Soil Health

Kerry McCarthy Excerpts

Thursday 17th November 2016 Westminster Hall

[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.