Farmland Flooding Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
Maya Ellis
Main Page: Maya Ellis (Labour - Ribble Valley)Department Debates - View all Maya Ellis's debates with the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
Farmland Flooding
Maya Ellis Excerpts(3 days, 10 hours ago)
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Jerome Mayhew
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The basis behind my seeking this debate is to highlight the need for continued, not new, Government support. ELMs is a Brexit dividend. It would be a crying shame if the Government failed to build on the very good work of the last Government, as I will come to in a minute.
ELMs is the flagship scheme. The last Government honoured their commitment to provide £2.4 billion every year, from 2019 onwards, to support the transition from area-based payments to public money for public good. The sustainable farming incentive supports soil quality, water quality, hedgerows, tree planting and riparian buffers. There are also the countryside stewardship scheme, and the landscape recovery scheme which I have already mentioned. Other schemes include the England woodland creation offer and the nature for climate fund. All those schemes back up the transition to nature-based solutions, and allow farmers to recognise and mitigate for changes in rain distribution and intensity. They provide funding for the changes necessary for biodiversity and food production.
Maya Ellis (Ribble Valley) (Lab)
The hon. Member has rightly highlighted the intricate and technical knowledge required to understand some of the mitigations, so I welcome our Government’s commitment to a floods resilience taskforce. Does he agree that it is integral that farmers are involved every step of the way in the development of solutions, particularly because of the changing nature of flooding?