Agriculture (Delinked Payments) (Reductions) (England) Regulations 2026

Lord Curry of Kirkharle Excerpts

Monday 27th April 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Swire (Con)]

My Lords, as somebody who lives in Devon, I look forward to a long period of the cream teas of the noble Earl, Lord Devon, for which he will regrettably have more time to produce as a result of the delinking of the hereditary peerage and the legislative process of this country.

I listened carefully to the Minister’s statement, and several things strike me. The first is that this assault on the rural community and the farming community is not a perception but a reality. We have seen farm incomes shrinking year on year, rapid increases in costs—not least, as we heard from my noble friend Lord Redwood, the problems we now confront with fertiliser, which are very serious indeed—as well as the tremendous growth in bureaucracy, the chopping and changing of government policies, and the bringing forward of this latest government policy, which creates huge amounts of paperwork for farmers who should be out there farming.

The missed opportunity presented by this rethink on farming in this country concerns me. At a time when we should be looking long term at food security and food production, we seem to be thinking in the short term. Can the Minister say what the Government are doing to encourage younger people to come into the industry just at a time when we are seeing it getting older, with more and more people giving up—or wanting to give up—their farms? What hope can she hold out to a younger generation that there is a career and a life in farming for them as well? What more can she do to encourage the land-based colleges up and down the country, which have often suffered from very poor financial support, to get younger people into the industry? Only in that way will we preserve the landscape in the way that she envisages.

We can divert every kind of subsidy into all these initiatives—I have no problem with some of those at all—but, at the end of the day, it is a manmade landscape that we enjoy. It is made and preserved by the land managers and the farmers. Without them, it will not continue to exist, and nor will the food on which we have come to depend.

[Lord Curry of Kirkharle (CB)]

My Lords, like the noble Earl, Lord Devon, this is my final speech in the Chamber, so it is a rather poignant moment. It feels rather odd speaking on this topic today—as if, after 24 years, I have come full circle. I found this rather interesting report when I cleared my desk last week, which was written by a chap called Curry in 2002. Let me read a sentence from page 23:

“The guiding principle must be that public money should be used to pay for public goods that the public wants and needs: remaining price supports and associated production controls must go; direct payments should be phased out as quickly as possible”.


Here we are, 24 years later, completing that process.

The journey to this point has been anything but straightforward. I must say that, 10 years after leaving the European Union and 10 Secretaries of State in Defra later, successive Governments have failed to provide the leadership that the farming industry deserves. We had a unique opportunity, whether or not one agreed with Brexit, to write a new script and to design a plan to deliver all the public goods that

“the public wants and needs”,

to use the phrase in the report. What we have had is 10 years of dithering, indecision and procrastination. Of course we had Covid to disrupt the process, but here we are, still with no plan, vision or clarity on our future ambitions for this crucial industry of ours. To give the current Government some credit, we now have a land-use framework after five years of gestation, and the promise of a farming road map, which the Minister mentioned. Meanwhile, farmers are left in limbo, unclear of what is expected of them. The transition journey is ending with this debate, but the train does not have a destination.

What, therefore, are the public goods that the public need and want, which farmers and land managers can deliver? We have wrestled with this definition of public goods, and with which public goods require government intervention because there is no functioning market for them. Carbon markets are still immature, and natural capital is still a great idea, but most environmental outcomes still require government intervention: restoring and maintaining habitats, cleaning up and managing water, carbon sequestration and so on. We need clean air, clean water and healthy soils. One outcome that farmers can deliver, and are delivering, successfully is renewable energy. We certainly do not need any further financial inducements to deliver that, particularly solar. I hope that the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change has read the land-use framework document and begins to think about it before completely ignoring local opinion when he blindly signs off every large solar application to cross his desk.

The $64,000 question is about food, as the noble Lord, Lord Redwood, has stated. If, as the Government have recognised, food security is national security, what does this mean? Food is the outcome from the management of the countryside that most farmers want to deliver; it is why they came into farming. So if it is a public good—I think the Government now accept that it is—is there a functioning market that supports the production of food at a price that provides farmers with an adequate return without government intervention? This, it seems to me, is the fundamental question, and it was of course the challenge given to the noble Baroness, Lady Batters. We wait with keen interest for the Government’s response to her important report.

Two factors are important. For the market to function well, it requires fair competition, so there is a need for an adjudicator to oversee a market dominated by powerful players. I welcome the move of the GSCOP adjudicator to Defra. I hope this will lead to much stronger links to the sectoral adjudicators and a more forensic monitoring of market behaviour. The wider scheme also ought to include the processing sector, which it does not at present.

The second factor is that a well-functioning market requires a level playing field, with imports being produced to the same or equivalent standards as we have here. Despite regular reassurances that the new trade deals are robust, I am still concerned about this. The only way to be satisfied is to carry out a thorough and regular audit of supply chains in countries of origin, which requires resources and audit not only of food safety standards but of environmental measures and animal welfare standards so that trade can compete fairly.

Having satisfied ourselves on supply chain relationships and achieved a level playing field on imports, is it possible to produce food profitably without subsidisation? The most efficient farmers can—at least some of the time. Skills, training and technical knowledge are important. TIAH has been established to help with skills. Access to scientific knowledge is important, as are benchmarking, having excellent business skills, adding value wherever possible, applying risk management tools, and so on. Producing what the market wants is critical, particularly having access to local markets and the public sector. All these need to be in place, and the Government need to help.

Do we need to reconsider our attitude to subsidies? I do not think we should go back to direct subsidisation of food production. It distorts markets, distorts behaviour and puts developing countries at a serious disadvantage. However, there is much more we could do to assist farmers in their commitment to produce food, which is also in the nation’s interest. I have been struck recently, when rummaging through old documents, by how influential the development grant schemes were that I and most farmers took advantage of in the 1960s, 1970s and into the 1980s to improve our facilities and build fences, buildings, equipment, et cetera.

To extend the SFI application process to embrace and include productivity support, rather than a separate productivity grant scheme—to help improve business efficiency, alongside environmental management and environmental protection measures—would deliver multiple outcomes from a multifunctional landscape through a combined scheme. With today’s online technology, it would not cost much more to administer than the current complex mix of schemes we have. Every farm business should have the opportunity to participate, either individually or through a combined collaborative scheme. This should include tax allowances appropriate for investments. The Treasury should recognise the critical importance of this industry of ours and the importance of producing food.

After introducing the entry-level scheme following this report, we achieved over 70% participation in stewardship schemes. We have regressed since then. The current uncertainty and stop-start processes with the SFI will not deliver the landscape improvements in environmental management, including the species improvement and restoration that we need. Whole catchments need to be included and every farm needs to engage. All the agencies need to work together—all of them—to agree plans for the Wye Valley, the Tees Valley, the chalk streams and, importantly, the Tyne Valley. The list goes on.

We need to be bold in developing a new vision for farming and the management of the countryside that is agreed in partnership with the sector—I hope the Minister will confirm that the new partnership board will be given the authority it needs to develop that—not imposed upon it by government, so that it has ownership and buy-in: a vision that gives every farmer the opportunity to deliver the vital outcomes that the countryside is capable of, including wholesome and healthy food. In fact, most of it is in this report.

I add my thanks, as the noble Earl, Lord Devon, did, to the whole team here in the House of Lords: the doorkeepers, the clerks, the staff and the restaurant staff—everybody who has made my life very easy. It has been a pleasure to work with them and to have their support, and a great honour to be a Member of this House.