Asked by: Baroness Hoey (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask His Majesty's Government what instructions, if any, they have issued to (1) environmental health officers, and (2) other relevant officers, as to the future charging for port inspections on goods coming from Great Britain to Northern Ireland (a) in general, and (b) when the goods fail the inspection.
Answered by Lord Douglas-Miller - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
On 31 January 2024, the Government published the Safeguarding the Union Command Paper. It set out proposals for a new UK internal market system, ensuring a permanent, smooth flow of goods within the UK’s internal market.
Under this new system, there will be no checks on goods moving within the UK internal market system. Checks will only be conducted as part of a risk or intelligence-led approach to tackle issues like criminality, abuse of the system, smuggling and disease risks.
Following the agreement of the Windsor Framework, the Border Target Operating Model sets out new arrangements for Irish goods and non-qualifying goods moving directly from the island of Ireland to GB from 31 January 2024. Physical checks on goods arriving at West Coast ports will not begin before Spring 2025.
We will begin phasing in checks and controls for non-qualifying goods moving from the island of Ireland, while ensuring that Qualifying Northern Ireland Goods continue to have unfettered access to the GB market, whether those goods are moving directly from Northern Ireland to Great Britain or moving to Great Britain from Northern Ireland via Ireland.
Asked by: Daniel Kawczynski (Conservative - Shrewsbury and Atcham)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, with reference to the NFU's report entitled Farming for Britain's Future, published in December 2023, what steps his Department has taken to increase confidence within the agricultural industry.
Answered by Mark Spencer - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
In 2020 we published the Agricultural Transition Plan (ATP), setting out our plan for farmers, allowing them to make business planning decisions with confidence. Since then, we have launched our reforms, aiming to give farmers more choice and ensuring there are offers available for all farm types and locations. This includes the rollout of the Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) and our Innovation and Productivity schemes such as the Farming Investment Fund (FIF).
We also continue to expand and improve our offers in response to farmers’ feedback. Recently, the Government has confirmed farmers will benefit from the improved SFI from July this year, following the announcement by the Environment Secretary Steve Barclay in January. The improved offer includes a 10% increase in the average value of agreements in SFI and Countryside Stewardship (CS); a streamlined single application process for farmers to apply for the SFI and CS Mid-Tier; and around 50 new actions that farmers can get paid for.
Furthermore, to aid the transition, and to give farmers confidence in their choices and the best chance of benefiting from our reforms we are also providing support via the Future Farming Resilience Fund. This fund is designed to provide free business support to farmers and land managers in England during the early years of the agricultural transition.
Lastly, on 14 May 2024 we published our Blueprint for Growing the UK Fruit and Vegetable Sector, which aims to boost production of fresh produce and reduce reliance on imports. This is backed by our new Horticulture Resilience and Growth Offer, where Defra will look to double to £80m the amount of funding given to horticulture businesses when compared to the EU legacy Fruit and Vegetable Aid Scheme, which will be replaced from 2026 onwards. We are also unlocking the opportunities of gene editing with £15m investment into Genetic Improvement Networks, helping to boost access to more resilient crop varieties, that require fewer inputs and cut farmer costs.
Asked by: Robert Goodwill (Conservative - Scarborough and Whitby)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what data her Department holds on the proportion of applications to the Sustainable Farming Incentive made in the last 12 months in which more than (a) 25%, (b) 50% and (c) 75% of the applicant's holding was focused on uses other than food production.
Answered by Mark Spencer - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
In the last 12 months data shows that the proportion of all applications to the Sustainable Farming Incentive by the applicant's holding where they focused on uses other than food production is shown in the table below (this includes land that was not in food production previously and regardless to the status of the application).
Not in Food Production | Proportion Applications |
Between 25% and 50% | 0.24% |
Between 50% and 75% | 0.64% |
Greater than 75% | 3.79% |
On the 26 March we introduced a “25% of your holding limit” on 6 SFI actions, these 6 were actions that were designed to operate in tandem with food production – rather than instead of. The 25% limit still provides farmers with the flexibility to incorporate SFI actions into their farming systems and rotations. The majority of the SFI actions are not limited and enable farmers to produce food sustainably. Very few farmers were putting over 25% of their land into these non-food producing actions, however, we decided to act promptly before this became an issue. Industry and stakeholders worked with us on this – and welcomed the move.
Written Evidence May. 14 2024
Inquiry: Fairness in the food supply chainMay. 14 2024
Source Page: Government unveils major package of farming and food sector supportMay. 14 2024
Source Page: National Character Area profiles: information for local decision makingMay. 14 2024
Source Page: Ddirymu a diwygio’r cyfreithiau bwyd a diod a gymathwydMay. 14 2024
Source Page: Revocation and amendment of food and drink assimilated lawsMay. 14 2024
Source Page: A blueprint to grow the UK fruit and vegetable sector