Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, if he will make an assessment of the financial effect on hill farmers of recent changes to the CAP which takes into account the abolition of the Uplands Entry Level Stewardship and the increase in the moorlands rate and the severely disadvantaged area rate.

We published an analysis of the financial impact of changes to the CAP on pillar 1 in chapter 7 of the Government's initial response to the CAP Reform consultation (www.gov.uk/government/consultations/common-agricultural-policy-reform-implementation-in-england).

In their replies to the consultation some stakeholders expressed concern about the scale of the uplift merited in the moorland. We therefore undertook a further analysis and discussed the data with farming and environmental stakeholders before reaching a final decision on the appropriate rate for the moorland region.

We estimate 2015 farm business income for grazing livestock farms in the uplands to be broadly unchanged from current levels in real terms. This takes into account the changes to pillar 1 including payment rates, greening, reductions in direct payments over €150,000 and the end of new Uplands Entry Level Stewardship agreements. The analysis does not take into account any changes in land rent prices or changes in farm structure or behaviour.