Asked by: James Cartlidge (Conservative - South Suffolk)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment he has made of the potential long-term impact of the UK agreement with the EU, announced on 19 March 2025, on British farmers.
Answered by Daniel Zeichner - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
On the 19 May 2025, Defra published a methodology note setting out an assessment of the impact of a Sanitary and Phytosanitary agreement on the UK agricultural sector. This can be accessed here: Ad hoc analyses and data releases - GOV.UK.
Asked by: James Cartlidge (Conservative - South Suffolk)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what plans his Department has to support farmers in developing sustainable farming practices.
Answered by Daniel Zeichner - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
This Government is committed to delivering net zero by 2050 and we will work in collaboration with farmers and others with a stake in our food system towards this.
The transition to more climate friendly practices will work hand in hand with food security and farm productivity. We will support farmers to adopt low carbon farming practices, increasing the carbon stored on their land while boosting profitability.
We remain committed to investing £5 billion of funding in the farming budget over two years and are on track to do so. As part of this, we will optimise environmental land management schemes to make them work for farmers and nature, and introduce a land-use framework, helping to protect both the environment, food security and livelihoods.
We will also look carefully at how to enable the benefits of innovation in reaching net zero carbon targets and the integration of new technologies and best practice into farming practices.
Asked by: James Cartlidge (Conservative - South Suffolk)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps his Department plans to take to improve the Environmental Land Management scheme.
Answered by Daniel Zeichner - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
This Government inherited an Environmental Land Management (ELM) scheme, the Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI), which was uncapped, despite a finite farming budget. We reached the upper limit in March.
Now is the right time for a reset via the reformed SFI offer: supporting farmers, delivering for nature and targeting public funds fairly and effectively towards our priorities for food, farming and nature. We will work with the farming sector to prioritise funding for future years so we can target those who will benefit most before reopening SFI to new applicants. Further details about the reformed SFI offer will be announced following the spending review in summer 2025.
We plan to launch the new Higher Tier scheme later this year; Capital Grants will re-open in summer 2025; we continue to move forward with Landscape Recovery; we are increasing payment rates for Higher Level Stewardship (HLS) agreement holders to recognise their ongoing commitment to delivering environmental outcome; and we are making £110 million available for new grant competitions to support research and innovation, technology and equipment for farmers.
Asked by: James Cartlidge (Conservative - South Suffolk)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what long term plans his Department has to develop nature-friendly farming policies.
Answered by Daniel Zeichner - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
We recognise the huge importance of nature friendly farming, and we will look to maintain momentum in the coming years.
Our farming roadmap ‘Farming 2050: Growing England’s Future’ will involve government working with farmers and farming and environmental organisation representatives to set the course of farming over the next 25 years. It will provide a vision for our farming sector and set the direction for how we get there, with a focus on delivering our food security and environmental objectives and supporting farms to be resilient and profitable. Publication is planned later this year.
Asked by: James Cartlidge (Conservative - South Suffolk)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether he intends to authorise changes to the Hunting Act 2004.
Answered by Mary Creagh - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
This Government was elected on a mandate to introduce the most ambitious plans in a generation to improve animal welfare and that is exactly what we will do.
The Hunting Act 2004 makes it an offence to hunt a wild mammal with dogs, except where it is carried out in accordance with the exemptions in the Act and completely bans hare coursing. Those found guilty under the Act are subject to the full force of the law.
The Government has committed to a ban on trail hunting. Work to determine the best approach for doing so is ongoing and further announcements will be made in due course.
Asked by: James Cartlidge (Conservative - South Suffolk)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, pursuant to the Answer of 28 March 2025 to Question 39920 on Sustainable Farming Incentive: South Suffolk, if his Department can provide the latest figures available.
Answered by Daniel Zeichner - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The answer to Question 39920 provides the data as of 21 March 2025.There has been no change in the number of farm businesses with a Sustainable Farming Incentive agreement in South Suffolk constituency since 21 March 2025.
Asked by: James Cartlidge (Conservative - South Suffolk)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether he has made an assessment of the potential impact of only including one food producer on the Food Strategy Board on (a) policy and (b) strategy discussions on food production.
Answered by Daniel Zeichner - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Food Strategy Advisory Board is a deliberately small group of senior leaders representing important elements and a wealth of experience from across the food system. Its role is to act as a sounding board to stress test ideas and provide advice.
The establishment of the Food Strategy Advisory Board represents just one aspect of our engagement across the vast and complex food supply system. We will conduct a series of targeted stakeholder engagements that will include food producers. Alongside these, we will be using insights other Defra strategies, namely the Farming Roadmap, interconnected with the Land Use Framework and Circular Economy Taskforce. In addition, the Farming Profitability Review will include structured engagement to understand barriers to increasing profitability and make recommendations to Government.
Asked by: James Cartlidge (Conservative - South Suffolk)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether he has taken the cropping year into consideration when making arrangements to launch the updated Sustainable Farming Incentive.
Answered by Daniel Zeichner - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Defra will be working closely with farmers and industry stakeholders to design a future Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) offer that fairly and responsibly directs funding. This future SFI offer will build on what has made SFI effective so far. Further details about the reformed SFI offer will be announced following the spending review in summer 2025. This will include an indication of when we expect to open for applications.
Asked by: James Cartlidge (Conservative - South Suffolk)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, pursuant to the Answer of 28 March 2025 to Question 39920 on Sustainable Farming Incentive: South Suffolk, how many of the 154 farmers primarily farm (a) arable crops, (b) horticultural crops, (c) permanent grass, (d) cattle, (e) sheep & lambs, (f) pigs and (g) poultry.
Answered by Daniel Zeichner - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Defra does not hold data on farming business types for the Sustainable Farming Incentive.
Asked by: James Cartlidge (Conservative - South Suffolk)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what proportion of the Sustainable Farming Incentive has been spent on (a) arable farms and (b) livestock farms in 2024-25.
Answered by Daniel Zeichner - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
We do not require farmers to tell us their farm type (arable, livestock, mixed, etc) so we do not hold information on spend by farm type.