Environment Bill

Lord Cameron of Dillington Excerpts

Report stage
Monday 6th September 2021 Lords Chamber

I plead with the Minister simply to accept this amendment. It must be part of the agenda and should be upfront in this clause as a priority issue to address. I believe that, today, he could unite the House in accepting this amendment.

[Lord Cameron of Dillington (CB)]

My Lords, I support this amendment very strongly. First, I declare my interests—for the whole of Report—as a farmer and landowner, as chair of the UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology and as chair of an internet parking business.

For too long, in this country and elsewhere, we have ignored the importance of the 1 billion bacteria that should exist in every teaspoonful of our top-soil. We have ignored their vital importance for the foundation of life on our planet—food, habitats, everything. As the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, has just said, the situation is particularly serious in sub-Saharan Africa, where we are losing good agricultural soils at a devastating rate. While obviously this Bill can do nothing about that, it would be good if the UK could lead by example and set the model for others to follow. Having soil as a priority area in our Environment Bill, and later, when we come to Amendment 18, having a serious soil management strategy, would be a good way to do this and would create a model for other countries to follow. I commend the emphasis on soils in this amendment and look forward to hearing the Government’s response.

[Baroness Brown of Cambridge (CB)]

My Lords, I support this amendment very strongly. I speak as the chair of the Adaptation Committee of the Committee on Climate Change. In June this year, we gave our advice to the Government on climate risks faced by the UK, and three of our eight urgent priorities are to do with the impacts of the changing climate on our soils—so it is not just those historic and current farming practices but the fact that our soils now have to put up with droughts, floods, high temperatures and wildfires. Of course, these are unfortunately only going to get worse. This means that we are giving them a very hard time—yet we are expecting them to sequester carbon and support the 30,000 to 50,000 hectares of trees that we need to be planting per annum to meet net zero, and we are expecting them to support increased food productivity to make room for planting those trees. We are expecting a lot from our soils; they need the support of this amendment.