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 increase support for farmers who make environmental contributions in the Land Use Framework.
Answered by Mary Creagh - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Government has recently launched a 12-week consultation on land use in England, which will inform the publication of a Land Use Framework later in the year. The consultation includes questions about how the government can more effectively align incentives to support farmers in providing the food and environment outcomes that the nation needs.
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 discussions he has had with the Chancellor of the Exchequer on increasing the farming budget to reflect the Government’s nature and climate targets.
Answered by Daniel Zeichner - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Secretary of State has regular discussions with Cabinet colleagues on a range of issues.
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 discussions he has had with the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government on ensuring all planning decisions will support nature and climate targets.
Answered by Mary Creagh - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Department works closely with the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government to deliver planning reforms with regular discussions on how planning can improve outcomes for nature whilst enabling the development of housing and infrastructure.
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 the value of government subsidies to farmers in 2024.
Answered by Daniel Zeichner - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Government has committed to support farmers through a budget of £5 billion over the next two years, including £2.6 billion in 2024/25.
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 steps to provide top-up payments to farmers to compensate for the loss of direct payments.
Answered by Daniel Zeichner - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Government announced the reductions it intends to apply to delinked payments for 2025. The Government is accelerating 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. Our commitment to farmers remains steadfast, with £5 billion committed to the farming budget over two years – the most ever for sustainable food production and nature’s recovery. This keeps momentum to a more sustainable farming sector, with the Sustainable Farming Incentive, Countryside Stewardship Higher Tier and Landscape Recovery all continuing.
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 support farmers with managing flooding in winter 2024-25.
Answered by Daniel Zeichner - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Farming Recovery Fund was set up to support farmers affected by unprecedented extreme wet weather last winter (October 2023 to March 2024). Through these one-off recovery payments, £57.5 million has now been paid to over 12,700 farm businesses to help them recover from the impacts of the exceptional flooding and wet weather over the duration of this period.
The Government inherited flood assets in their worst condition on record following years of underinvestment by the previous government – 92% of the Environment Agency’s 38,000 assets are currently at required condition.
To ensure we protect the country from the devastating impacts of flooding, we will invest £2.4 billion over 2024/25 and 2025/26 to improve flood resilience, by building, maintaining, and repairing flood defences. The Government also announced £50 million of investment into internal drainage boards, supporting farmers and rural communities from the impacts of flooding.
The new Flood Resilience Taskforce provides oversight of national and local flood resilience and preparedness ahead of and after the winter flood season.
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.