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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, with reference to Government grants statistics 2020 to 2021, published on 31 March 2022, what assessment her Department has made of the effectiveness of the ALB - Rural Payments Agency - State Aid Funded (RD Measure 08) Grant.

Annual reports covering agri-environment scheme evidence are published by Natural England (latest here: Agri-environment evidence annual report 2022 - NERR126 (naturalengland.org.uk)). Defra is conducting an ex-post evaluation of the effectiveness of interventions made under the 2014-2020 Rural Development Programme for England, that is due to be completed in 2024.