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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment he has made of the potential impact of temporarily closing the capital grants scheme for new applications on farmers.

We have allocated the largest ever budget for sustainable food production through the farming budget. In the first week of December, we paid £343 million into the rural economy, benefiting more than 31,000 farmers. After unprecedented demand, parts of the Capital Grant have been temporarily closed. We are reviewing the offer and will provide a further update in early 2025.