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

To ask Her Majesty's Government how any gap in funding between basic farm payments and the new environmental land management schemes will be met.

Ahead of the new environmental land management schemes being fully rolled out, between 2021 and 2024 we will help farmers to manage their land sustainably and prepare to take part in our environmental land management schemes. This will include:

• extensions to Countryside Stewardship and Environmental Stewardship;
• new Countryside Stewardship agreements, available until 2023, with the final round of agreements starting in January 2024;
• piloting our environmental land management scheme offers;
• core elements of our Sustainable Farming Incentive – the first in our package of environmental land management schemes - available to all farmers in receipt of BPS from later this year with the first payments due by the end of the year.

We have already launched a new Farming in Protected Landscapes programme in National Parks and Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty.

We have also opened a number of productivity and innovation grant opportunities for farmers, and have already awarded grants to the value of more than £48 million.