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 plans to take to improve the Environmental Land Management scheme.

This Government inherited an Environmental Land Management (ELM) scheme, the Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI), which was uncapped, despite a finite farming budget. We reached the upper limit in March.

Now is the right time for a reset via the reformed SFI offer: supporting farmers, delivering for nature and targeting public funds fairly and effectively towards our priorities for food, farming and nature. We will work with the farming sector to prioritise funding for future years so we can target those who will benefit most before reopening SFI to new applicants. Further details about the reformed SFI offer will be announced following the spending review in summer 2025.

We plan to launch the new Higher Tier scheme later this year; Capital Grants will re-open in summer 2025; we continue to move forward with Landscape Recovery; we are increasing payment rates for Higher Level Stewardship (HLS) agreement holders to recognise their ongoing commitment to delivering environmental outcome; and we are making £110 million available for new grant competitions to support research and innovation, technology and equipment for farmers.