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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment she has made of the potential impact of devolution in England on equitable grant funding for English farmers in line with Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Agriculture is devolved. Defra administers farming policy in England, while the Scottish Government, Welsh Government and Northern Ireland Executive determine their own agricultural policies and support schemes. As part of this arrangement, funding for agriculture and fisheries was baselined and un-ringfenced in each devolved governments block grant from 2024-25.

The Barnett formula, which aims to give each country the same pounds-per-person change in funding, will apply to any future changes in UK Government funding from 2025-26 for agriculture and fisheries in the usual way. This is the normal operation of funding arrangements for the devolved governments. It is for devolved governments to allocate funding as they see fit and they are accountable to their devolved legislatures for those decisions.

The Government is acting in England to support farmers and give them clarity to plan and invest. The recently published Farming Roadmap and Farming Profitability Review response set out a range of short-term and long-term actions. These include investment in ELM funding, support for and investment in innovation and technology, and action to make supply chains fairer. The government has also established the Farming and Food Partnership Board, bringing together senior leaders from farming, food, retail and finance to drive profitability and strengthen food security. Defra continues to cooperate openly and transparently with devolved government colleagues on these frameworks – as well as ongoing policy development across the four nations - via informal and formal structures established under the Common Framework for Agricultural Support.