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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps he is taking to ensure the equity of the transition to environmental land management payments for farms of different sizes.

The seven year agricultural transition period in England, as set out in the Agriculture Bill, will make sure there is a gradual transition from the current system to the new, avoiding a cliff edge for farm businesses of all sizes. It will give all farmers sufficient time to adapt and prepare for the new Environmental Land Management system which will be piloted and rolled out during the transition.

During the transition, we will apply reductions to Direct Payments in a fair way, with higher reductions initially applied to amounts in higher payment bands.

This method balances the views of those who feel recipients of the highest payments should initially face higher reductions with the strong calls for the reductions to be shared amongst all farmers from the start of the transition.