Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps his Department is taking to help prevent soil degradation on agricultural land impacted by repeated flooding.

The Sustainable Farming Incentive provides payments for several actions to improve soil health, including herbal leys and multi-species cover crops. Healthy soils have improved resilience to extreme weather and will recover faster from flood events. Sustainable Farming Incentive actions can also be used to slow down the flow of water within catchments, helping to mitigate wider catchment flood risk. We have also recently announced a significant expansion of the flood and drought resilience offer within Countryside Stewardship Higher Tier with new actions to store water, which can be used to protect agricultural land from flooding.