Environmental Land Management Scheme: Funding for Upland Areas

(Limited Text - Ministerial Extracts only)

Wednesday 3rd May 2023 Westminster Hall

[The Minister for Food, Farming and Fisheries (Mark Spencer)]

Thank you for that guidance, Mr Hollobone. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship. I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron) for calling this important debate.

Farming is the lifeblood of our communities. I know at first hand the invaluable work that farmers do. They keep food on our tables, nurture our natural environment, improve our biodiversity, and protect the environment for future generations. It is only right that we take time to consider how best we can support our farmers —our custodians of the countryside—to run sustainable, productive and profitable businesses, and to ensure that there is an offer for all types of farms with our environmental land management schemes.

We recently announced detailed plans for the nation’s farming sector. Our environmental land management schemes have something to offer for every type of farmer, and we plan to introduce further offers and are updating others so that they can be more focused on producing the great food that we consume, and the environmental gains and climate outcomes that we want to deliver.

Upland farmers can take advantage of 130 actions through a variety of schemes. That is more than 60% of the total actions available to all farmers. The level of coverage is similar for farmers grazing livestock on the lowlands, arable farmers, and those growing horticultural and multiannual crops. Those actions are designed to work alongside farming practices, and to protect and enhance our most environmentally important sites.

In order to ensure that upland farmers can take advantage of what our schemes have to offer, we are making it easier for farmers to apply for paid actions. This year we have improved the application process, increased the rates and broadened the scope of countryside stewardship. That includes allowing agreement holders of higher level stewardship to take up countryside stewardship revenue agreements alongside their HLS. That will benefit farmers who already have an HLS agreement but want to increase their income from schemes by doing more on their land. We have introduced a new, fully improved online service for countryside stewardship mid-tier applications. That service is closer to the application process used for the sustainable farming incentive, which we know farmers find straightforward to use.

In the uplands, a number of farms are on common land, and we have designed the sustainable farming incentive so that it works for those farmers. Eligible single entities can apply for an agreement on common land, and they will receive an additional payment to help with the cost of administering that agreement.

There is more to our offer than countryside stewardship and the SFI. Upland farms can also apply to the landscape recovery scheme, which funds large-scale projects to produce environmental and climate benefits through bespoke, long-term agreements. The uplands were well represented overall in round 1; a majority of landscape recovery projects involved groups of land managers and farmers, including tenants, working together to deliver a range of environmental benefits across farmland and rural landscapes. Applications for round 2 open this year, and projects in upland areas are likely to contribute to the focal areas for that round.

For farmers in areas of outstanding natural beauty or national parks, our farming in protected landscapes programme provides funding for one-off projects. We have funded more than 2,400 fantastic projects, and earlier this year we decided to extend the programme for a further year; it will now run until March 2025. Farmers who have livestock can also get funding for a vet, or a team chosen by a vet, to visit their farm and carry out health and welfare reviews for eligible livestock. That is part of the SFI offer.

Additionally, we are offering grants to support animal health and welfare. The first round is open, and grants will go towards the cost of a list of items designed to improve the health and welfare of livestock. We are also funding free business advice for farmers through the resilience fund. More than 10,000 farmers have taken up the offer so far. I encourage all upland farmers to take advantage of that free service and find out what might work for them and their businesses.

The hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale said that he welcomed ELMS and that he wanted to see the schemes go forward. I therefore find it strange that his party chose to vote against our new environmental schemes only a few weeks ago. His party voted to retain the old EU common agricultural policy, which to my mind was a vote against food security.

[Tim Farron]

I am happy to clarify.

[Mark Spencer]

Let me just finish the point. In my head, that was a vote against food security, given that the old area-based payments were specifically de-linked from food production in 2005 and have inhibited productivity improvements. I am happy for the hon. Gentleman to clarify why he chose to stick with the old common agricultural policy.

[Tim Farron]

At the moment, the BPS is set to be reduced by 35% this year. As I set out in my speech, one of the options, which would get farmers out of the mess that the Government have put them in, is for the Government not to make that cut this year, given that they clearly have not spent all that money on the environmental schemes, as they promised. That would be a way of keeping farmers farming, which is the best thing for food production and the environment. That money could have kept many people focused on environmental delivery, rather than either moving out of business altogether or choosing to intensify their farming. Both those things are happening on the Minister’s watch.

[Mark Spencer]

So the motion put forward by the Liberal Democrats was misworded, because its effect would have been to take us right back to the beginning of the process. It would have scrapped countryside stewardship and the ELM schemes. It was basically a vote against river restoration, because it would have ended all the funding to our environmental schemes. That includes 32,000 countryside stewardship schemes already in existence and signed up to by farmers, which would have disappeared if the motion had passed. It feels like a gimmick. We are in the business of delivery—of trying to help farmers move forward and improve our environmental output and biodiversity. The hon. Gentleman wants to play games, and I think that is really disappointing.

Let us look at what we have actually done. We have set out all the details of our farming schemes, which are designed to make farms profitable, resilient and sustainable food producers while protecting nature and enhancing the environment; we have announced an additional £10 million of support through the water management grant to fund on-farm reservoirs and better irrigation equipment; we made 45,000 visas available for seasonal workers in 2023 to increase productivity in horticulture; we launched the £12.5 million fund for robotics and automation to help with innovation in agriculture; we announced plans to regulate pig contracts to ensure fairness in the pig supply chain; we doubled the money for slurry infrastructure for farmers to £34 million through the slurry infrastructure grant; we have registered New Forest pannage ham under the geographical indication scheme; we have increased payment rates for farmers under countryside stewardship and the sustainable farming incentive; and we passed the Genetic Technology (Precision Breeding) Act 2023, unlocking key technologies to improve UK agriculture.

That is a fantastic record of support for our farmers, but it is not the end of the process. We are very keen to engage with our farming communities and our farmers to support them. We will continue to listen to those farmers, engage with them and understand the challenges that they face. We will constantly review the process, and we will work with farmers to ensure that they continue to be profitable as well as to improve our environment and biodiversity.

[Tim Farron]

I asked a number of questions and I would be grateful if the Minister would answer them all, although he may not have to time do so verbally. One question I am really keen that he answers is whether his Department conducted an economic impact assessment on the transition from CAP to ELMS for upland farmers. Did that assessment take place?

[Mark Spencer]

We have consistently and constantly engaged with farmers through the development of the SFI. There have been a number of farmers on working groups, working directly with DEFRA to design the schemes to ensure that they work for farmers in a practical way. That is an ongoing process. Instead of saying, “At this moment in time, this is our assessment of this brilliant project,” we consistently and constantly engage with farmers in the real world to understand the challenges they face, to improve the schemes, to listen to their views and to support them.

We have had an interesting debate. We stand ready to help and support farmers on the uplands, the lowlands and the arable fields of the east of England wherever we can to continue to produce great food and look after our environment.

Question put and agreed to.