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 direct payments made to farmers were (a) less than £30,000, (b) £30,000 to £50,000, (c) £50,001 to £150,000 and (d) more than £150,000 in the most recent financial year for which that information is available.
The Rural Payments Agency (RPA) has a number of schemes providing direct payments to the rural economy. The three main land schemes, which offer an annual payment, are Basic Payment Scheme (BPS), Countryside Stewardship (CS) and the Environmental Stewardship Scheme (ES).
For the current 2020 Scheme year the figures are below:
BPS Paid Population = 83,593
| BPS | Proportion of Payments |
a) | less than £30,000 | 79.8% |
b) | £30,000 to £50,000 | 9.8% |
c) | £50,001 to £150,000 | 9.1% |
d) | over £150,000 | 1.3% |
CS Paid Population = 12,409
| CS | Proportion of Payments |
a) | less than £30,000 | 95.7% |
b) | £30,000 to £50,000 | 2.9% |
c) | £50,001 to £150,000 | 1.3% |
d) | over £150,000 | 0.1% |
ES Paid Population = 8,300
| ES | Proportion of Payments |
a) | Less than £30,000 | 89.0% |
b) | £30,000 to £50,000 | 6.4% |
c) | £50,001 to £150,000 | 4.1% |
d) | Over £150,000 | 0.4% |