Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

In November last year, the Government, jointly with the Welsh Government, announced the consultation on reforms to the Bathing Water Regulations 2013, in the first shake-up to our bathing waters since the regulations were introduced. These reforms include removing strict automatic de-designation, amending the designation process to include feasibility of improvement as a criterion for designation, and moving the current fixed dates of the monitored bathing season into guidance.

The Government received clear public support for their proposed three reforms, nine technical amendments, and two wider reforms. These reforms align with the recommendations made in the Office for Environmental Protection’s report on the implementation of the Bathing Water Regulations 2013. We now intend to proceed with their implementation. We will also begin robust research and development on the wider reforms to see how they can best be implemented in future. DEFRA will work closely with the Environment Agency to ensure the new measures are implemented effectively and innovatively.

We are also reopening the bathing water application window in 2025. From May, communities in England can apply for new bathing waters, meaning that some additional sites may be designated ahead of the 2026 season. Prospective sites will be assessed against the Government’s newly reformed standards, set to become law later this year. Further details of the application process will be published in guidance at the start of the 2025 bathing season.

Updating bathing water regulations is part of the wider action the Government are taking to fix our water system. To meet the scale of the challenge, and deliver transformational change, the Government last year launched an independent commission into the water sector to review its regulatory system. On 27 February, the commission launched a wide-ranging call for evidence, which is open for views from all interested parties until 23 April. The commission is focused on recommendations to strengthen the water sector and the regulatory framework, whereas the planned reforms to the Bathing Water Regulations 2013 are focused on specific improvements to the operation and management of the bathing water system, so that more people have the opportunity to experience the benefits of our beautiful waters.

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With record numbers of farm businesses in farming schemes and the sustainable farming budget successfully allocated, yesterday the Government stopped accepting new applications for the sustainable farming incentive (SFI24).

Our environmental land management schemes will remain in place, including SFI, and there will be a new and improved SFI offer with more information in summer 2025.

Every penny in all existing SFI24 agreements will be paid to farmers, and outstanding eligible applications that have been submitted will also be taken forward.

Our vision is for a sector with food production at its core because food security is national security. We want farm businesses to be more resilient to shocks and disruption, and an agricultural sector that recognises restoring nature is not in competition with sustainable food production but is essential to it.

By pursuing these principles, we will support farm businesses to be more profitable, addressing the underlying problem that some farmers do not make enough money for the hard work they put in.

This Government inherited farming schemes which were underspent, meaning millions of pounds were not going to farming businesses. This Government are proud to have secured the largest budget for sustainable food production in our country’s history, with £5 billion over a two-year period to sustainable farming and nature recovery.

We have left no stone unturned in our determination to get farmers into our environmental land management schemes. As a result, we now have a record number of farmers in these schemes with more than 50,000 farm businesses and more than half of all farmed land now being managed under our schemes.