Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps her Department is taking to help support heritage farmland.

The Government is committed to supporting British farmers and the vital role they play. In England, the Government will continue to invest in our farmers and land managers to make their businesses, food production and our country more sustainable and resilient through Environmental Land Management (ELM), including our heritage farmland.

Part of ELM, Countryside Stewardship Higher Tier includes actions and capital items which support farmers and land managers in protecting and restoring historic or archaeological features and carrying out heritage actions. For example, actions include:

• “Control scrub on historic and archaeological features” (CHS4)
• “Manage historic features in woodlands supplement” (CWS7)
• “Stone wall restoration” (BN12)

Furthermore, there are three boundary feature actions and two heritage actions remaining available in the Sustainable Farming Incentive 2026 offer, as follows:

• “Manage hedgerows” (CHRW2)
• “Maintain dry stone walls” (BND1) and “Maintain earth banks or stone-faced hedgebanks (BND2)
• “Maintain weatherproof traditional farm or forestry buildings” (HEF1) and “Manage historic and archaeological features on grassland” (HEF6)