of soil condition resilience, in collaboration with the research councils, and we are looking to review our knowledge gaps. The review is still being looked at to assess its findings, but we have set up the Sustainable Intensification Platform, which will study what can be done to improve both the productivity and sustainability of the farming system.

On the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology’s proposal that will cost around £150,000 a year, my understanding is that that is only the cost for chemical properties and does not include the cost for measuring earthworms, which my hon. Friend the Member for Taunton Deane thought we should do.

On cross-compliance and future agricultural policy, we introduced new standards in the 2015 to 2020 cap and it is too early to assess whether they are having the intended impact. It is critical to say that any future agricultural policy framework will absolutely have the environment at its heart. It is not just about not compromising soil health; we must look to enhance it.

It would be difficult to publish our plan by the end of the year, but I assure hon. Members that the intention of this Government is to have a smooth Brexit. Operability is the key focus of my officials at the moment. With regards to the emissions reduction plan, DEFRA officials are running scenarios, including on peatland and salt marsh, to see how that can be part of the plan. I am due to meet the Minister for Climate Change and Industry, my hon. Friend the Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner (Mr Hurd), to discuss that this month.

I could say more about protecting water quality. There are some new rules that we have consulted on and we are considering those responses carefully. We may well be drawing up secondary legislation to bring that into effect. I assure hon. Members that a series of measures are happening through the countryside stewardship scheme, which I hope will help farmers to do their bit to improve the soil health that they have.

On maize subsidies, the hon. Member for Wakefield will be aware that we are not the lead Department, but the proposed feedstock restrictions will help to deliver our objectives of waste management and low-carbon energy, and we are discouraging new anaerobic digestion plants that intend to use a high proportion of feed or feed crops. That is why we are looking to restrict or eliminate payments for biogas derived from crops.

In conclusion, the benefits derived from healthy soil are many. Farmers work hard to maximise their production and we do want to ensure that that is not at the expense of soil health.

Motion lapsed (Standing Order No.10(6)).