Select committee: Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee
Recommendation 19
Second Report - Environmental Land Management and the agricultural transition
Published 28 Oct 2021
Paragraph 99
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 note that we are nearing the end of the first year of a seven-year agricultural transition, and Defra does not yet appear to have made key decisions about which bodies will be responsible for delivering the biggest change to farm support in decades. It is only fair to farmers, and to the agencies themselves, that Defra provide fair notice of what it will be asking of its arms-length bodies in the very near future. Defra should explain in its response to this Report at what time it will clearly communicate a final decision about which bodies will have operational responsibility for the ELM schemes.
From: Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, Second Report - Environmental Land Management and the agricultural transition (HC 78), paragraph 99, 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.