Contributions
1,788 recent contributions in Hansard
HANSARDFarmingI am going to make some progress, because I know that time is short. The third principle is a sector that recognises that restoring nature is not in competition with sustainable…13 Mar 2025HANSARDFarmingWe have been far more transparent in disclosing how the budgets work than the previous Government. The figure was disclosed last night, and the shadow Secretary of State can look…13 Mar 2025HANSARDSustainable Farming IncentiveI think there is still a misunderstanding about how these schemes work. If there is a first come, first served scheme and people have known for weeks and weeks—months—that it…12 Mar 2025HANSARDSustainable Farming IncentiveWell, really! I had hoped that the shadow Secretary of State would understand how the schemes that her own Government created actually work. Let me explain the problem that we…12 Mar 2025HANSARDSustainable Farming IncentiveAgain, I am disappointed in the hon. Gentleman’s comments. He is a thoughtful person, and he and I have debated these issues many times. I am sorry that he did not welcome the…12 Mar 2025HANSARDSustainable Farming IncentiveMy hon. Friend asks an important question. This is, of course, an EU legacy scheme, and we are considering the best way of taking that forward in the future, but we are absolutely…12 Mar 2025HANSARDSustainable Farming IncentiveI am grateful to my hon. Friend. She makes a sensible point, which is that we saw a succession of schemes announced by the previous Government. I want to get to a scheme that will…12 Mar 2025HANSARDSustainable Farming IncentiveI am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his question. I am always happy to visit Lincolnshire; I have done it on a number of occasions. But on the question of how we…12 Mar 2025HANSARDSustainable Farming IncentiveMy hon. Friend touches on the critical point. The schemes that we inherited had no way of prioritising properly; it was a first-come, first-served scheme. Therefore, the kind of…12 Mar 2025HANSARDSustainable Farming IncentiveI am always grateful to receive questions from the right hon. Gentleman, who chairs the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee. Those figures on future farm viability go…12 Mar 2025HANSARDSustainable Farming IncentiveI thank my hon. Friend for that question. I very much enjoyed visiting his constituency and talking to farmers there about these issues. I can absolutely give him that commitment.12 Mar 2025HANSARDSustainable Farming IncentiveThe only thing I have anything against is the previous Government, who set up the scheme in the first place. They set it up in a way that meant that SFI ’22 and SFI ’23 were…12 Mar 2025HANSARDSustainable Farming IncentiveIt first came to my attention five years ago during the passage of the Agriculture Act 2020, when I warned that exactly that would happen. If we move from a basic payments system,…12 Mar 2025HANSARDSustainable Farming IncentiveAs I have said to many hon. Members, I am always happy to try and meet farmers whenever I can, and I will add my hon. Friend to my list. I absolutely understand her point, but…12 Mar 2025HANSARDSustainable Farming IncentiveMy hon. Friend’s question is important. We will work with farmers and organisations to redesign the schemes, and that addresses that very question. That will take place over the…12 Mar 2025HANSARDSustainable Farming IncentiveThe hon. Gentleman is a sensible person and I have had many discussions with him over the years. When he says “pulling”, what he means is that the budget was completed. It is…12 Mar 2025HANSARDSustainable Farming IncentiveI will take the hon. Gentleman back to the origins of this debate. When we moved from basic payments to these schemes, there was always going to be a point when the budget was…12 Mar 2025HANSARDSustainable Farming IncentiveMy hon. Friend is absolutely right. I am afraid I was genuinely dismayed, but perhaps not entirely surprised, by what I found when I came into the Department. We have spent the…12 Mar 2025HANSARDSustainable Farming IncentiveI do not agree with some of the hon. Lady’s question, because the food security report published at the end of last year did not bear out her analysis. The Rural Payments Agency…12 Mar 2025HANSARDSustainable Farming IncentiveMy hon. Friend is absolutely right. I am afraid that, as on so many other issues, we have to clear up the mess that we inherited. That will take time. We are setting out a clear…12 Mar 2025