Category: Policy & Business

Steve Reed has been appointed Shadow Defra Secretary in September’s reshuffle of Labour’s Ministerial team.  He replaces Jim McMahon.  Mr Reed is the MP for Croydon North and was previously Shadow Justice Secretary.  He has little direct experience of farming or rural matters.  Daniel Zeichner remains Shadow Minister for Farming and Food.  With a General Election having to be held before January 2025, and Labour retaining a healthy lead in the polls, the makeup of the Shadow Cabinet becomes more important.   

The application window for the Calf Housing for Health and Welfare Grant is now open.  The application process for the grant has three stages:

• Stage 1: Online checker
• Stage 2: Ambient Environment Assessment
• Stage 3: Full application

Our article in July (See https://abcbooks.co.uk/calf-housing-grants/) gives further details on this grant.   The Online Checker is now available to make an initial application.  This will check an applicant’s eligibility and also how well the project fits with the funding priorities.  Applicants will need some basic information about the business and the proposed project including building design, calf space, environmental impacts, location, information on Planning Permission and an estimated total cost.

More infomation and access to the Online Checker can be found at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/calf-housing-for-health-and-welfare-2023/how-to-apply-for-a-calf-housing-for-health-and-welfare-grant.  The Online Checker will be open until 30th November 2023.

The Scottish Government has set out its Programme for Government for the next Parliamentary term.  This confirms there will be an Agriculture Bill and a Land Reform Bill introduced – probably both this autumn.  The former will provide powers to enact the proposed new support arrangements.  The latter will look to introduce a public register of land ownership, strengthen the right-to-buy provisions, and also update agricultural tenancy legilsation.  The Programme for Government also sets out plans for a new Housing Act, which will introduce further controls in the private rental market – potentially affecting farmers and estates letting surplus cottages.  Finally, the announcement states the the Government will prepare to introduce (likely in the next session) a Natural Environment Bill.

Scottish BPS payments will be a whisker higher than last year.  The Scottish Government has published the rates for this year, with advance payments due to begin this month.  Rates have gone up by around 0.2-0.3% – this will be due to slightly less entitlements being claimed as the budget is fixed.  The table below sets out the breakdown between Standard BPS and Greening, plus last year’s rates.  More detail is at – https://www.ruralpayments.org/news-events/increased-rates-for-basic-payment-scheme-and-greening-2023.html .

The Welsh Government has provided some outline guidance on the new interim enviromental scheme announced in July (see https://abcbooks.co.uk/interim-environment-scheme-in-wales/ ‎).  The new scheme will be called Habitat Wales.  There will be a six week application window opening later this year, with 12 month contracts offered, commencing on 1st January 2024.  All applications will be via farmers’ RPW online accounts.

The scheme will be available to all eligible farmers and grazing associations, including those who have a Glastir Advanced, Commons or Organic contract which ends on 31st December 2023.  Eligible land for the scheme falls into three categories;

• Land currently under a habitat option within a Glastir Advanced contract (including Glastir Commons).
• Habitat land (excluding designated sites), as identified by published maps on DataMapWales which is not currently under management in 2023.
• Land managed as habitat which has potential to become habitat land following management.

All identified habitat land must be included in an application and additional land to be managed as habitat land can be included.  Payment will be made for following management requirements.  Examples of actions that will be prohibited include;

• Plough/cultivate, reseed or improve habitat
• Apply any inorganic or organic fertilisers such as farmyard manure, slurry, sewage sludge, chicken manure or fish meal
• Apply any herbicides, insecticides, molluscicides or any other pesticides (except for spot treatment of invasive species or notifiable weeds)
• Allow the area to be poached (existing gateways, feeding and watering areas are acceptable, providing poached and bare areas are less than 5% cover)
• Apply lime
• Supplementary feed any livestock, except for existing feeding and watering areas
• Cut or top more than 30% of rush or weed species in any one year

The scheme will be competitive and only those applications which achieve the greatest environmental benefits will be selected.  There will be no payments for capital works, but applicants can apply for these via the Small Grants – Environmental scheme.  Full guidance, including payment rates and information of capping will be available in due course.

Contrary to initial indications, farmers will not be registering their interest in SFI via Rural Payments.  Instead the RPA will be contacting all eligible farmers and land managers directly, from 30th August, with a link to a short online form that can be completed to express an interest in applying for the scheme.  This will be via email, meaning some may go to farmers directly or to their agent depending whose email address is registered with the RPA.  These are also going out from 30th August; some will have already received them, whilst others could still be waiting.

The email states that, after the form is received, RPA will contact applicants with details of how to apply; they expect this to be within 4 weeks of receiving the form for most farmers.  In the meantime, applicants are encouraged to make sure they understand the scheme rules, permissions are correct on the Rural Payments site and all land details are correct and up to date on the digital maps.

The Government is to effectively scrap the rules on Nutrient Neutrality in England.  These rules restrict new housebuilding in certain catchments unless developers can prove that water pollution (chiefly nitrates and phosphates) will not increases as a result of the new houses.  This has led to a market developing, with farmers ‘offsetting’ nutrients by decreasing the intensity of their land use, allowing housing to be ‘unlocked’.

The Government has decided that the Nutrient Neutrality (NN) rules are too restrictive.  It claims that removing them will result in an extra 100,000 homes being built by 2030.  Up to 74 Local Planning Authority areas are potentially affected by NN.  The rules are a legacy of EU environmental law which has been incorporated into UK law, post-Brexit.  There is also a view that the way Natural England has interprested the rules has been over-zealous.  The law will be changed via an amendment to the Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill currently in the House of Lords.

The Government is at pains to highlight that it is still committed to improving water quality.  It has announced a package of measures which include;

• the expansion and amendment of the Nutrient Mitigation Scheme run by Natural England.  This is the Government-run offsetting scheme.  The details are somewhat vague, but it seems that the onus for nutrient offsetting will move from individual housebuilders to Natural England.  However, it is stated that ‘the Government intends to work with the house building industry to ensure that larger developers make an appropriate and fair contribution to this scheme’.  There may still be opportunities for farmers to offer land in return for payments through this scheme, but the implication is that it will be more targetted in the past – with alternative measures to offsetting being used.  Therefore, the opportunies may be reduced. 
• increasing grants for slurry storage.  Although it is never easy to work out whether funding is new or ‘re-announced’, it appears that an extra £166m will be made available for this.  Further rounds of the Slurry Investment Scheme should therefore be expected.
• £25m to help farmers manage plant and soil nutrients (again, not clear if this is new funding or not).

The full announcement can be found at – https://www.gov.uk/government/news/100000-more-homes-to-be-built-via-reform-of-defective-eu-laws

Owners of short-term let properties in Scotland have until 1st October 2023 to apply for a short-term lets licence.  All Landlords in Scotland must have a licence, but those that were in operation prior to October 2022 have been able to continue to operate whilst they wait for their licence to be approved.  However, the deadline for these operators to apply for a licence is 1st October 2023.  Owners must apply for a licence with the Local Authority in which their property is located.  Local Authorities are required to process applications by 1st October 2024.  This is likely to affect many farm businesses which will have diversified into holiday lets.  More information can be found via https://www.mygov.scot/short-term-let-licences 

SFI 2023 will open for applications from 18th September 2023, with farmers being able to register their interest in the scheme from 30th August.  Pre-registration will be via farmers’ online Rural Payments account and aims to ensure all online maps, land use and cover details are correct ahead of the application date.  The announcement from Defra has come amid a backlash from industry representives saying farm businesses are being affected by delays, lack of information, and uncertainty over the schemes.