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

To ask Her Majesty's Government what plans they have to use public funding in the new Environmental Land Management scheme for England to fund measures required by the cross-compliance rules for claiming rural payments.

Cross compliance and the rules they enforce are still in place and will continue to operate for the time being. Whilst farmers continue to receive a basic payment scheme payment or are part of most agri-environment schemes they will be subject to the cross-compliance rules.

The rules within cross compliance are mostly in domestic legislation and will continue to apply as we move away from CAP schemes.

We are working with stakeholders and end users to determine the specific land management actions that will be paid for under our new schemes that will pay farmers to improve the environment, improve animal health and welfare, and reduce carbon emissions. The Agricultural Transition Plan set out examples of the types of actions that we envisage paying for under the schemes. We have also recently published more details on the first phase of piloting the Sustainable Farming Incentive, including the actions we will pay farmers to take to manage their land in an environmentally sustainable way.