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 effect on investment in (a) farm infrastructure and (b) agri-environment schemes of uncertainty about when and on what terms the UK will leave the EU.

In the ‘Health and Harmony: the future for food, farming and the environment in a Green Brexit’ consultation, which ran from February to May 2018, we asked ‘what are the main barriers to new capital investment that can boost profitability and improve animal and plant health on-farm?’ Over 3,000 responses were submitted to this question, and the most frequently selected option (77% of respondents) selected ‘uncertainty about the future and where to target new investment’.

The UK Government has guaranteed that any Rural Development Programme projects where funding has been agreed before the end of 2020 will be funded for their full lifetime. This applies in both a negotiated and a no-deal scenario. It will ensure continued funding for these projects until they finish and means that Defra and the devolved administrations can continue to sign new projects after the UK leaves the EU during 2019 and 2020. The Government has also committed to provide the same total level of funding for farm support in cash terms until the end of this parliament, expected in 2022.

The Countryside Stewardship scheme is open for applications for both multi-annual agreements starting on 1 January 2020 and capital works, such as for water quality and hedgerows and boundaries. For agri-environment schemes we are developing proposals for the scheme offer from 2021.

As we develop the new Environmental Land Management system and evolve the Countryside Stewardship offer, we will work to ensure we can offer a smooth transition from Countryside Stewardship to the Environmental Land Management system when it becomes fully operational from 2024.