Select committee: Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee
Recommendation 17
Second Report - Environmental Land Management and the agricultural transition
Published 28 Oct 2021
Paragraph 93
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)
ELM must be accessible and avoid the bureaucratic barriers to entry and punitive regulations which plagued previous agri-environment schemes. We welcome Defra’s commitment to improving their approach to regulation and enforcement, but emphasise the importance of delivering on these promises to build confidence and promote the uptake of ELM, lifting the burden on those who follow the rules while ensuring that public money is being well spent on delivering meaningful outcomes. Defra should provide more detail in its response to this Report on how it intends to use of a range of mechanisms, including a risk-based approach and where appropriate 44 Environmental Land Management and the agricultural transition assurance schemes and self-assessment, to ensure that farmers in ELM agreements are delivering for the environment while not being subject to unnecessarily burdensome and bureaucratic regulation.
From: Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, Second Report - Environmental Land Management and the agricultural transition (HC 78), paragraph 93, 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.