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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, for what reason his Department did not provide six weeks' notice when closing the Sustainable Farming Incentive scheme for new applications.

The high uptake of the scheme means it is fully subscribed. The decision to close the scheme to new applications was taken at that point.

We could not give any advance notice because we needed to ensure fair access to the scheme and avoid creating a sudden increase in the level of demand.