Govt 'must be held to account' over stewardship schemes

Farmers are increasingly concerned over scheme payment delays
Farmers are increasingly concerned over scheme payment delays

A farm group has called for the government to be held to account over its 'maladministration' of stewardship schemes.

It comes as the Environment Food and Rural Affairs Select Committee (EFRA) calls both Rural Payments Agency and Natural England to account on how they have handled both the Environmental Stewardship and Countryside Stewardship schemes.

The committee, chaired by Neil Parish MP, is to hold an evidence session with both sets of officials on Wednesday 26 June.

This follows the decision of the government to provide Treasury funded bridging payments to scheme participants awaiting overdue payments dating back to 2015.

But the Tenant Farmers Association (TFA) said the government's 'maladministration' is 'damaging' farm businesses and their willingness to look at any future scheme.

TFA Chief Executive, George Dunn, said: “We have allowed increasing centralisation of scheme management, slavish reliance upon IT and an overly process driven approach to derail our performance.

“We must re-gain traction on this without delay.”

'Spectacularly failed'

The government’s 25-year-plan for the Environment has ambitious targets for tackling climate change and restoring landscapes to promote thriving biodiversity.

However, farmers are increasingly cautious over any future programme following the 'mismanagement' of current schemes.

Mr Dunn added: “Farmers face intrusive inspections which lead to the imposition of penalties for alleged infringements of scheme rules which have little consequence for the outcomes that are being delivered and yet the government has spectacularly failed in making contracted payments to agreement holders.

“Officials have got to explain why this has happened and what they are going to do to guarantee that whatever new schemes come along will be run in a much more efficient manner.

“The farming community stands ready to commit to new schemes, but it needs to know the government is ready too,” he said.