Environmental regulation in England is falling short of its ambitions, raising fresh concerns over its impact on farm productivity and economic growth.
The warning follows a new report from the National Audit Office (NAO), the government’s spending watchdog, which concluded the current regulatory system is not working well enough to meet long-term environmental targets.
Farm leaders said the findings underline the need for a more balanced approach. The NFU said environmental regulation must align more closely with policies that support productive farming.
NFU vice-president Rachel Hallos said “government’s environmental regulation and ambitions must go hand-in-hand with policies that support profitable, productive, and resilient farm businesses”.
She added that “implementation of the regulatory framework must also be practical and flexible, but critically, innovation-led, evidence-based and proportionate to any risks posed, to minimise costs and burdens on our farmers and growers”.
The NAO report highlighted significant delivery challenges facing Defra, the Environment Agency and Natural England, which are responsible for implementing a reform programme containing 149 recommendations.
It said skills shortages, fragmented IT systems and the absence of a clear strategic approach have slowed progress across the regulatory system.
The scale of the challenge is compounded by the volume of regulation. With more than 3,000 pieces of legislation to manage, the report said “an overly cautious and risk-averse culture in Defra and the regulators has developed, in part due to the potential for legal challenge”.
This, the NAO warned, has limited innovation and slowed the adoption of new approaches that could improve outcomes or reduce costs.
Although Defra is working to upgrade its IT systems and received a further £300m in targeted funding through to 2029 in the latest Spending Review, the watchdog said reform is progressing too slowly.
Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, chair of the Committee of Public Accounts, said data gaps are also undermining effective regulation, noting that “Defra does not have a single database or dataset for farms that can be used to share insight on risks across government”.
Gareth Davies, head of the NAO, said recent reviews had set a clear direction but warned delivery would be critical. “Defra and the regulators are working to improve how they regulate, including in response to recent major reviews,” he said, adding that success would depend on taking a sufficiently strategic approach and sticking to the course set.
Ms Hallos said the stakes for the sector were high, stressing that “the importance of investing in the future of British agriculture has never been more important”.
The report now places renewed pressure on Defra and its agencies to accelerate reform, as farmers warn that poorly designed regulation risks undermining both environmental goals and domestic food production.
