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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether he has made an assessment of the potential impact of the Sustainable Farming Incentive on meeting environmental targets for (a) species abundance and (b) improving water quality.

We have paused the Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) ahead of reforming it. This is the third time SFI has been paused. We will confirm plans for the reformed SFI in the summer and we expect that scheme to contribute to these outcomes. There are also tens of thousands of farmers in SFI for three years, supporting those outcomes.