Prime Minister Theresa May and Environment Secretary Michael Gove have today launched the Government’s 25 year Environment Plan. Hailed as a world first the plan sits alongside the Government’s Clean Growth Strategy and sets out how they will improve the environment over a generation by creating richer habitats for wildlife, improving air and water quality and curbing the scourge of plastic in the world’s oceans.
The Plan
The key points of interest for the agricultural industry are firstly that the government want to help wildlife thrive by creating 500,000 hectares of new habitat for endangered species, supporting farmers to turn fields into meadows and other habitats, replenishing depleted soils and providing £5.7 million to kick-start a [new Northern Forest] (https://www.gov.uk/government/news/new-northern-forest-gets-government-backing).
Secondly, the Government wants to deliver a Green Brexit by consulting on a new environmental watchdog to hold the government to account for environmental standards, and setting out a new approach to agriculture and fisheries management. This is an area that will interest many within the agricultural industry as many eagerly await information on how the new subsidy system will look once we leave the EU and therefore the Single Farm Payment ceases.
At the Oxford Farming Conference last week, Gove told delegates that the subsidies, (worth £3 billion a year) would be used to reward farmers for planting wildflower meadows and woodland, boosting wildlife and improving water quality. Under the current system, landowners are paid a subsidy on the amount of land they own, which Gove says is ‘unjust, inefficient and drives perverse outcomes. It gives the most from the public purse to those who have the most private wealth’. The new system is likely to replace the Basic Payment Scheme as of 2024. This five year transition period is designed to ease farmers into the new system and to support landowners to make changes that protect the environment.
