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

To ask Her Majesty's Government what plans they have to maintain the requirements of (1) Good Agricultural and Environmental Conditions 1: Establishment of buffer strips along watercourses, (2) Good Agricultural and Environmental Conditions 4: Providing minimum soil cover, and (3) Good Agricultural and Environmental Conditions 5: Minimising soil erosion, as set out in The guide to cross compliance in England 2021, published on 18 December 2020, as legal requirements for all farmers and land managers (a) during, and (b) following the end of, their proposed plans set out in The Path to Sustainable Farming: An Agricultural Transition Plan 2021 to 2024, published on 30 November 2020.

We currently have regulations which protect water courses under the farming rules for water. Farming rules for water require land managers to leave unfertilised zones adjacent to watercourses and boreholes and to assess the pollution risk of fertilisers and manures they apply.

The farming rules for water require land managers to take action to prevent soil loss caused by agricultural or horticultural activity. This does not require land managers to take the same specific action as in cross compliance but provide a generalised provision that has the same policy aim as GAECs 4 and 5. Additionally, the farming rules for water require farmers to manage livestock so as to prevent pollution.

We are committed to maintaining standards and have domestic legislation which protects the environment, animal health and welfare, and plant health. We will continue to review this as necessary. We will look to use the most effective mechanism to deliver against environmental goals. It may be that another, non-regulatory mechanism is the most effective means to ensure that standards currently in cross compliance are maintained.