13:30 Mary Creagh (Labour)

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 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.

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.

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.

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13:50 Rebecca Pow (Taunton Deane) (Con)

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.

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.

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14:11 Kerry McCarthy (Labour)

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.

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 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?

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?

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14:29 Mike Weir (Angus) (SNP)

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.

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:

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.

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14:41 Rachael Maskell (Labour)

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.

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.

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14:50 The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Dr Thérèse Coffey)

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.

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.

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