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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, if she will outline the (a) purpose and (b) aims of Environmental Land Management Schemes.

We need and are introducing policies that work for farm businesses, food production and the environment. As part of this, the environmental land management schemes will pay for sustainable farming practices, improving animal health and welfare, reducing carbon emissions, creating and preserving habitat, and making landscape-scale environmental changes. This is an important step towards achieving our 25 Year Environment Plan ambitions and our carbon net zero goals.

We are designing the schemes to be accessible and supportive with fair compensation. We are also improving the way we set and control the rules around farming and the countryside – making it fair, proportionate and effective. We aim to take a more collaborative, less bureaucratic approach in developing this policy and the schemes' administration.

We set out the purpose and aims of the environmental land management schemes in January 2022 at this site: Environmental land management schemes: outcomes - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk) (www.gov.uk/government/publications/environmental-land-management-schemes-outcomes/environmental-land-management-schemes-outcomes).