Agricultural Transition Plan

Flick Drummond Excerpts

Monday 30th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[George Eustice]

It is important to note that since the advent of area-based payments the subsidy payments have been totally decoupled from production. Indeed, had we had our time again a better way to have done it might have been to introduce conditionality to the old payments that were there before. It is already the case that there are people who own a plot of land and claim on it but who are not actually producing food. The logic of our policy today is to focus the payments towards what farmers do with the land, not just dole out money based on how much land they own.

[Mrs Flick Drummond (Meon Valley) (Con) [V]]

The chalky soils of the Meon Valley are very different from the peatlands of the Derbyshire dales, so how will my right hon. Friend ensure that farmers in all areas are incentivised to improve soil quality, for sustainability as well as for farming?

[George Eustice]

My hon. Friend makes an incredibly important point. We made an explicit change to the Agriculture Bill in this latest incarnation to ensure that soil health was recognised as a public good. Different soil types need different approaches and different treatments to bring them back into health. We are working with a number of stakeholders and universities now to establish how best to manage and measure soil health on a range of different soils, and we will have incentives in place to support that endeavour.