My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Grantchester, who has contributed so much on these issues to the House over many years. I want chiefly to reiterate a point that I made on Monday, when your Lordships’ House backed Amendment 2. There is no conflict between that amendment and this one, so ably introduced by the noble Earl and supported by all other speakers in this debate today.
The noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone, pointed out that the 25-year environment plan mentions soil quality 19 times. In that debate on Monday, the Minister talked about how the sustainable farming initiative scheme includes practices such as the introduction of herbal leys, the use of grass-legume mixtures, cover crops and so on—as the noble Lord, Lord Grantchester, just referred to. The Minister talked also about how complicated it was to measure soil health but said that the Government were doing that work. So we have these suggestions here, there and everywhere, but what this amendment would do—I hope that we might hear some good news from the Minister when he stands up shortly—is join this all up. Joined-up government is one of those favourite phrases we hear very often. It is clear that your Lordships’ House believes, and it is clear from the science, that soils absolutely are the foundation. As the noble Earl said, we have a water strategy and an air strategy; we have to have a soil strategy, just as we have to make soils a priority. This is joined-up government; this is sensible, practical work to make sure that the Government are working towards one goal, which has to be healthy, high-quality soils.