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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps his Department is taking to ensure that common land can enter (a) Sustainable Farming Incentive and (b) Countryside Stewardship schemes.

We fully recognise the importance of the Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) and Countryside Stewardship Higher Tier (CSHT) for common land – and we strongly want the schemes to be available to commons as we move forward.

We will be reforming the SFI offer to direct funding towards SFI actions which are most appropriate for the least productive land and have the strongest case for enduring public investment.

We expect to publish more information about the reformed SFI offer in summer 2025. Our intention is that it will be possible to apply for SFI on common land when the reformed SFI offer reopens.

We have published preview guidance for CSHT setting out what funding will be available for farmers and land managers. This includes guidance on entering common land into a CSHT agreement. We will open the rolling application window for CSHT in summer 2025, and we have started inviting farmers and land managers to begin the pre-application process.