There was a heightened emphasis this year on claiming BPS on all eligible land at your disposal on 16th May 2022. Claimants were advised to purchase the shortfall of entitlements to cover their land, if applicable, due to this year’s BPS being the last year taken into consideration with the ‘delinked payments’ replacing BPS from 2024-2027, inclusive. It was announced that 2020, 2021 and 2022’s BPS claims were to be the base of the calculation for your payment from 2024, meaning the more land claimed on over these three years the higher the payments would be for delinking.
The entitlement trade started off with prices per units as expected in late March, and then prices rocketed during the middle of the BPS application window. The supply couldn’t meet demand and premiums were paid.
The Rural Payment’s Agency (RPA) plans to replace the Basic Payment Scheme (BPS) in England with delinked payments in 2024.
BPS will end after the 2023 scheme year. RPA plans to make delinked payments each year from 2024 to 2027.
When payments are delinked, you will not need any land or entitlements to receive the payments. This will simplify the payments as they are phased out by the end of 2027.
When you can claim delinked payments
Delinked payments will be based on your BPS payments in a reference period, which is the BPS 2020 to 2022 scheme years.
Your delinked payments for 2024 to 2027 will not be affected if your farm size changes, or if you change what the land is used for, after BPS 2022. You can receive delinked payments even if you choose to stop farming.
You must claim, and be eligible for, BPS payments in the 2023 scheme year to receive delinked payments for 2024 to 2027.
You can also apply for any other scheme you are eligible for, including our environmental land management schemes.
When you cannot claim for delinked payments
You cannot apply for delinked payments if you have received a payment under the Lump Sum Exit Scheme
How delinked payments are calculated
Your delinked payments will be based on a ‘reference amount’. This is different to the reference amount used for the Lump Sum Exit Scheme as it uses a different reference period.
The delinked payments reference amount will be the average BPS payments (including any young farmer payment or greening payment) made to your business for the BPS 2020, BPS 2021 and BPS 2022 scheme years.
RPA will include reductions applied for over-claiming land, but will ignore the following:
- over-claim penalties (which can be applied to BPS payments on top of over-claim reductions)
- reductions and penalties for not meeting the greening rules
- late application penalties
- penalties for not declaring all agricultural land parcels
- cross compliance penalties
- reductions to amounts above €150,000
- progressive reductions for BPS 2021 and BPS 2022
If you also claimed BPS on entitlements in Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland, your reference amount will be based only on the part of your payment which relates to your English entitlements.
RPA will apply progressive reductions when it calculates your delinked payments each year.
Different progressive reductions will be applied for years 2025 to 2027 as delinked payments are gradually phased out.
This means the value of the delinked payment each year will become a smaller and smaller proportion of the reference amount.
Reference – https://www.gov.uk/guidance/delinked-payments-replacing-the-basic-payment-scheme
