Agriculture (Delinked Payments) (Reductions) (England) Regulations 2026

Lord Roborough Excerpts

Monday 27th April 2026 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Roborough]

At end insert “, but this House regrets that the draft Regulations will likely result in further financial difficulties for farmers, who have not had enough time to plan for them in advance; and that it remains unclear how the savings from the reductions to delinked payments will be reallocated to support farmers.”

[Lord Roborough (Con)]

My Lords, I first draw the House’s attention to my registered interests as a farmer and landowner who is also in receipt of delinked and other government payments. I am very grateful to the Government Chief Whip for moving this debate to a civilised time this evening; I think that is much appreciated by all noble Lords. I thank the Minister for outlining this SI, although we regret its introduction. Indeed, it is now at the end of this Session that we are about to lose significant agricultural expertise from this House, which keenly understands the impact of legislation such as this on the ground and in our close-knit communities.

When in government, we replaced the basic payment scheme with delinked payments based on historic BPS claims. We intended this to be gradually phased out by 2028 in favour of environmental land management schemes, where farmers and landowners receive payments only for public goods, as outlined by the Minister. The reductions we put in place put these delinked payments on a gradual glide path to zero in 2028. This Government dramatically accelerated that decline last year and have continued at a similar rate this year. This, in effect, ends the seven-year transition well before the 2028 deadline that farmers had been led to expect, undermining their budgeting.

We support the long-term transition, but not at this accelerated pace. Conflict in the Middle East has caused uncertainty over fuel prices and fertiliser and a shortage of industrial CO₂. Grain prices remain at low levels, undermining profitability for our arable farmers. However, it is not just external factors that are adding pressure to farmers. Deliberate choices made by this Government have left farmers more vulnerable. The early closure of the SFI application window last year, the family farm and business tax, increased employer national insurance, and the Government’s refusal to consider our cheap power plan to lower energy costs all have a cumulative impact.

I note that the Government are set to spend £100 million to reopen the Ensus bioethanol plant in Teesside to mitigate CO₂ disruptions. But this might not have been necessary had the Prime Minister not, in effect, sold out the UK’s bioethanol industry at the last minute in the UK-US trade deal. These plants provided a valuable source of demand for our farmers producing wheat. Closing them down to benefit American ethanol producers means that we are now supporting American maize or corn farmers at the expense of our own farmers. The deal reduced British tariffs on a quota of 1.4 billion litres of US ethanol, when the total market size for bioethanol in the UK was coincidentally 1.4 billion litres. These are not events outside the UK’s control; these are government choices. This SI reduces the direct financial support farmers receive at a time they need it most.

Ultimately, this SI does not help farmers precisely at a time when global events and this Government’s choices threaten their viability—let alone profitability. I beg to move.

[Lord Redwood (Con)]

My Lords, I would like to support my noble friend and challenge the Government on how they are going to spend the money they are going to allocate. While I can understand the wish to have a transition, it is right that it has to be done at a sensible pace. The really big disappointment of the farming community is that the alternative schemes the Government are bringing in are not the kind of schemes that are particularly attractive to many farmers or that promote the production of more domestic food.

I would hope that the Government will have a rethink now. Do the Government not understand there is currently a crisis in world trade and the supply of food in the months ahead because of the difficulties of getting fertiliser out of the Gulf area, the damage being done to chemical and fertiliser plants by more than one war and by the very acute trade disruption with no immediate signs of being resolved? Those I have heard from in the farming industry tell me that not only are fertiliser prices extremely high but there is no visibility as to when they will be able to buy serious quantities of fertiliser again at sensible prices. As we know, without proper fertiliser applications, yields will plunge and there will be a further shortage in food provision.

It is a tragedy that this century there has been a big decline in the amount of home-produced food that farms have been able to make because of the grant choices of the EU and successive United Kingdom Governments. I would have thought that now is a wonderful opportunity for a rethink to place at the very centre of agricultural subsidy policy, in line with many other countries around the world, the need for more domestic, reliable supply and production.

The Minister reminded us that some small pots are available for those important topics of innovation and new technology. I agree that there can be a new agrarian revolution; it was this country that launched the original one. There is now huge scope for mechanisation with robotics and drones and all the other things that can come in. However, the amount of money being offered in these small grant schemes is very small and unambitious. We have some great farms and some great farmers. Many of them would like to have access to serious money for that big investment and that pioneering technology that could start to make the difference.

I urge the Government to think again: put food production as the central issue that we need to deal with; understand the urgency of the collapse both in British farming and in the wider world market because of the interruptions to fertiliser and other chemicals; and do something to make available the money they are saving by the rundown of the existing ground system in a more intelligent and purposeful way, so that farmers can get decent money to rebuild their ability to feed us.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Roborough (Con)]

My Lords, it has been a pleasure to hear the final contributions of departing noble Lords who have been such stalwart supporters of the rural economy. It is a huge loss both to the House and to the rural economy, which will have a much-diminished voice in debates in this place, when there is limited representation in the other place.

The noble Lord, Lord Curry of Kirkharle, has had a most distinguished record in this House since 2011 and outside it. The Curry commission report in 2002 was remarkable in that the Government accepted 101 of the 105 recommendations, and it marked the beginning of the shift towards environmental stewardship and sustainable farming. I am also personally grateful to the noble Lord for following my maiden speech and making kind comments without any preparation or indeed ever having met me before, after my listed follower failed to make it to the Chamber in time.

The noble Lord, Lord Carrington, will also be much missed for his contributions to rural economy debates in this House. Within my own brief tenure, among many other things, he won an important amendment to the Renters’ Rights Act, ensuring that farm businesses are able to continue offering accommodation. It is also a great shame that we are losing the Lord Great Chamberlain from full membership of this House.

The noble Earl, Lord Devon, took his place only shortly before I took mine. I have enjoyed his erudite contributions to debate, displaying not just his keen interest in the rural economy but his formidable legal brain, which was on display again today. The noble Earl’s family is one of the longest serving in Parliament and has been a consistent and powerful voice for my native Devon.

It has been evident to me in my brief tenure that the noble Lord, Lord Inglewood, has been a similar voice for Cumbria. Of course, the Minister remains a stalwart Cumbrian resident and spokesperson.

I am grateful to the Minister for her reply. It has been a wide-ranging debate about the rural economy. Her reply demonstrated her sympathy and empathy with the issues in the rural economy, and I think that we are all much heartened by the fact that she is in her place, within a Government who perhaps do not have all those sympathies themselves.

I make just one point in closing. The long-term road maps are all very well, but the farming industry, and particularly the arable sector, is in crisis at the moment. The figures that were quoted for the two fiscal years ending 2023 and 2024 were generally quite good years for the industry, and 2025 and 2026, particularly for the arable sector, will look very different.

I am grateful to all who have contributed to this debate, and I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment to the Motion withdrawn.