Speeches by Reynolds.

“I don’t think I would put it like that. I think there are some interim targets where we are probably not where we would want to be, and we need to make more progress in those areas. I would not accept that we are way off track. No, I would not describe it like that.”

“Yes.”

“We want to ensure that more small farmers can access our schemes. One of the reasons why we have reduced the number of actions available under the SFI is to try to simplify the scheme so it is easier to apply for and easier to administer. That is something we are making progress on. We also have a new chief executive o…”

“Obviously, we are very serious about meeting the 30 by 30 commitments that we made internationally, both on land and in our seas. I would say, though, that I know the OEP did a very serious piece of work, a progress report, but that was focused on the progress up until March of last year. There has been quite some prog…”

“We had some issues last year with the farming budget and the ELM schemes. The SFI reached a point where the budget was spent, and then it was cut off very suddenly. They are tricky schemes because, for example on the ELMs capital grant, we give farmers quite some flexibility. It means that, over two or three years, the…”

“Okay. We would like to overachieve in this area. I think it is also worth saying that we are in constant communication with the OEP. It is not that it produces a huge report, as you will have seen on the EIP, and, as you say, it is already 10 months after the fact. Apart from reading that report and digesting it, we ar…”

“Yes. Ideally, we would like to make progress even more quickly because, as you say, otherwise by the time you get to our response—”

“There are lots of different actions in the SFI. I am happy to respond on the specifics in writing, but the broad direction of travel is that we try to take out duplication. We have also changed the rates for a small handful of the actions because, as I said in my speech to the NFU, the income forgone was slightly on th…”

“That is what we have in the spending review, and obviously it is on average as well. It is over the period.”

“The two objectives are very clear. In order to have good, sustainable food production, you need good, healthy soils. I know there are a number of people on the Committee who are into soil, and it is a very good thing to be into. We see it as two sides of the same coin. I know sometimes it is seen as one being offset ag…”

“In some areas it is urgent, and in other areas we are making even more progress than we thought we were. It really does depend on the target you are talking about. For example, we are making quite good progress on air quality, but in other areas—we will be honest about this—we face challenges. In some of the target are…”

“We take into account what the OEP has said. We are, as I said, looking very carefully at that, and we have set out the direction of travel for SFI26, which will be open in June. We are committed to nature-friendly farming, and we are making sure that the environmental land management schemes as a whole drive better out…”

“To the last bit of your question, obviously, as you would expect, I was very involved. That is something I worked on across government, and I think we reached a good position, which is significantly increasing the threshold. However, we have retained the policy, which is obviously that if you have land that is worth ov…”

“There is different funding for different timeframes. I went to see a very ambitious landscape recovery project in north Buckinghamshire involving about 60 different farmers and NGOs. Some of the longer and larger-scale landscape recovery programmes that are being taken forward are impressive. I do not know how big your…”

“Thank you for the question. We are one Government, and I work very closely with my predecessor. Obviously, he is in the same building as me, just up the corridor at MHCLG. Certainly, from my perspective and the Government’s perspective, it is good that we have a Secretary of State for Housing who knows DEFRA and some o…”

“Certainly, in terms of the leadership of the representative organisations, I have a very good relationship with the president and the director general of the NFU, but also with Martin Lines from the NFFN and some of the other organisations. Obviously, the change on APR has hugely helped that relationship, but there are…”

“We will be opening the new SFI in June. We have done a lot of work to simplify it, to make it more accessible to smaller farmers. As you will know, we are opening it to small farms and those without an agreement from June, and then we are opening another window in September. That is a quite different approach, but we w…”

“Thank you for the question. I do not agree that we are deregulating. I think we are taking a different approach to nature restoration, one that is done at a more strategic level. As I said before, I do not think that the current situation, where we have had inefficient operational behaviour with many lower-risk and low…”

“Can I jump in here? We will need to check on and come back to you on some of the things that Mr Wilson is asking about. It is not to say that, particularly in the first couple of areas, we do not do that, but we need to check and come back to you, if that is okay.”

“I have seen some of it, yes.”