Select committee: Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee
Recommendation 31
First Report - Soil health
Published 5 Dec 2023
Paragraph 107
Addressed to Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs
Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee Soil Health All items in this report Report on parliament.uk ↗ Inquiry on parliament.uk ↗
Recommendation (the committee's words)
The Environment Agency and the Rural Payments Agency should continue to take an initially supportive approach when monitoring compliance, given the low levels of engagement and the fact that most farmers want to do the right thing for their soils. Follow ups will be essential to ensure that compliance breaches are being adequately addressed. If this “supportive” approach is, however, a key method of spreading awareness of farming regulations, then the inspections regime should also be boosted. We recognise that remote technologies and approaches will be able to help, and we are pleased that the EA has more funding to conduct site visits, but these still need to be more comprehensive and frequent; visiting just 4% of farms every year will not act as a deterrent to bad actors, nor help the farmers that could benefit from the “supportive” approach.
From: Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, First Report - Soil health (HC 245), paragraph 107, 5 December 2023
Government response
The government responded to the whole report on 21 March 2024 (deadline 5 February 2024).
Summary written by Accountability Index from the government's response. It is not the government's own words.The government says it welcomes the Committee's recommendations and is "carefully considering them alongside our existing initiatives", while setting out its own timings and positions on individual recommendations.
- On soil data, national soil monitoring is under way within the tNCEA programme, with the soil health baseline due "by 2028, subject to further capital funding". Defra will publish a progress report on the soil health indicator by June 2024.
- On statutory soil targets, the government sees target-setting as "an iterative process" and will "keep our targets framework under review". The next Environmental Improvement Plan review is due in 2028.
- On annual reporting for ELM schemes, it is reviewing how best to meet its Agriculture Act 2020 reporting commitment and says it is "unlikely" that it can report annually on soil health impacts.
- On soil remediation and reuse, it intends to pilot a Soil Reuse and Depot scheme by December 2026 and expects revised construction guidance by summer 2024. It will assess voluntary approaches "before considering any regulatory models, or the need for a specific taskforce".