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 help farmers transition from the Higher Level Stewardship Schemes to the Higher Tier Countryside Stewardship agreements.

We want to support farmers with High Level Stewardship (HLS) agreements to apply for the Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) or Countryside Stewardship Higher Tier when it becomes available (initially CSHT will be by invitation). To provide farmers in HLS with some certainty and continuity until they can move into the new ELM offer, we have offered extensions for farmers with expiring agreements. Those with HLS agreements expiring in 2024 have been offered 2-year extensions and those expiring in 2025 have been offered 1- or 2-year extensions. These agreement extensions will allow farmers to continue delivering land management practices in their HLS agreement without interruption to the funding they receive and to continue delivering environmental outcomes on their land.

Farmers can still apply for a separate agreement in the expanded SFI offer to run alongside their existing agreement. This is possible if a farmer and their land are eligible for each scheme; if the activities or outcomes they are being paid for are compatible; and if they will not be paid twice for a similar activity or outcome on the same area of land at the same time (known as ‘double funding’).

We understand for farmers with an existing HLS agreement they may be more limited in their ability to apply for an additional SFI agreement. We are very aware that some farmers wish to end their existing HLS agreement early to apply for our new scheme and we will provide more information soon about how to do this. Due to the complexity of closing agreements early, it may take some time to end an agreement and could result in a period of some months between one agreement ending and a new agreement starting.