Name: House of Commons
Uploaded: 2026-10-22T08:33:37+00:00
Duration: 22527 s

00:13 - 00:19

Speaker 2

Order, order. We start with questions to the Secretary of State for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. Martin Wrigley.

00:19 - 00:22

Speaker 1

Question number one please, Mr. Speaker.

00:22 - 00:23

Secretary of State.

00:23 - 00:56

Speaker 5

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. The Sustainable Farming Incentive scheme we inherited from the Conservatives was complicated and skewed towards the biggest farms. We've made it fairer and more focused, and this year we ran two application windows, received nearly 19,000 applications, and allocated 310 million per year for the next three years. We will open SFI 27 as early as we can, and we will work with farmers to see what we can do to change it, including alternatives to the first-come, first-served basis of it.

00:56 - 01:18

Speaker 4

Martin Wrigley. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yesterday we heard in this chamber many of the shortcomings of this year's SFI window two. Just one week after that closed, I visited Ross and Jenny Thompson at Smallacombe Farm in my Newton Abbot constituency and their successful herd of milking goats. And they described the SFI process as a fiasco.

01:18 - 01:36

Speaker 9

With 40 days and 40 nights of rain, the driest summer on record, multiple heatwaves, plagues of midges spreading bluetongue, and now severe drought and yellow warnings of our first named storm, what will the government do to help Devon's farmers adapt to the changing climate?

01:36 - 02:20

Speaker 5

Mr. Speaker, farmers are bearing the costs of extreme weather, which is why we're supporting them with 65 million extra to tackle drought, protect crops and build resilience, alongside grants for new technology to boost productivity. In order for as many farms as possible to benefit from SFI, we gave small farms a priority in window one this year. We've allocated 310 million pounds per year, that's nearly a billion pounds for the next three years, for the SFI scheme. The government will also invest up to 15 million pounds to help farmers and growers build on-farm reservoirs.

02:20 - 02:56

Speaker 7

Terry Jupp. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Tomorrow more than 50 farmers will be joining me in the South West Norfolk constituency for the first ever farming conference that I've been pleased to organise, and we will no doubt be discussing concerns related to this year's SFI. It highlights that farmers want to do more to support the environment, but it also highlights concerns around financial resilience and also profitability. So can my honourable friend talk more about what the government is doing to help improve profitability for farmers in South West Norfolk and across the country?

02:56 - 03:32

Speaker 5

Well, thank you, Mr. Speaker. My honourable friend does a great deal of outreach to the farming community and I commend him for it. We have launched the farming roadmap, which is the first 25-year plan for farming to give certainty and direction in a very long time. We've set up the Farming and Food Partnership Board, which is looking at the moment about how we can improve productivity and profitability and is currently working on a horticulture growth plan and a poultry growth plan. There will be more to come.

03:32 - 03:40

Speaker 12

Aphra Brandreth, Shadow Minister. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. After 18 months of dither and delay and cuts to the farming budget, Labour's shambolic SFI scheme closed within hours, leaving farmers unable to access funding to protect and restore nature.