Written Evidence Submitted by Natural England (SH0106)

Dear Sir Robert,

It was a pleasure to provide evidence to the Environmental Food and Rural Affairs Select Committee at the session on 13th June 2023 as part of your inquiry into Soil Health.

There were a couple of areas where Committee staff have invited some further observations and please find those detailed below.

Additional information on the rollout of the soil health indicators (ref Q267)

• The work completed to date by the Joint Nature Conservation Committee (JNCC) and Cranfield University (FY 2021-22) has now been published. A summary and link to the main report is available at Soil health indicator report published | JNCC - Adviser to Government on Nature Conservation.
• The work planned for this financial year by the JNCC (2023-24) includes:
• A literature review to back up the conceptual ecological models
• Convening an expert panel to provide expert input where required
• Adaptation of the modelling to be appropriate to a national scale indicator rather than a land parcel scale tool
• Integration of data being collected across the Defra group where relevant/possible, including the England Ecosystem Survey (EES)
• Development of a roadmap outlining further development work needed and likely timescales

Monitoring compliance in ELM (ref Q323)

• Environmental Land Management (ELM) scheme compliance monitoring is the responsibility of the Rural Payments Agency (RPA).
• For other continuing soil regulations, Natural England is the control authority for the soil organic matter aspects of compliance with the Environmental Impact Assessment and the Heather and Grass Burning Regulations (2007).
• Natural England will continue to take a science and evidence-led approach to compliance monitoring post the end of cross compliance when delinking is implemented in January 2024.

I trust that these points provide some helpful additional background for the Committee and as ever should you have any queries or require any further information, please don’t hesitate to contact me.

With all best wishes,

Yours sincerely,

Dr Eleanor Reed

Senior Soils Specialist
Natural England

July 2023