Select committee: Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee
Recommendation 14
Second Report - Environmental Land Management and the agricultural transition
Published 28 Oct 2021
Paragraph 80
Addressed to Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs
Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee Environmental Land Management and the agricultural transition All items in this report Report on parliament.uk ↗ Inquiry on parliament.uk ↗
Recommendation (the committee's words)
We acknowledge that Defra has announced higher payment rates for the SFI in 2022, but farmers still lack the full details on payment rates across ELM that would enable them to start planning now. We also welcome Defra publishing new information on its payment principles, but the Department itself has acknowledged that it will not always be possible to apply these. Defra must get the payment rates for ELM right if it is to secure the levels of uptake needed to achieve its environmental ambitions. Defra should explain in its response to this Report how it will set payment rates for the full SFI in 2024, and the other ELM components, to ensure that participating in these schemes is an attractive option for farmers as BPS is withdrawn. This should include assessing levels of participation in SFI 2022, and whether this suggests that higher payment rates will be needed in future to ensure the necessary uptake.
From: Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, Second Report - Environmental Land Management and the agricultural transition (HC 78), paragraph 80, 28 October 2021
Government response
The government responded to the whole report on 20 January 2022 (deadline 28 December 2021).
Summary written by Accountability Index from the government's response. It is not the government's own words.The Government welcomes the Committee's report and says it "strongly agrees" that the agricultural transition must work for farmers and contribute to environmental objectives, while declining some specific recommendations.
- On the phasing out of Direct Payments, the Government says it is "not planning to change the profile of Direct Payments reductions", stating that suggesting otherwise would create "unnecessary and unhelpful uncertainty".
- On the budget, it will honour the £2.4 billion annual commitment to 2024/25 but is "unable to commit" beyond that, as future budgets will be decided by future governments.
- On engagement, it agrees it "can and should do more" to explain how engagement has informed scheme design, and plans to increase engagement activity in 2022.
- On whole-farm standards, it does not mandate entering whole farms into the Sustainable Farming Incentive, citing challenges, but is "continuing to investigate" land management plans through the pilot.