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

To ask Her Majesty's Government, further to the remarks by Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park on 8 September (HL Deb, col. 867) regarding the publication of a soil health action plan for England, whether the contract put out to tender by the Joint Nature Conservation Committee in March for the provision of technical assistance in developing a method for producing soil health indicators in England has been awarded to a company; and if so, whether soil health indicators have been published.

The Joint Nature Conservation Committee has awarded Cranfield University the tender to provide technical assistance in its project to develop a soil health indicator for England.

Work is currently underway to establish this indicator based on a conceptual framework that links understanding of our soil systems with an approach that can interpret soil data and provide a foundation to indicate soil health in a number of scenarios. We plan to consult on the draft indicator in due course.