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

To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they will update the Impact Assessment conducted by DEFRA in 2018 now that more is known about the Agriculture Transition Plan and Environmental Land Management Schemes.

The Government published two evidence and analysis papers to support the introduction of the Agriculture Bill in the last Parliament. These outlined, in detail, the case for creating a new Environmental Land Management scheme, the rationale for moving away from Direct Payments and provided evidence on the high-level costs and benefits of Government intervention in agriculture. They remain comprehensive sources of public information.

Defra has undertaken further work since then to assess the impacts of both regulatory and spending proposals.

Prior to the Agriculture Act becoming law in November 2020, a supporting Regulatory Impact Assessment (RIA) was published. This sets out, at a descriptive level, the anticipated impacts of the regulatory provisions within the Act.

Defra will produce more detailed full RIAs and submit to the Regulatory Policy Committee for independent scrutiny in advance of introducing any secondary legislation for all measures within the Act that are above the threshold specified in Better Regulation Framework guidance.

Defra is currently using the most recent data and evidence available to analyse and assess the impacts of its policy proposals as part of the process of it developing a Programme Business Case for its spending proposals. A summary business case will be published within four months of it receiving final approval, in line with the commitments set out in the recent HMT Green Book review.