Sustainable Farming Incentive

Debate between Daniel Zeichner and Lindsay Hoyle

Wednesday 12th March 2025 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Food Security and Rural Affairs (Daniel Zeichner)]

With your permission, Mr Speaker, I would like to update the House on the sustainable farming incentive.

We stand on the edge of an unprecedented global transition for British farming. From leaving the European Union to the challenges of climate change and geopolitical events, we are asking more of farmers than ever before: to continue to produce the food that feeds the nation and to protect the environment on which our long-term food security depends. We are determined to create the conditions for farm businesses to be profitable and succeed. We are proud to have secured £5 billion for farming over two years: the largest budget for sustainable food production in our country’s history. That is £1.8 billion for customers already in agreements, £1 billion for farmers now in SFI agreements and a further £150 million for farmers in the SFI pilot.

Labour has got that money out of the door and into farmers’ pockets. We have invested it to bring thousands more farmers into environmental land management schemes, which were vastly underspent by the previous Government, to make a record number of capital items available for the coming year to help farmers carry out actions under the SFI and countryside stewardship, with £600 million available for productivity, animal health and welfare innovation, and other measures to support agricultural productivity, as well as 50 landscape recovery projects across the country. We have responded directly to calls from the sector to roll out a new higher-tier scheme, and to increase payment rates so that higher-level stewardship agreement holders—many of them upland farmers—are fairly rewarded for their work.

More than half of all farmers are now in schemes, with 37,000 live SFI agreements and 50,000 farmers in ELM agreements. Under the SFI, 800,000 hectares of arable land are being farmed without insecticides, 300,000 hectares of low-input grassland are managed sustainably, and 75,000 km of hedgerows are being protected and restored, which is a huge success for nature. I thank all farmers involved and reassure them that all existing SFI agreements will be honoured.

Farmers will continue to be paid under the terms of their agreement for its duration. If they entered into a three-year SFI agreement earlier this year, they will be paid until 2028. If they submitted an SFI application but this has not yet started, that will also be honoured. All farmers who took part in the SFI pilot will be able to apply for an agreement.

With the high uptake of the scheme, however, the fact is that it is now fully subscribed. This Government inherited SFI with no spending cap, despite a finite farming budget, and that cannot continue. We will continue to support farmers to transition to more sustainable farming models including through the thousands of existing SFI agreements over the coming years and a revamped SFI offer. But this is an opportunity to improve how we do that under a fair and just farming transition, which supports farms to be profitable businesses in their own right through fairer supply chains, better regulation and greater market access, and directs public funding in a fair and orderly way towards the priorities that we have set out on food, farming and nature. We will be strategic in how we design our schemes, and responsible within the available budget. This is about using public money in a way that supports food production, restores nature and respects farmers as the business people they are.

SFI can and must work better for all farms and for nature, and I will set out the details of the revised SFI offer following the spending review, including when it will open for applications. We will work closely with the sector to design an improved scheme so that they can tell us what works best for their businesses. We will also put in place strong budgetary controls so that SFI is affordable to the public purse. The revised offer will align with our land use framework to better target SFI actions fairly and effectively, focusing on helping less productive land contribute to our priorities for food, farming and nature.

The underlying problem facing the sector, however, is that farmers do not make enough money. The Government are changing that. [Interruption.] Opposition Members may laugh but businesses do need to make money; they might need to know that. We announced a new set of policies at the National Farmers Union conference last month aimed at improving farm profitability, securing our food security, and protecting nature. Through our farming road map, we are creating the conditions for farmers to run profitable businesses that can withstand future challenges.

This decision is about investing in long-term stability. It is about a future where farmers are supported to run profitable businesses, and where public money is used in a better way to better restore nature and to secure long-term food security.

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Secretary of State.

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[Daniel Zeichner]

I thank my hon. Friend for her question. She makes absolutely the right point. We should be reassuring people out there that farmers who are in schemes are absolutely safe and are carrying on as before, but the basic point is that when a scheme is full, it is full.

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)]

I thank the Minister for advance sight of his statement. The closure of the SFI from 6 o’clock last night came without warning or consultation, and it constitutes the breaking of the Government’s word to farmers. Farmers are already losing their basic payment this year, but they are now excluded from the very scheme designed to replace that. Has the Minister not broken his word to farmers and to all who care about nature? Will he clarify how much money he will save from the BPS cuts this year and say that it is not true that SFI is overspent? Is it not true that when the BPS cut is taken into account, more than £400 million of the £2.5 billion farming budget will remain unspent? A bigger budget is pointless if we do not spend it. This money was supposed to reward farmers for nature restoration and sustainable food production. Does this not damage both?

There are 6,100 new entrants to SFI this year, yet only a mere 40 of them are hill farms. Because of the failure of the Conservatives in the previous Administration, the big landowners and the corporates are already comfortably inside the tent, but the farmers who are outside and now locked out without warning are Britain’s poorest farmers in beautiful places, such as mine in the lakes and the dales. As the Tories oversaw a 41% drop in hill farm incomes in just five years, is this not a bitter and unbearable blow for our upland farmers?

This betrayal will outrage everyone who cares for our environment, our upland nature and landscapes and it will outrage everyone who cares about food security and it will outrage everyone who cares about our tourism economy. It will also outrage everyone who clings to that old-fashioned expectation that Governments should keep their word. On Monday, the Secretary of State came to my beautiful constituency to pose for pictures by Windermere. I wonder whether he might come back tomorrow and face up to the farmers who steward the stunning landscapes around our beautiful lakes, and who he has abandoned so shamefully. Will he reopen SFI and honour his promises, or turn his back on the very people who feed us?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Daniel Zeichner and Lindsay Hoyle

Thursday 6th February 2025 Commons Chamber

[Daniel Zeichner]

My hon. Friend makes a very important point, but we need to make sure that we get the right balance between producing food and using our land for other purposes. That is why it is so important that a land use framework was brought forward. We have a consultation going on for the next 12 weeks, and I am sure that he and others will contribute to it.

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Minister.

[Dr Neil Hudson (Epping Forest) (Con)]

To have growth in agriculture we need healthy animals, and for that, farms need biosecurity. Crucial to that is the Animal and Plant Health Agency, which deserves our thanks in these challenging times. With the alarming recent foot and mouth outbreak in Germany, avian influenza again surging, bluetongue still with us and African swine fever at our doorstep, we must act urgently. Please can the Government release the further necessary £1.4 billion to redevelop the APHA headquarters in Weybridge? The programme was started under the Conservatives, with £1.2 billion committed in 2020. For the sake of agriculture, animal health, rural mental health, biosecurity and national security, please will the Minister act now?

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[Daniel Zeichner]

I thank the hon. Member for his question, which is one that I have been asked at the Dispatch Box many times over the past few weeks. I have been to meet farmers in Cumbria, and last week I met farmers in south Cambridgeshire. I would love to meet farmers in Devon, so I am happy to add him to the list for my grand tour across the country to reassure people that there is a strong plan to ensure that farmers have a viable future, which they did not have under the last Government.

[Mr Speaker]

On that point, when Ministers make such tours, I hope that they will ensure that local MPs are made aware of the fact, because that did not happen in my case.

Foot and Mouth Disease

Debate between Daniel Zeichner and Lindsay Hoyle

Wednesday 15th January 2025 Commons Chamber

[Daniel Zeichner]

I thank my hon. Friend for her question and for the concern she has rightly shown. As I said at the outset, we are well aware of the concern that people feel. However, they should be reassured that we have very good tracing facilities these days; the technologies have improved. What is particularly important is that we are in close contact with our German colleagues, who are sharing advice regularly. Everything that can be done is being done, but I absolutely recognise people’s concerns.

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

[Mr Speaker]

Order. This matter is very important. My area had the first case of foot and mouth detected in that year, so I know all about it. However, we must stick to the times that have been allocated.

[Daniel Zeichner]

I am always happy to speak to Lord Curry, who brings huge expertise and knowledge.

I will just say to the hon. Gentleman that there was no delay—essentially, as soon as we were informed, we put the appropriate processes in place, and staff at border control points were issued instructions to hold goods at the border. Everything was done as quickly as possible.

I hear the hon. Gentleman’s point about our relationship with the German Government. I know the German Minister personally, and I spoke to him yesterday. I can assure the hon. Gentleman that we are getting every co-operation needed from the German Government.

[Daniel Zeichner]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for her comments and for her account of the effect the disease had on her constituents. The purpose of my response to the question today is to give reassurance to people that we have very, very high quality officials working very, very hard to make sure we do everything we can to prevent such an outbreak happening again.

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Chair of the Select Committee.

[Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)]

As well as noting my own entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, I should tell the House that my wife is a practising veterinary surgeon who is occasionally contracted to provide local veterinary official services to the APHA.

I, too, remember the events of 2001 and I remember, having just been elected, the debates we had in this House. We said that we must always learn the lessons and never forget, but in truth, frankly, we have. The extent to which we are exposed today is something for which responsibility is shared across the parties. The state of the APHA headquarters in Weybridge is a disgrace and it is now an urgent disgrace. Hopefully, this is a bullet that we will dodge, but if we do, we know there is also the risk of African swine fever, bluetongue and avian influenza all coming. Is this the point where, across the House, we can all agree on the importance of biosecurity and the importance of funding it?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Daniel Zeichner and Lindsay Hoyle

Thursday 19th December 2024 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. We need to get our act together. This is the shortest set of topical questions and I will not be able to get many Members in. We have to remember what topicals are always about. I hope you have got the gist of the question, Minister.

[The Minister for Food Security and Rural Affairs (Daniel Zeichner)]

The point that farmers need to get a better return from their business is well made, and that is exactly what this Government will be addressing.

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[Daniel Zeichner]

We are absolutely determined to ensure that we see more British produce bought across our public sector. We will come to the House with our plans in due course.

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Chair of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Daniel Zeichner and Lindsay Hoyle

Thursday 14th November 2024 Commons Chamber

[Daniel Zeichner]

I talk regularly to the National Farmers Union of Scotland. I respect it fully, but I genuinely say, as I have said on many occasions, that we need to look closely at the figures and look at the detail. We will find that the vast majority of farmers in this country will be fine.

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Minister.

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[Daniel Zeichner]

We seem to be discussing this endlessly. The figures on agricultural property relief are absolutely clear. I have kept asking people to look at the detail, because what they will find—listen to the tax experts and the people who have actually looked at the policy in detail—is that fewer than 500 farms will be affected. That is the reassuring message that the Conservatives should be conveying to British farmers.

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)]

Britain’s farmers, who feed us and care for our environment, deserve better than the betrayal they received under the last Conservative Government, and better than the attacks in this Government’s recent Budget. In Cumbria alone some 1,400 family farmers, many of whom live on less than the minimum wage, will be hit by this tax, but the more immediate threat to farming is the Government’s rash decision to cut the basic payment by 76% next year. That will hit livestock farmers, upland farmers and dairy farmers, and destabilise the whole industry. Will the Minister think again?

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[Daniel Zeichner]

We have always been very clear that we will do nothing in trade deals that would undermine this country’s important standards.

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Minister.

[Dr Neil Hudson (Epping Forest) (Con)]

Food security is national security, and underpinning it are farmers and farmland. Labour’s ill-judged and heartless family farm tax will put all of that in jeopardy: family farms lost; tenant farmers unable to continue farming; communities hollowed out; rural mental health damaged; and precious food-producing land lost to developers or investors. No farms, no food. No farmers, no food. Will the Government please now admit that they have got this catastrophically wrong? Will they do the right thing by reversing this farm tax to protect our country’s food security?

Budget: Implications for Farming Communities

Debate between Daniel Zeichner and Lindsay Hoyle

Monday 4th November 2024 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Food Security and Rural Affairs (Daniel Zeichner)]

I welcome the right hon. Gentleman to his place—he will make an excellent Chair of the Select Committee on Environment, Food and Rural Affairs—and thank him for the opportunity to talk about this important issue.

As the Minister for Food Security, I can assure the House that food security is national security. The Government’s commitment to supporting farmers and rural communities is unwavering. We have committed £5 billion in the agricultural budget over the next two years—the biggest ever budget for sustainable food production and nature recovery in our country’s history. We are also releasing £60 million to support farmers whose farms have been devastated by severe flooding, and investing £208 million to protect the nation from potential disease outbreaks that threaten our farming industry, food security and human health.

However, as we are all only too aware, the Conservatives left behind a £22 billion black hole in our nation’s finances—[Interruption.] Yes, you did. And this Government have had to take tough decisions on tax, welfare and spending to fix the foundations and deliver change, including a series of decisions on tax to protect the payslips of working people. That is possible only by making changes to other taxes, such as agricultural property relief, which was previously available to all agricultural property at a rate of 100%. Currently, small farms can find themselves facing the same levels of tax bills as much larger farms, despite having a much smaller asset. Twenty per cent of agricultural property relief is claimed by the top 2%; 40% is claimed by the top 7%. That is not fair, it is not sustainable, and sadly, it has been used in some cases by wealthy landowners to avoid inheritance tax. That is why the Government have announced plans to reform agricultural property relief.

The Secretary of State met National Farmers Union president Tom Bradshaw this morning. We absolutely understand—[Interruption.]

[Mr Speaker]

Order. Dr Mullan, I heard you before, and I am certainly not putting up with it this time. If you want to leave, do so now, because I want to be able to hear others. Do we understand each other?

[Mr Speaker]

Thank you. Carry on, Minister.

[Daniel Zeichner]

The Secretary of State met Tom Bradshaw this morning. We completely understand farmers’ anxieties about the changes, but rural communities need a better NHS, affordable housing and public transport, and we can provide that if we make the system fairer. The reforms to agricultural property relief mean that farmers can access 100% relief for the first £1 million and 50% relief thereafter—an effective 20% tax rate. That means that an individual can pass up to £2 million, and a couple up to £3 million between them, to a direct descendant, inheritance tax-free. Currently, 73% of agricultural property relief claims—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I do not know whether you are aware, Minister, but you only have three minutes. How long will you be now? Are you coming to the end at this minute?

[Daniel Zeichner]

In 20 seconds.

[Mr Speaker]

Marvellous. Come on, then!

[Daniel Zeichner]

Seventy-three per cent of agricultural property relief claims are for less than £1 million. The vast majority of farmers will not be affected. They will be able to pass the family farm down to their children just as previous generations have always done. It is a fair and balanced approach that protects family farms while also fixing the public services that those same families rely on. It is part of a Budget that will restore economic stability and begin a decade of national renewal.

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Chair of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee.

[Mr Carmichael]

I remind the House of my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests.

Thank you, Mr Speaker, for allowing this urgent question. I also thank the Minister for his statement, but I fear that it illustrates rather well some of the lack of understanding that has brought us to this point. More than any other industry, farming relies on stability and long-term planning. That is why many people in the industry relied on undertakings given by the Secretary of State when in opposition that the Labour party in government would not change inheritance tax reliefs for farming.

Every farming business is capital-rich but revenue-poor. Those businesses also trade in a market that has been more heavily influenced by government intervention than any other. Agricultural property relief is not a loophole; it has been a deliberate policy of successive Governments for the past 40 years, designed to avoid the sale and break-up of family farms. Is that still a goal to which this Government adhere? As the NFU put it, the Government have seemingly failed to grasp

“that family farms are not just small farms, and that just because a farm is a valuable asset it doesn’t mean those who work it are wealthy.”

As the Minister will be aware, some of the figures he has just given the House have been vigorously challenged over the past few days, particularly the assertion that only one in four British farms will be affected. Will the Minister and his Treasury colleagues publish the data behind those figures? In particular, does the figure that 73% of farms will not be affected rely on the inclusion of very small holdings?

These changes will have a ripple effect across the whole rural community. Will the Government publish their impact assessment for other rural businesses? Can the Minister also explain why the Treasury has removed the ringfence around farm support to be spent in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland? That ringfence was introduced after the Bew review. If it needed a review to introduce it, how can it just be abolished now out of the blue?

The Prime Minister has said in the past, and the Minister has repeated today, that food security is national security. Can the Minister point to one measure in this Budget that makes achieving that aim easier, rather than harder?

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[Daniel Zeichner]

I thank my hon. Friend for her contribution. Can I say how much I enjoyed visiting Wales, with the Welsh Minister, very early in my tenure? It was an important sign from this Government that we take farming seriously across the entire United Kingdom.

I share my hon. Friend’s very strong points about the importance of the family farm. What we are doing here is protecting the family farm. I have visited right around the country over the past five years, and on almost every visit, people have told me that they are concerned about people coming from outside—they often say “up London” or “down London”—with a lot of money and buying up local farmland over the heads of local people, not because they care about farming but to use that farmland for tax evasion purposes. This policy can be helpful to family farms and protect them against—[Interruption.] The hon. Gentleman on the Opposition Front Bench says from a sedentary position that it will not, but it is people from his area who have been telling me about these problems. They repeated them constantly when we were in opposition, and here are a Labour Government doing something about it.

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Minister.

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[Daniel Zeichner]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend because she makes some important points. Ahead of the Budget, there were lots of predictions about what would happen. Of course, what happened is that this Government have protected the farming budget—indeed, raised it—and we are absolutely committed to paying out to farmers the £60 million that they deserve for flooding. That is £60 million, of course, that was not really budgeted for by the Conservatives, as part of their £22 billion black hole. The difference between us and them is that we are taking a responsible approach, which means that farmers can look forward to a stable future, as opposed to the chaos of the last decade.

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)]

Farmers across the United Kingdom are coping with the lingering legacy of betrayal—betrayal from the trade deals that happened under the last Government, which threw them under a bus; and betrayal from the transition from the old payment scheme to the new one, which saw many of them going bust or forced into making business decisions that they would never, ever have chosen. That legacy of betrayal is one that hangs heavy, and it is why farmers in my constituency and elsewhere feel so utterly disappointed by this Government’s Budget last week.

Let us look first at the agricultural property relief changes. There are 1,500 farms in Cumbria and 440 in my constituency affected by this. Has the Minister done an investigation into the number of farmers who are living on less than the minimum wage each year in terms of income, but who have a property that will be affected by these changes, particularly given the 41% decrease in farm incomes under the Conservative Government over the last five years? Will he also assess the impact on tenant farmers? Some 50% of my farmers are tenants and will be affected by the disruption that this change will create. Would it not be wise for him to implement the Rock review of tenant protections before introducing something like this? Will he also look again at the £2.4 billion budget and increase it by £1 billion, just as the Liberal Democrats suggest? If we do not feed ourselves, we are a failing country.

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[Daniel Zeichner]

I see the hon. Gentleman nodding. He is well versed in that; he knows.

[Mr Speaker]

Order. Can I just say that brevity will be helpful? I believe that everybody has a constituency interest, so I really want to get everyone in. If we can have shorter answers, that would be better. Also, if the Minister looked at me now and again, that would help me hear what is being said.

[Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (North Cotswolds) (Con)]

I declare my interests as a farmer.

A 75-year-old farmer emailed me last week and said

“we work long hours, usually alone.”

He said that agriculture

“has one of the highest suicide rates of any industry. There is a great deal of talk these days about mental health and the need to alleviate stress in the workplace, yet”

last week the Chancellor and the Secretary of State for agriculture

“destroyed everything I have ever worked for.”

How would the Minister answer that?

[Ashley Dalton (West Lancashire) (Lab)]

I spent about 14 months in this place asking the former Government about water management, but I was always on a hiding to nothing. Does my hon. Friend recognise that the farmers in my constituency have a lot of expertise in water management and land management? Will he tell us how the Budget supports farmers to bring that expertise to the fore and work in partnership with us to manage that land and water?

[Mr Speaker]

The best potatoes.

[Daniel Zeichner]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. The schemes we have in place will help us to work with farmers on those issues—alongside, of course, the payment of the £60 million that the previous Government promised.

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[Richard Tice (Boston and Skegness) (Reform)]

Are the Minister, the Secretary of State and the Chancellor aware that so serious are the consequences of this policy that the heads of farming families in their 80s and 90s are seriously considering committing suicide before it comes into place? [Hon. Members: “Shame!”] Shame on you! [Interruption.]

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I do not need any after-comments.

[Daniel Zeichner]

I find it hard to respond to a question like that. I spoke earlier about using language carefully, and I would just reiterate that point.

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[Mr Speaker]

Order. Sit down, please. The question was long enough. We do not need to start playing politics around the Chamber.

[Daniel Zeichner]

I do not recognise those figures. When I look at the figures that the Treasury gave for the number of claims in the last year available, that is very close to the number in the hon. Lady’s own constituency, which seems unlikely to me.

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[Mr Speaker]

Order. I think the Minister has got the point.

[Daniel Zeichner]

I understand the point but, first, much of this can be avoided through proper planning. Secondly, Devon is one of the counties where we most often hear it said that people are coming in and buying up land for the wrong reasons.