Environment minister declines to commit to farmer funding before Budget

Environment ministers have declined to say whether farmers will lose out on £130 million of funding which the previous government failed to spend in 2023/24.

At the Commons despatch box, Environment Secretary Steve Reed said he “would be in deep trouble with the Chancellor of the Exchequer (Rachel Reed)” if he unveils his department’s budget plans before October 30.

Also taking questions about sewage spills, the Labour minister accused the previous Conservative government of a “cover up” over the volume of wastewater entering rivers and seas.

“My intention is to fight the corner for farmers through the spending review process so we can make sure they receive the resources they deserve,” Mr Reed told MPs.

He earlier said: “I can’t make comments about the budget in advance.

“I would be in deep trouble with the Chancellor of the Exchequer, something I wish to avoid, but at the appropriate time we will make absolutely clear what we intend to do.”

From the Liberal Democrat frontbench, Glastonbury and Somerton MP Sarah Dyke had told the Commons farmers in the West Country were “worried that the £130 million of support is going to be stripped from them simply because the previous government replaced the Basic Payment Scheme with systems that were just too complicated for many farmers to access”.

Several other MPs pushed Mr Reed to confirm his department’s spending plans, including Harriet Cross, Conservative MP for Gordon and Buchan near Aberdeen, who said: “In the Labour Party manifesto, it rightly stated that the Labour Party recognised ‘that food security is national security’ and I agree, but these words must be matched with actions.”

Ms Cross asked: “Will the Secretary of State now confirm that there’ll be no real-terms cut to the agricultural budget?”

The Environment Secretary replied: “As she will know, there’s a spending review process going on.

“That will culminate in announcements in the budget and that is the point at which all of that will be made clear and apparent.

“But I would gently remind her that it was her government that underspent the farming budget by £130 million in the previous financial year.

“That is money that should have been in the pockets of farmers that they desperately need for the work that they are doing to provide the food that we want to eat, to help nature’s recovery, and yet the government was too incompetent to get it out the door.

“This Government will make sure that the money that is allocated to farmers is handed over to farmers so that they are able to use it for the purposes for which it is intended.”

Green Party co-leader Adrian Ramsay, who represents the Waveney Valley constituency which straddles Norfolk and Suffolk, pushed the Government on nature-friendly farming funds.

“Any cuts to the environmental land management scheme would be a blow to farmers and to the Government’s climate and nature recovery missions,” he told MPs.

“The nature-friendly farming budget needs not just to be maintained but increased.”

The RSPB, National Trust and The Wildlife Trusts claimed in August that investment in nature-friendly farming needs to increase to £5.9 billion a year across the UK, up from around £3.5 billion, else “we won’t meet legally binding nature and climate targets, and we miss a huge opportunity to improve the long-term resilience of the UK farming industry”.

Mr Reed again confirmed the Government would unveil its spending plans in the Budget.

On water, Conservative shadow environment minister Robbie Moore pressed the Government on whether it intended to offer “regulatory easement” to water companies, such as “permission to lower standards, relax environmental permits, or reduced agreed levels of investment”, which he warned against.

The Environment Secretary replied that “regulation is as tough as possible to ensure that practices and, frankly, abuses that were going on in the past can no longer happen”.

He added: “It was very disappointing when the shadow minister, when he was a minister, tried to cover up the extent of sewage spills before the election, telling Environment Agency officials not to put the key figures on the front page of the environmental portal.”

Intervening, Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle said: “Can I just say, ‘he tried to cover up’, that’s suggesting that a member is lying.”

Mr Reed then said: “I withdraw that comment, perhaps I should have said he could have been more open and transparent.”

He later claimed the Water (Special Measures) Bill “strengthens regulation” of water firms.