Draft Agriculture (Delinked Payments) (Reduction) (England) Regulations 2025

What happened: The House of Commons voted on 31 March 2025 to approve the Draft Agriculture (Delinked Payments) (Reduction) (England) Regulations 2025. The motion passed by 296 votes to 164. The regulations set out reductions to "delinked payments," which are direct financial payments to farmers in England that replaced the EU's Basic Payment Scheme after Brexit.

Why it matters: The vote advances the government's plan to phase out flat-rate direct payments to farmers and redirect that funding toward environmental land management schemes, which pay farmers for delivering public goods such as habitat restoration and carbon sequestration. In practical terms, farmers in England receiving delinked payments will see those payments reduced on a sliding scale, with larger recipients facing steeper percentage cuts. The transition affects a significant portion of England's agricultural sector, which has been adjusting to a new subsidy architecture since the UK left the EU's Common Agricultural Policy.

The politics: The vote divided almost entirely along party lines. All 294 Labour and Labour and Co-operative MPs who voted backed the regulations, while Conservatives, Liberal Democrats, Greens, Reform UK, and the unionist parties all voted against. There were no notable cross-party rebels. The opposition position united parties that would otherwise disagree sharply on agricultural policy, reflecting shared concern that farmers are being squeezed financially at a time of wider rural stress. The vote sits within the broader post-Brexit farming reform programme begun under the Conservatives but now being carried forward at pace by the Labour government.