Tim Farron

The Government has committed to support farmers through a farming budget of £5 billion over two years, including £2.4 billion in 2025/26. This will include the largest ever budget directed at sustainable food production and nature’s recovery in our country’s history.

We are continuing to phase out delinked payments. Instead, we are targeting additional investments away from direct payments towards the farms least able to adapt, with Environmental Land Management (ELM) schemes remaining at the centre of our offer for farmers. Phasing out delinked payments will allow us to focus investment on ELM schemes, which will be funded with £1.8 billion in 2025/26. This funding will deliver improvements to food security, biodiversity, carbon emissions, water quality, air quality and flood resilience. It will enable farmers to make their businesses more sustainable and resilient, including those who have been often ignored such as small, grassland, upland and tenant farmers.

We are providing advice via the Resilience Scheme, which can help adaptation by those farms most affected by reducing delinked payments. We will work with the sector to continue to roll out, improve and evolve our ELM schemes, to make them work for farming and nature.

In October, the Government announced that it intends to accelerate the end of the era of payouts to large and wealthy landowners simply for owning land. The fastest reductions in subsidies will be to those who historically received the largest payments. For 2025 delinked payments, we plan to apply a 76% reduction to the first £30,000 of a payment, while making no payments for any portion of a payment above £30,000.

On farm support more broadly, the Government has committed to support farmers through a farming budget of £5 billion over two years, including £2.4 billion in 2025/26.

Phasing out delinked payments will allow us to focus more of this funding on Environmental Land Management schemes.

The farming budget for future years will be agreed as part of phase 2 of the Spending Review.

In October, the Government announced that it intends to accelerate the end of the era of payouts to large and wealthy landowners simply for owning land. The fastest reductions in subsidies will be to those who historically received the largest payments. For 2025 delinked payments, we plan to apply a 76% reduction to the first £30,000 of a payment, while making no payments for any portion of a payment above £30,000.

On farm support more broadly, the Government has committed to support farmers through a farming budget of £5 billion over two years, including £2.4 billion in 2025/26.

Phasing out delinked payments will allow us to focus more of this funding on Environmental Land Management schemes.

The farming budget for future years will be agreed as part of phase 2 of the Spending Review.

Defra does not hold financial data for farms at holding level.

This Government is committed to a resilient and thriving farming sector in which all farmers, including tenant farmers, are supported to deliver our food security and environmental goals. The Government is considering the role of a Commissioner for the Tenant Farming sector and will provide an update in due course.

The Water (Special Measures) Bill will introduce a requirement for water companies to publish information on discharges from emergency overflows in near real-time (within an hour of a discharge occurring). This requirement will be in addition to the duty coming into force for companies to publish discharges from storm overflows in near real-time.

The increased availability of near real-time data will be independently scrutinised by the regulators and will fulfil the Government’s commitment to ensure independent monitoring of every outlet.

The Environment Agency (EA) are already recruiting up to 500 additional staff for inspections, enforcement and stronger regulation, increasing compliance checks, and quadrupling the number of water company inspections by March next year. The increase in inspections will allow the EA to conduct more in-depth and independent audits to get to the root-cause of incidents, reducing the reliance on operator self-monitoring.

On 23 October the Government launched an Independent Commission into the water sector regulatory system. The Commission includes specific objectives around ensuring water industry regulators are effective, have a clear purpose, and are empowered to hold water companies to account.

The Government and regulators work together to drive improvements that benefit both customers and the environment and hold water companies to account where necessary through strong enforcement action. We have set clear expectations of the sector, including regulators, and will not hesitate to take further action if we do not see the necessary action.

The measures that will be implemented through the Water (Special Measures) Bill are a down payment on the comprehensive reforms needed to restore our rivers, lakes, and seas to good health, meet the challenges of the future, and drive economic growth

The Secretary of State, in conjunction with the Welsh government, has launched an Independent Commission into the water sector and its regulation. The latest step in the Government’s programme to transform how our water system works. The Commission will adopt a broad scope. That will include considering the role of the regulators, ensuring they are effective for holding companies accountable, as well as establishing clear outcomes and a long-term vision for the future.

The Commission will report to the Secretary of State for Environment, the Deputy First Minister and Cabinet Secretary for Climate Change and Rural Affairs with recommendations, in Q2 2025. The UK Government and Welsh Government will then respond and consult on proposals, including potential further legislation. The Government does not intend to issue a revised statement until after the outcomes of the independent commission.

The information requested is not held centrally and to obtain it would incur disproportionate costs.

The Government is committed to preserving high animal welfare and biosecurity standards.

Authorised quarantine premises are approved and regularly inspected by the Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA) to ensure they meet the standards specified in the conditions of their authorisation, which includes welfare standards.

We keep the adequacy of the animal welfare provision and conditions within authorised quarantine premises under regular review.

The number of quarantine kennels and cattery facilities is kept under constant review to ensure there is sufficient quarantine provision to preserve our high animal health and biosecurity standards.

Under the Animal Welfare (Licensing of Activities Involving Animals) (England) Regulations 2018 there are no statutory requirements for local authorities to provide Defra with information on the number of licensed businesses who do not meet minimum requirements.

Local authorities are required to provide an annual return detailing the number of licences in force on 1st April each year, and the average fees associated with the grant or renewal of each licence in the preceding year. Some local authorities have provided additional information about suspended, refused or revoked licences. Data from the annual return is published by Defra and can be found here: Local Authority Licensing of Activities involving Animals returns - data.gov.uk.

Quarantine kennels are subject to annual authorisation by the Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA) for the first two years of establishment approval and authorisation every two years thereafter.

Before granting a quarantine kennel licence, APHA inspects the premises. The premises must meet standard requirements for the design, construction, operation and management of a quarantine facility to ensure that full rabies security is maintained and must also meet specific welfare requirements.

Every premises is overseen by a veterinary superintendent (VS) who oversees the health and welfare of the animals in the establishment’s care. The VS must visit the premises every week and submit a monthly report on the facility to APHA.

APHA field vets also inspect the quarantine kennel every three months to ensure the health and welfare of the occupants is satisfactory.

The Animal and Plant Health Agency only holds information on the number of quarantine kennels (QKs) that have been approved from 2017. The table below details the number of approved premises for each year:

The numbers provided only cover quarantine kennels that are for public use as pet quarantine kennels. We have not included rabies quarantine facilities which includes zoo quarantine premises, research quarantine premises and 48 hours temporary holdings at ports/airports.

Ofwat as the independent regulator monitors the performance of water companies and adherence to the conditions of company licences. Ofwat cannot unilaterally revoke an undertaker's licence but is able to replace an existing undertaker in certain scenarios. For example, if the statutory grounds in section 24 of the Water Industry Act 1991 are met, special administration can also be used to transfer the company to new owners. Under the Conservatives, there has been no revocation of a water company licence.

The new Government is in the process of resetting relations with water companies.

Yes, all environmental permits issued to sewerage undertakers under the Environment Permitting (England and Wales) Regulations 2016 require companies to fulfil their legal obligations regarding both the treatment and disposal of sewage. These permits set out strict conditions designed to protect human health and the environment, including requirements to ensure the proper treatment of sewage before it is discharged into watercourses or the ground.

The Environment Agency will take action against non-compliance. We will not let companies get away with illegal activity and where breaches are found, we will not hesitate to hold companies to account.

The Environment Agency (EA) periodically reviews environmental permits issued to sewerage undertakers under the Environment Permitting (England and Wales) Regulations 2016 to ensure they remain effective and fit for purpose. There is no set frequency for reviewing all permits. The EA undertakes reviews in response to specific triggers, such as new environmental legislation, updated water quality standards, or significant operational changes at sewage treatment facilities.

In addition, the EA conducts routine compliance checks and inspections of sewerage undertakers to assess their adherence to permit conditions. These checks may lead to further review or variation of a permit if necessary to improve environmental protections.

The EA will take action against non-compliance. We will not let companies get away with illegal activity and where breaches are found, we will not hesitate to hold companies to account.

The referenced publication was removed as it was out-of-date.

This Government will introduce a new deal for farmers, including tenant farmers, to boost rural economic growth and strengthen Britain's food security. Defra recognises the importance of agricultural tenancies as a key route into farming for new entrants bringing new skills to the sector. Farm tenancies also provide a flexible way for progressive farmers to expand and adapt their businesses. The Government is carefully considering the role of a Commissioner for the Tenant Farming Sector and will provide an update in due course.

For this Government, food security is national security, requiring a resilient and healthy food system that works with nature and supports British Farmers. The Government is supporting farmers in this through a range of measures. This includes capital grants, designed to help farmers and land managers cover the cost of items that deliver specific environmental benefits.

The Government is also supporting farmers through Environmental Land Management Schemes (ELM) schemes, including the Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI). As part of the rollout of the SFI offer in 2024, we have been accepting expressions of interest and the first SFI agreements for 2024 are now live.

The Government will not be redesigning ELM schemes from scratch. Record numbers of farmers are now in an ELM scheme, and the Government wants to maintain the momentum that built over recent months. Therefore, the Government will optimise them in an orderly way, over time. The Government will work with the sector to make sure schemes produce the right outcomes for all farmers, including small, grassland, upland and tenanted farms, supporting food security and nature’s recovery in a just and equitable way.

More broadly, the Government will support farmers with a new deal to boost rural economic growth and strengthen Britain's food security. This new deal will include the Government’s plans to tackle rising energy costs, the biggest challenge to food production, cutting farmers’ bills by introducing a public sector sustainable energy company - GB Energy. The Government will also use its own purchasing power to back British produce. The Government has an ambition to be able to supply half of all food into the public sector from local British producers or certified to higher environmental standards, whilst being in line with WTO and domestic procurement obligations. This Government will also protect farmers from being undercut in trade deals. It will cut red tape to get farm exports moving more effectively, and reduce the UK’s reliance on foreign imports, ensuring that seasonal, sustainable, healthy British food is on tables across the country.

There are currently no plans to make an assessment of radiotherapy infrastructure.

The Government will continue to support the provision of radiotherapy machines, however, since April 2022 the responsibility for investing in new radiotherapy machines has been with local systems. NHS England will allocate funding to trusts to purchase new radiotherapy machines, and trusts may purchase different types of machines. Therefore, it is not yet known how many machines will be purchased.

The number of radiotherapy machines in use which are over the 10-year recommended age is not published by NHS England.

The NHS Payment Scheme (NHSPS) replaced the national tariff from 1 April 2023. Following consultation, some amendments have been made for 2024/25, which came into effect on 1 April 2024. The amendments in the 2024/25 NHSPS included specialist radiotherapy services. In September 2024, a revised set of 2024/25 prices was published, which includes radiotherapy services and workforce tariffs. These prices have been updated to reflect a revised cost uplift factor for 2024/25.

NHS England held a series of workshops in October 2024 to set out, and seek feedback on, potential proposals for the 2025/26 NHS Payment Scheme, and other aspects of the NHS finance system expected to come into effect from 1 April 2025.

The funding for new radiotherapy machines will be used to replace outdated machines, and allocated to trusts using criteria that NHS England has developed. The new machines will support the recovery of cancer waiting times and help ensure that patients have access to the most up-to-date treatments.

We are launching a national recruitment campaign in February to encourage suitable candidates to apply for immediate vacancies by highlighting the varied and rewarding work available.

We have also introduced legislation to deliver the first Fair Pay Agreement in adult social care to empower worker representatives, employers, and others to negotiate pay and terms and conditions.

The following table shows the mean and median average waiting times between referral and first contact for children and young people aged under 18 years old, in the nearest equivalent local authority areas, for April to September 2024:

Source: Mental Health Services Dataset, NHS England.

This is based on referrals that have a contact and does not include those that are still waiting.