Asked by: Tim Farron (Liberal Democrat - Westmorland and Lonsdale)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps his Department is taking to ensure that farmers can engage in environmentally sustainable farming projects during winter 2024-25.
Answered by Daniel Zeichner - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Environmental Land Management schemes remain at the centre of our offer for farmers, with the Sustainable Farming Incentive, Countryside Stewardship Higher Tier and Landscape Recovery all continuing. There are now over 60,000 live agreements across these schemes, supported by £5 billion in the agricultural budget over the next two years in the recent budget. This budget is funding farmers in these schemes deliver improvements to food security, biodiversity, carbon emissions, water quality, air quality and flood resilience through winter 2024/25 and beyond.
Asked by: Tim Farron (Liberal Democrat - Westmorland and Lonsdale)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment he has made of the potential impact of the Autumn Budget 2024 on the timeline for announcing the phase-out of direct payments under the Basic Payment Scheme.
Answered by Daniel Zeichner - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
There is no change to the timeline for phasing out delinked payments. We plan to pay delinked payments each year from 2024 to 2027.
Asked by: Tim Farron (Liberal Democrat - Westmorland and Lonsdale)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment his Department has made of the adequacy of the level of funding available to farmers in the next two years.
Answered by Daniel Zeichner - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
In the Budget announced last month, the Government committed £5 billion to the farming budget over two years, including more money than ever for sustainable food production: £1.8 billion for environmental land management schemes in 2025/26. This enables us to keep momentum on the path to a more resilient and sustainable farming sector.
We’re also optimising our farming schemes, so they work efficiently for all farmers, food security and the environment, especially for those that are too often ignored such as small, grassland, upland and tenanted farms.
Asked by: Tim Farron (Liberal Democrat - Westmorland and Lonsdale)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what recent estimate he has made of changes in levels of subsidies for farmers since 5 July 2024.
Answered by Daniel Zeichner - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
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.
Asked by: Tim Farron (Liberal Democrat - Westmorland and Lonsdale)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what estimate he has made of changes in the levels of subsidies for farmers in the next two years.
Answered by Daniel Zeichner - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
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.
Asked by: Tim Farron (Liberal Democrat - Westmorland and Lonsdale)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how many farm holdings are worth more than £1,000,000, by constituency.
Answered by Daniel Zeichner - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Defra does not hold financial data for farms at holding level.
Asked by: Tim Farron (Liberal Democrat - Westmorland and Lonsdale)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps he is taking to support farmers with the phase-out of the direct payments under the Basic Payment Scheme.
Answered by Daniel Zeichner - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
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.
Asked by: Tim Farron (Liberal Democrat - Westmorland and Lonsdale)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, if he will issue a revised strategic policy statement to OFWAT on its regulation of water companies.
Answered by Emma Hardy - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
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.
Asked by: Tim Farron (Liberal Democrat - Westmorland and Lonsdale)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how many and what proportion of officials in his Department have worked on teams covering (a) water companies and (b) sewage in each of the last five financial years.
Answered by Emma Hardy - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The information requested is not held centrally and to obtain it would incur disproportionate costs.
Asked by: Tim Farron (Liberal Democrat - Westmorland and Lonsdale)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, if he will take legislative steps to end the practice of operator self-monitoring, in the context of recent trends in the level of river pollution discharges.
Answered by Emma Hardy - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
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.