Farming and Rural Communities

Earl of Shrewsbury Excerpts

Thursday 3rd April 2025 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Shrewsbury (Con)]

My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend Lord Roborough on securing this important and timely debate. I declare interests as a member of the Game Conservancy Trust, now the GWCT, and a retired member of the NFU; both my sons work in land management and agriculture.

The recent news flow from this Government has created considerable concern and uncertainty in rural communities—in particular, in those dependent on farming, both directly and indirectly, for their livelihoods. The Government should also be concerned, as uncertainty at home, in combination with the challenges posed by trends in global markets, means that many farmers will need to intensify production to make ends meet.

While in the past direct subsidy support of the farming sector could be criticised for preventing innovation in farming practices, the new environmental land management scheme, of which the sustainable farming incentive is part, was a very different approach. This scheme was based on the premise of public money for public goods. These public goods are now often embedded in legislation, such as the target for nature recovery in the Environment Act. The withdrawal of the SFI, with no commitment to its resurrection until after the spending review in June, is therefore a very big concern, as it potentially undermines the Government’s ability to meet their 2030 target to halt the decline in species abundance, to which we are committed under international agreements.

Many farmers chose to go into mid-term Countryside Stewardship back in 2020 when the new ELMS was being created, in order to achieve some certainty in support for their environmental endeavours. Many of these farmers would have been early adopters of Countryside Stewardship schemes, having understood the importance of being enthusiastic contributors to supporting biodiversity on the farm. As a result, when their mid-term schemes finish at the end of this year, they will face the real risk of a gap in support for the measures that are already in place and delivering public goods for public money.

Given the domestic and international economic backdrop for farmers of rising costs and falling incomes, they are likely to opt to focus on food production and revert land currently given over to support pollinators or protect watercourses back into crops, which can be sold to bring in income. This will not only impact on species abundance targets. Farming is a fixed-asset, long-term business model and, as a result, any changes incur costs relating to the challenges of adopting new methods. The SFI included a number of options that supported farmers migrating their farming practices towards more resilient models. As a result, the gap in support that the pausing of the SFI creates also affects the ability of farms to change cultivation practices to those that are less reliant on inorganic inputs, such as fertilisers and pesticides, or which improve soil health, such as longer rotations. While these all benefit the farmer, they are also a public good in that they support wider policy ambitions for pollinators, the national action plan for pesticides and progress towards net zero, for example.

The considerable benefits to the attainment of the Government’s nature recovery targets and the resilience of farming systems to future climate and economic challenges have been undermined by the suspension of the SFI. It is therefore vital that Defra acts as quickly as possible to provide some stability and visibility of scheme availability, to avoid the cliff edge presented by the ending of the Countryside Stewardship mid-tier scheme at the end of this year.

I end on a positive note. The pausing of the scheme allows for reflection on where things went wrong. It appears that Defra knew that the money was going to run out, but did nothing to mitigate this risk. It may have been deemed a success to get the money out of the door, but not at the expense of the benefits that agri-environment schemes have been proven to bring. There is much to like about the SFI, so an in-depth review is not needed. Instead, consideration should be given to the fairer distribution of money through asking farmers to register their interest and the land area they are interested in committing. A cap could then be applied, if needed. If this then resulted in an underspend, farmers could be invited to add other measures to their existing schemes.