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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what recent steps she has taken to support the horticulture industry in funding (a) tanks and reservoirs and (b) other water retention infrastructure to help (i) provide an alternative to mains water and (ii) water plants grown in peat-free alternatives requiring increased watering.

The Government supports the Horticulture Industry with its Water Management Grant, under the Farming Investment Fund which offers grants of between £35,000-£500,000 towards capital items to improve farm productivity through more efficient use of water for irrigation, and to secure water supplies for crop irrigation by constructing on-farm reservoirs and adopting best practice irrigation application. It is open to arable and horticultural businesses growing, or intending to grow, irrigated food crops, ornamentals or forestry nurseries. We have launched two rounds of the scheme at a budget of £10 million each; £7 million of applications have been approved to date.

We recognise that many businesses have changed to peat free operations already. For those who are finding the transition difficult we will be exploring what support might be made available as we move to phasing out the use of peat by 2030.