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

To ask Her Majesty's Government whether there have been delays in payments from the Rural Payments Agency and DEFRA to participants in the Higher Level Stewardship scheme for 2018; and if so, why.

While just under 50% of agreement holders have received their 2018 advance payment, the Rural Payments Agency (RPA) has been working hard to ensure that remaining payments are issued as quickly as possible. The RPA took on administration of Environmental Stewardship in October 2018 and is continuing to simplify the administration of the scheme as far as possible under the current EU system, streamlining processes and boosting the workforce to speed up processing.