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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether he plans to include (a) educational access payments within the Sustainable Farming Incentive and (b) extend those payments to (i) social prescribing programmes and (ii) other adult educational visits.

We are developing educational access as a new 3-year capital item, which we expect to be available later in 2025. This will be a stand-alone capital item, though applicants must have an agri-environment or woodland agreement with management actions. Whilst there aren’t any specific links to social prescribing, we are extending the range of groups that are eligible for payable visits. The current criteria for educational access in CS is school age children and care farming groups only, but in the new educational access capital item, more diverse groups of people can visit, benefitting from an educational experience on farms and woodlands across England.