Baroness Grender (LD)

My Lords, I thank the Minister for her explanation of these regulations and I recognise her strong commitment to solving this vexed issue. Sadly, the instrument proposes deeply damaging and cruel cuts to the payments expected by our farmers. That is why, on behalf of these Benches, I am asking that this House decline the regulations. This is a fatal amendment because the proposals represent a potentially fatal blow to the livelihoods of countless family farmers and small agricultural businesses across England. This dramatic acceleration of the reduction of delinked payments for 2025 was always intended to be phased out gradually as part of the agricultural transition period from 2021 to 2027. However, these regulations propose a staggering 76% reduction on the first £30,000 of a farmer’s payment and a total reduction on any amount above that threshold. For the vast majority of recipients—some 80% of the 82,000 farmers who receive these payments and whose entitlement is £30,000 or less—their direct payment will be slashed by 76%. If we compare this cut to 2024, when the reduction for this group was half, we find that this is a significantly steeper cut, applied in one brutal blow. The Government claim that these accelerated reductions are necessary to fund the environmental land management schemes, which are meant to reward farmers for delivering environmental benefits. This principle of public money for public goods is one that Liberal Democrats have supported, in line with many environmental organisations, but the Government’s handling of this transition has been nothing short of a disaster, with a breathtaking overnight change ditching an original promise of six weeks’ notice. Just last month, in that overnight change, the sustainable farming incentive, or SFI, was scrapped for new applications with just 30 minutes’ notice. The timing was particularly jarring as these regulations propose cuts based on the assumption of increased demand for ELM schemes. The NFU—I thank it for its briefing—is clear that it is unacceptable for the Government to remove both the old payments and the new schemes. It rightly asks that the SFI be reopened or, failing that, that these regulations to slash delinked payments be withdrawn.