Contributions
1,788 recent contributions in Hansard
HANSARDSustainable Farming IncentiveMany farmers are now in these schemes and are benefiting from them. We are also getting the environmental benefits that the whole transition away from basic payments to the…12 Mar 2025HANSARDSustainable Farming IncentiveI am astonished by the hon. Lady’s contribution. She should be celebrating the fact that so many farmers are now farming in an environmentally sensitive way. I invite her to help…12 Mar 2025HANSARDSustainable Farming IncentiveClearly, over the past five years we have all known that this transition was happening. There was always going to be a point in the transition from basic payments to environmental…12 Mar 2025HANSARDSustainable Farming IncentiveOver the next few months, through the spending review, we will review how we can improve the scheme to avoid the very point that the hon. Gentleman has just made, and I will…12 Mar 2025HANSARDSustainable Farming IncentiveI hear the hon. Gentleman, but the fact that we have so many people in agreements, and so much land being farmed within them, shows that many people in this country have absolute…12 Mar 2025HANSARDSustainable Farming IncentiveThis process has been going on for five years now. Perhaps the hon. Member should have looked a bit more closely at what was about to happen.12 Mar 2025HANSARDSustainable Farming IncentiveI thank the hon. Gentleman for his kind words, and I suspect that we shall renew our acquaintance in Westminster Hall this afternoon. I can assure him that this announcement will…12 Mar 2025HANSARD Rural Communities: Government SupportIt is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Dr Murrison. I congratulate the hon. Member for South Devon (Caroline Voaden) on securing the debate. The number of speakers shows…12 Mar 2025HANSARD Rural Communities: Government SupportWe made the decision last night, based on many months of following the budgets, but as I explained earlier, the logic of the change to the system is that if there is a fixed…12 Mar 2025HANSARD Rural Communities: Government SupportMy hon. Friend is right. It is long overdue. I have had detailed conversations already with colleagues in the Home Office about how we can take this issue forward, and there will…12 Mar 2025HANSARD Rural Communities: Government SupportThe hon. Member is absolutely right to raise that important point, which I will come to in a moment. I was about to mention the £5 million in funding for capital grants for the…12 Mar 2025HANSARD Rural Communities: Government SupportThat is a very long-running debate that goes back over decades. I will do all I can to persuade the Chancellor of the needs of rural Britain. Project Gigabit continues to be…12 Mar 2025HANSARD Rural Communities: Government SupportI am afraid I will not give way. I am very conscious that I will run out of time. We will need to look at skills and opportunities in rural areas. I was very struck by the point…12 Mar 2025HANSARDSustainable Farming IncentiveThe hon. Lady raises an important set of points. We now have 75,000 km of hedgerow within these schemes. The basic point is that we have a fixed budget and, just as with the…12 Mar 2025HANSARDSustainable Farming IncentiveWe made the decision yesterday because we reached that point.12 Mar 2025HANSARDSustainable Farming IncentiveI am grateful to the hon. Lady for that very big question. I point her to the fair dealing powers in the Agriculture Act 2020, some of which have already been brought forward in…12 Mar 2025HANSARDSustainable Farming IncentiveI was going to say that I was grateful for the hon. Member’s question, but I am not sure that I am. I invite him to come and talk to people who are engaged in nature-friendly…12 Mar 2025HANSARDSustainable Farming IncentiveIt should have been clear to people for a long, long time that this transition was coming. It was the move away from a system based on entitlements for every farmer through the…12 Mar 2025HANSARDSustainable Farming IncentiveLet me repeat the point: this is not about communication. If we suddenly say that a scheme with a fixed amount of money in it will close in two or three weeks, we would get a…12 Mar 2025HANSARDSustainable Farming IncentiveThe hon. Gentleman makes an important point. I refer him to the food security report. There has been no change to the amount of money available. The £5 billion budget is there;…12 Mar 2025