Sustainable Farming Incentive

Ellie Chowns Excerpts

Wednesday 12th March 2025 Commons Chamber

[Daniel Zeichner]

Many farmers are now in these schemes and are benefiting from them. We are also getting the environmental benefits that the whole transition away from basic payments to the environmental land management schemes was designed to achieve. Let me give some credit to the Opposition—they set this train in motion, but what they did not do was set up the schemes in a way that could properly be managed. That is what we are now doing.

[Ellie Chowns (North Herefordshire) (Green)]

Yesterday, the Government shamefully pulled the rug out from underneath thousands of farmers by cancelling the SFI with zero notice, despite saying that they would give six weeks’ notice, and without putting in place anything to support farmers in future. This morning, my inbox was full of emails from despairing farmers who were on the point of submitting an application, had no way of planning for this and now are utterly left in the lurch. How does the Minister expect the UK to make the vital transition to nature-friendly farming and boosting UK food production if this is how he treats farmers?

[Daniel Zeichner]

I am astonished by the hon. Lady’s contribution. She should be celebrating the fact that so many farmers are now farming in an environmentally sensitive way. I invite her to help us ensure that these schemes work better in future. This is actually a cause for celebration of the benefits of the environmental land management schemes.