Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee 

Oral evidence: The future of farming, HC 216

Tuesday 27 October 2026

Ordered by the House of Commons to be published on 27 October 2026.

Watch the meeting 

Members present: Alistair Carmichael (Chair); Sarah Bool; Charlie Dewhirst; Helena Dollimore; Sarah Dyke; Ben Goldsborough; Terry Jermy; Josh Newbury; Henry Tufnell.

Questions 119 - 297

Witnesses

I: Stephen Morgan MP, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, DEFRA; Mike Rowe, Farming Director, DEFRA; Gareth Baynham-Hughes, Director of Marine and Fisheries, DEFRA.

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Examination of witnesses

Witnesses: Stephen Morgan MP, Mike Rowe and Gareth Baynham-Hughes.

Q119       Chair: Good morning, everyone, and welcome to this meeting of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee. This morning we return to our inquiry in relation to the work of the Department and its arm’s length bodies. Welcome, Minister, to the Committee. Just for the benefit of those who are following our proceedings and for the record, I invite you all to introduce yourselves to the Committee, and I will start with you, Mike.

Mike Rowe: Good morning, I am Director General for Food and Farming in DEFRA.

Stephen Morgan: I am Member of Parliament for Portsmouth South and Minister for Food, Fisheries and Farming.

Gareth Baynham-Hughes: Good morning, I am the director for Marine and Fisheries.

Q120       Chair: We have a lot of material to cover this morning so we will just crack on. First, congratulations on your appointment, Minister. You were originally appointed as a Minister of State by Keir Starmer and then reappointed by Andy Burnham as a Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State. What is the difference between the two jobs in terms of how you are able to do it?

Stephen Morgan: It is a real privilege to be before the Committee today. It is my first time before the Select Committee; indeed, the first time before a Select Committee as a Minister of this Government. It is a real privilege to be the Minister for Food, Fisheries and Farming, now appointed twice by two separate Prime Ministers. To have the opportunity to serve in Government representing a constituency that looks to the sea for its food and livelihood is a real pleasure.

I have been conscious that the Government have been working really hard on a whole range of areas including the “Land Use Framework”, the “Farming Roadmap” and other initiatives, and that actually it has been a very challenging time for farmers across the country. We always say that farmers are used to dealing with change, but they do not take resilience for granted. That is why I have been really keen to get out and about across the country to engage with our fishermen and our farmers on the issues and challenges that they face. As a result of that it is very clear to me that we need to do more to support the resilience of the sector across our country.

Q121       Chair: I thank you for that. Mindful of the fact that you yourself appear to have a hard stop at noon can we maybe just keep questions and answers for everybody tight? The question was, what is the difference between being a Parliamentary Under-Secretary and a Minister of State?

Stephen Morgan: Essentially they are just different grades within the Department, are they not? Obviously my responsibility—

Q122       Chair: Does it have an impact on how you are able to do the job?

Stephen Morgan: No, I do not believe so. My job is to listen to the sector, to act on what I am told, and to make decisions that are based on evidence before me.

Q123       Chair: I want to start this morning by looking at a few issues around fisheries. The Committee has its inquiry into fisheries and the marine environment. We have published our first report, “Resetting the relationship with fishing communities.” We have had your response. Reading it short you are quite happy with the relationship between the industry, the communities and the Government?

Stephen Morgan: We also work in partnership with fishing and seafood sectors. There are lots of ways that the Government already do that; I have made it a priority in my first few months in post representing Portsmouth South with a small fishing community. I am not complacent, and that is why I am really keen to engage with communities across the country, which is why I visited Newlyn, I have been up to Scotland, Fraserburgh, Peterhead and I have been to Weymouth. I have been to Grimsby to meet fishermen directly to talk to processors and others.

Q124       Chair: In our report we suggested the creation of regional management groups. That was an idea that did not find favour with you. What is your objection to them?

Stephen Morgan: We already engage through regional fisheries groups, and we have certainly taken on board the feedback with regard to improved communication with the MMO; I have also spent time with the MMO in Portsmouth. There are lots of ways that the Department already engages with the fishing community. There is always more we can do, but I want to make sure that engagement is meaningful and improves outcomes to drive the agenda that we want to see, which is a thriving, sustainable fishing community.

Q125       Chair: Do you see no need for regional management plans?

Stephen Morgan: There are already structures in place. There are online meetings and physical meetings. I have been very impressed by how I have seen the MMO engaging with the fishing community. There is obviously work in hand around negotiations currently. I regularly engage with the fishing community, and I have established a regular forum to meet with representative bodies. I am always keen to learn from the Committee as well.

Q126       Chair: We also suggested a sea use framework, akin to the “Land Use Framework”. You did not like that idea either?

Stephen Morgan: I welcome the work of the APPG for fisheries and I am due to meet representatives of the APPG in the next few days. Coming into post it strikes me that there is not a particularly clear strategy around fisheries. I will therefore use the feedback from this Committee and the APPG to set out a direction of travel to support our fisheries communities for the future.

Q127       Chair: The APPG’s plan for a thriving and sustainable UK fishing industry said that you should produce a fishing strategy within the next 12 months. Is that something you can commit to doing?

Stephen Morgan: As I mentioned I have come into post and seen that there is no strategy. I am very keen to work with my Department, my officials, and the sector to think through the long-term vision for our fishing communities.

Q128       Chair: Is that a commitment to one in 12 months or not?

Stephen Morgan: I am meeting with colleagues of the APPG in the coming days.

Q129       Chair: We could write the strategy tomorrow, though it would only be meaningful if you produce it.

Stephen Morgan: I recognise the value of a strategy, and I am keen to work through that in partnership with others.

Q130       Chair: Okay, I will take that as a no, then. I am going to look at the year-end negotiations that have started this week. Who is leading for us in them?

Stephen Morgan: Priorities around fishing, for me, are obviously the negotiations with our coastal states, making sure we get the best deals through the best negotiations—

Q131       Chair: Who is leading the negotiations, Minister?

Stephen Morgan: It is DEFRA officials.

Q132       Chair: Yes, DEFRA officials, so it is not yourself or Mike. Who will it be?

Stephen Morgan: It will be Gareth from my Department. I obviously set the parameters for that and the principles for the negotiations and then hand over to officials to work through the detail with coastal states and others.

Q133       Chair: Would you anticipate getting involved at any stage?

Stephen Morgan: Of course. I have obviously seen the principles for the negotiations; I cannot get into the detail of how those negotiations will proceed. My engagement with the sector has obviously been key to those negotiations, as have some of the visits that I have made to Norway and other places, to understand some of the issues and challenges.

Q134       Chair: I want to look first at the position around Northern Shelf cod. Given that there are three distinct sub-stocks, are you content that the ICES advice for a zero TAC—total allowable catch—is a sensible basis for negotiation?

Stephen Morgan: I obviously cannot comment on live negotiations.

Q135       Chair: No, I am not asking you to. I am asking if you are content that that is a sensible way to negotiate. You have three distinct biological sub-stocks in the northern, the Viking and the southern areas, but they are being treated as one.

Stephen Morgan: I have seen advice. It is important that, in terms of negotiations, we follow the science. These are obviously very much live discussions, and I will bring in Gareth on that point.

Gareth Baynham-Hughes: Our starting point is the science. There has been a lot of work over the last year or so with ICES—the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea—to look specifically at all the scientific questions around cod, including the sub-stock question. It has set up a tiger team. Actually the Minister is not aware that we had a letter yesterday from ICES thanking the UK scientists for their contribution on that. That gives a reasonable basis with a range of scenarios for a negotiation that will then take place for Northern Shelf cod between EU, UK and Norway. A zero TAC advice is always extremely difficult, including the risk of closing other fisheries if you cannot have any bycatch, so it is complicated.

Q136       Chair: If you had a zero TAC for cod in the North sea, what would the implications be for other whitefish species?

Gareth Baynham-Hughes: The implications would be severe.

Chair: It would be a joke.

Gareth Baynham-Hughes: That is why consideration has to be given to other measures. There has been work throughout the year with the sector as well on additional measures such as spatial closures or other forms of closure that could provide stock protection but allow some other fisheries to continue. As the Minister says, these are live negotiations.

Q137       Chair: What is the Government’s assessment of the relative health of the three different sub-stocks?

Gareth Baynham-Hughes: I do not know the very latest formal assessment, obviously, as we were part of the ICES tiger team; that does suggest there is still uncertainty around the sub-stock in the southern North sea in particular. There are ways in which scientists are trying to understand the different recovery potentials of the sub-stocks, which are all managed as a single stock in these negotiations. Those are the things that the expert negotiators, not just from the UK but from other countries, work through. We take industry position inputs into this kind of negotiation; for example, last week we received material from some of the Scottish whitefish producers setting out alternative ways in which you could manage this fishery.

Q138       Chair: Are you content to negotiate on the basis of it being a single entity, even though they are all different?

Gareth Baynham-Hughes: At the end of the day there will be a single TAC agreed for those three stocks because that is the way the northern shelf cod is managed.

Q139       Chair: Is that the way you view them?

Gareth Baynham-Hughes: I expect it to reflect an intricate understanding of the science around the stocks.

Q140       Chair: Okay. I want to look at the imbalance between the fish that are taken as a consequence of the bilateral between the UK and Norway. Last year, Norway caught 22,581 tonnes of whitefish in UK waters. We caught 9,496 tonnes in Norwegian waters. How did we get to that outcome?

Stephen Morgan: I recognise the importance of partnership with Norway, which is why an early visit was to Norway to meet with my equivalent Minister, to make sure that we continue to get the best possible outcome for the UK fishing industry. I am aware of the concerns that you yourself have raised, Alistair.

Q141       Chair: Is that the best possible outcome, 22,000 to 9,000?

Stephen Morgan: I am aware of the challenges around Shetland in particular, which is why I have written to you and said I am keen to come up to Shetland next month, or indeed in December. Under the current terms it is obviously a reciprocal relationship between the UK and Norway, therefore Norwegian vessels can come into UK waters and vice versa. I am conscious of the balance and we will obviously continue to engage with stakeholders on these issues to make sure UK interests are at the heart.

Q142       Chair: This is something that is under review in this round of negotiations, is it not?

Stephen Morgan: The current arrangements will be, yes.

Gareth Baynham-Hughes: There was something placed in the written—

Q143       Chair: We are looking for something that is better than what we have, are we not?

Gareth Baynham-Hughes: There is an overall balance, as the Minister said, within the reciprocal access. For some parts of the fleet that access is working really well; for others there is the imbalance you have talked about.

Our interests, working with the sector and with the Scottish Government, will be to find the best UK position and then to try to secure the best outcome with Norway. We met with the sector at official level yesterday, and they wrote to the Minister to follow up and to thank officials for the engagement.

Q144       Chair: What about the best position from the point of view of conservation of stocks?

Gareth Baynham-Hughes: All those access agreements reflect the separate total allowable catch setting process that includes taking the scientific advice as part of it.

Chair: Let us go to saithe, specifically.

Gareth Baynham-Hughes: To saithe, yes.

Q145       Chair: You heard me speak about the Norwegian fishing trawler, the Havstrand, which is a 70-metre refrigerated trawler that catches 787 tonnes of saithe in one trip. Putting that into its context, that is 50% of the entire Shetland fleet catch for a whole year, and 12% of the UK quota for saithe in the North sea.

Bad though these statistics are, if you drill down the catch apps suggest that in fact the majority of that catch is smaller-sized saithe, which we should really be leaving in the sea, should we not? According to ICES, saithe is a species that is under biological pressure, so it is subject to overall TAC reductions this year. Do you think the deal that you did last year helps or hinders that?

Gareth Baynham-Hughes: I do not know that I have a specific answer on it; obviously, we are aware of the overall statistics.

Q146       Chair: There are two options here, Gareth: does it help or does it hinder?

Gareth Baynham-Hughes: I do not know that I would have phrased the question in that way. The way that we take forward the negotiations is to secure outcomes that are backed by and reflect the science, and that includes things such as catch composition and the state of the stock by year class; we have a good understanding of that. That is what goes into the overall TAC agreements, and then through the negotiations on access, that does not undermine that science.

Q147       Chair: Are you content that the bulk of that fishing effort should be in the north-north-east of UK waters, specifically around Shetland?

Gareth Baynham-Hughes: I am sorry, but I do not have enough information to hand about any particular pressures for that stock beyond the overall stock level. What I can say is these are all issues that we have been talking through. We had the Shetland Fishermen’s Association yesterday; they have followed up with the Minister. All these things are exactly what goes on the table to try to get a good outcome, noting that there are more interests than just saithe in the UK-Norway access arrangements. Overall, in these things there is access to other stocks that might be of interest to other parts of the fleet.

Q148       Chair: What are we getting from the north-north-east then?

Gareth Baynham-Hughes: I do not have the full details of the full arrangement. As you say, it is up to 30,000 tonnes, and there are different elements of the fleet that are interested in different parts of it. In fact, the Shetland Fishermen’s Association’s letter to the Minister is explicit that for some parts of the sector the agreement is working well, but they are worried about all the issues you have been raising around saithe, large vessels, large catches, and small fish. All those are live issues in discussion.

Q149       Chair: We get something back; we are just not sure what it is?

Gareth Baynham-Hughes: It is obviously based on a prediction. It is not that we sit down and agree it with the sector, but the whole purpose of these quota and access deals in particular is to support fishing businesses in the way they want to operate the business, which is different from the science advice.

Q150       Chair: The difficulty I have here, Gareth, is you give us a response that says you are content with the engagement between the Government and the sector, and then we get outcomes such as this.

Gareth Baynham-Hughes: Last year the sector was not unhappy with the prospect of that agreement, and then what has happened this year is there is a change in the pattern; that is the sort of thing that you would then think about reflecting in the next negotiating position. As I say, the sector wrote to the Minister yesterday and they were specific about feeling confident they are working with officials to develop these positions that we can take into negotiations. There will be a balance; at the end the Minister will have to agree a balance in those access arrangements.

Stephen Morgan: As I mentioned at the outset, I am very keen to engage more with the sector, which is why I have made it a priority since my appointment.

Q151       Chair: Two final very quick questions. Fuel costs: we are hearing of boats actually leaving active fishing because they simply cannot afford to go to sea. What are you doing to help them?

Stephen Morgan: That is a message I have heard loud and clear from my visits to Newlyn, Weymouth and other ports across the country. I absolutely recognise the pressures that the industry is under. There is obviously support for fuel via our existing tax system, and we are monitoring the situation very closely to understand the pressures that fishermen are facing.

Q152       Chair: That is stuff that was there before the current spike. What are you doing to help them with the current spike?

Stephen Morgan: We are keen to continue to engage with the sector to understand the issues and challenges that they face. We are alive to some of the challenges that they are facing.

Q153       Chair: They are talking now about stopping going to sea. Do you have a hard proposal to help them, to keep them going to sea?

Stephen Morgan: We have heard the message around using the coastal growth fund as an option. I am very keen—

Q154       Chair: That is not what the coastal growth fund is there for. The coastal growth fund was in place before the spike in prices.

Stephen Morgan: Indeed, but there have been calls to use that fund for this purpose. What I am saying to you, Chair, is that obviously there is existing fuel support via taxation policy. We have heard the message loud and clear from the sector and we are looking at options for the future.

Q155       Chair: As a consequence of decisions that were taken by the previous Government and then baked in for another 12 years by this Government, our fishermen are competing with fishing industries in other European countries. We have press notices here, “Commission approves €15 million Irish state aid for fishing and agriculture companies facing increased fuel prices.” “Commission approves €25 million Spanish state aid for fishing companies.” “Commission approves €4.5 million German state aid for fishing and aquaculture companies.” These are the people who we are expected to compete against; they are helping, so why are we not helping our industry?

Stephen Morgan: That is another reminder why there is probably a need for a strategy to support our fishing communities. I would not want you to mischaracterise what I said earlier, Chair, in terms of not wanting a strategy, I just want to work it through with the APPG and do it in partnership with the sector.

Q156       Chair: Yes, and in terms of pounds and pence, what is there going to be for the industry?

Stephen Morgan: Gareth, can you chip in on that question?

Gareth Baynham-Hughes: Sorry, Chair, could you repeat the question?

Q157       Chair: These European countries are all giving their boats help with fuel costs. We are not. Are you going to? Otherwise they might as well just tie up now. There is no point in giving them false hope.

Gareth Baynham-Hughes: That is not a decision for me, obviously. As the Minister says, at his request we are looking at options, not least because the sector has asked us to reallocate that funding. It has specifically said, “We understand there might not be new funding, can we reallocate that funding?” In its own right, that raises questions about whether that is possible.

Q158       Chair: One final question around the SPS agreement. We know that you are not going to be able to answer any questions about the SPS agreement because nobody knows what is in it; you probably are as much in the dark as we are. Can you give me some assurance that you would not sign up to an SPS agreement that would bring fisheries management issues into the field of play?

Stephen Morgan: More broadly, I welcome the Government’s reset with the European Union. I was in Paris last week at the G7 and then SIAL—the largest food and drink expo in the world—talking with industry.

Q159       Chair: I appreciate this. You are the one who has the pressure of time here, so I am trying to keep it very tight. Is there going to be a read-across between SPS and fisheries management or not? Is that something that you would be prepared to have?

Stephen Morgan: Obviously we need to protect British interests. I heard loud and clear in Paris last week the benefits an SPS agreement will bring in terms of cheaper, easier exports to other countries and the benefits it will bring our seafish industry, as I also heard loud and clear on my visit to Newlyn. I obviously cannot go into any detail about the negotiations because we have the summit coming up on 20 November.

Q160       Chair: Are there no undertakings on fisheries management then?

Stephen Morgan: Do you want to add anything on SPS?

Gareth Baynham-Hughes: I am not worrying about our future ability to operate a sovereign fishing policy since we left the common fisheries policy.

Chair: That is a brief statement. We shall possibly revisit that at some point in the future. For the moment we are going on to questions around biosecurity and animal welfare. We have quite a lot to cover here. Sarah, do you want to lead our questioning on that?

Q161       Sarah Dyke: Good morning. This year has been an exceptionally difficult year for farmers. We have had drought, the chaos around SFI and the worst bluetongue outbreak on record; the south-west has been particularly badly hit. On top of the immediate costs of the bluetongue vaccination, veterinary treatment, and fallen stock, fallen stock collections in the south-west ran at three to four times the normal levels this summer, with charges of up to £35 per sheep and over £160 per cattle. Disposal is obviously a legal requirement, and it is vital for disease control.

When we are looking at this, many farmers are not only concerned with those costs that are impacting their farm businesses but also about the longer-term losses from reduced fertility and birth defects. What support will the Government provide to those farmers who have been so badly affected by outbreaks this year?

Stephen Morgan: Thank you for the question, Sarah. I absolutely understand how incredibly difficult it has been for farmers across our country. I have met with the National Sheep Association and the NFU, and I have been talking directly to farmers about the challenges that they face on top of other issues around input costs, drought, wildfires, and so on. It is worth saying that as of yesterday there are 3,445 confirmed cases across the United Kingdom. It has obviously been a significant outbreak this year.

I was very keen to get on the farm, engaging in these issues early on, which is why I visited Cornwall to talk to a farmer who had been affected, alongside Tom Bradshaw, the NFU president. I absolutely recognise the real challenges that farmers have faced, and that is why I have made it a priority to work through options for further improvement. That is why we worked with industry to support the vaccine supply, reduced some admin burdens that farmers have had to face, supported on-farm veterinary support, and enhanced testing capability.

I have been to APHA and the Pirbright Institute to see directly what the scientists have been doing in terms of testing capability and, more specifically, on fallen stock. We are working with industry on future options and monitoring the situation closely. It is worth me also saying that when we had an urgent question in the House as well, there were particular issues that were raised around maps, and we have improved the heat maps so we know where the confirmed cases are across the country. We have done a range of things based on the engagement we have had with farmers but there is always more we can do, which is why it is worth just stressing as well that I am keen to learn lessons from the outbreak this year. I have already started that process with my officials to make sure what we have learned from this year does not get repeated in future years.

Q162       Sarah Dyke: Some European countries are subsidising bluetongue vaccinations. Is this something you would consider?

Stephen Morgan: My understanding is that is not something that we would consider at the moment; whether you take up the vaccine or not is obviously a decision for a farm alongside their vet. The current situation is we do not believe that there is a case for mandatory vaccination or the subsidising of vaccines. The costs are obviously between £2.50 and £3 in most cases. What is key is the communication to encourage farms to make sure that they do take up the vaccine.

Q163       Sarah Dyke: The communication is something I want to touch on because some farmers and industry representatives have argued that the Government communications were not sufficiently timely or proactive as the outbreak spread so quickly. One Devon farmer and councillor, Cheryl Cottle-Hunkin, criticised DEFRA’s handling of communications during the emergence of cases in the south-west. She was incredibly vocal about this, having outbreaks on her own farm, arguing that the farmers were not adequately alerted to suspected local cases or increasing disease risks. She suggested that delays in communication left some farmers feeling they had lost the opportunity to take proactive action at an early stage. Who was ultimately responsible for getting the message across to farmers about the urgency of getting those vaccinations done?

Stephen Morgan: On outbreaks such as these, DEFRA uses tried and tested approaches to work with the sector to make sure information is spread across to the relevant agencies. There are always lessons we can learn from our approach, which is why this lessons learned exercise is really important. What strikes me is that DEFRA did a number of things that were successful. There were a series of webinars that were well attended; 1,000 farmers attended one. Obviously we used various different portals and blogs to get information out to the community. I am very grateful for the work the NFU has done on communication as well. I would say it is a partnership approach; everyone can play their part in making sure the messages get across to farmers—APHA, Pirbright, the NFU and other farming organisations, with DEFRA at the heart of all of that.

Q164       Sarah Dyke: Obviously the NFU did a great job in getting the message out, but do you think it is not down to a membership body such as the NFU to get the message out, that ultimately it is the responsibility of DEFRA and the APHA to do that job?

Stephen Morgan: It is a partnership approach headed by DEFRA. That is why I am proud of some of the things the Department did in terms of the webinars and the regular communication with farmers. There is always more we can do and we will take on board the feedback we have learned from farmers this year to make sure we improve it for next year.

Q165       Sarah Dyke: Vaccine take-up was slow at the start of the outbreak. Do you feel that that is something that we have to learn from very quickly as we face future outbreaks?

Stephen Morgan: I am keen to learn any lessons but, as I mentioned, we worked really hard to improve the supply coming into the country, working with industry to make that happen. I am not aware of any particular challenges around vaccine currently.

Q166       Sarah Dyke: I just want to move on to TB. The previous farming Minister said in June that the Government would respond at pace to the new bovine TB control strategy for England. When will the Government respond to these recommendations?

Stephen Morgan: Thank you for that question. Obviously, there is the TB control strategy that came out in June of this year following extensive stakeholder engagement and co-design with the sector. We have agreed to adopt the strategy, but obviously we are looking to publish the next stage of that process, which I can confirm will be out before Christmas.

Q167       Sarah Dyke: I have personal experience of TB. Two cows were culled after reacting to a TB test on my family farm this month. When the results came back after slaughter, both animals were clear of TB. This is not the first time; it happens all the time. It has happened to my neighbouring farms, friends and family, so I know firsthand how heartbreaking this is for farming families. Bovine TB costs the taxpayer over £100 million a year in England, and healthy animals are being lost along the way. What is DEFRA doing to improve the accuracy of the testing so that cattle are not slaughtered unnecessarily? With the previous Minister admitting the SPS work was delaying cattle vaccine trials because of the capacity problems, will the 2030 target for cattle vaccination be met?

Stephen Morgan: There is a lot in there, but it is worth saying that I hear your concerns. I heard that loud and clear from spending a day on a farm in Cumbria with James Robinson and working through with him a very similar experience of being in touch with the VMD and with APHA.

In terms of vaccines we are continuing to develop the cattle vaccination and skin testing. There is obviously the rollout of the badger vaccination in priority areas, and we are collecting found dead badgers as well. I might just turn to Mike to add anything further with regard to TB.

Mike Rowe: That covers it, Minister. It is obviously a devastating disease for the farms that contract it, and while it is not under my personal responsibilities, it is something that the teams working on it in the Department are trying to look at every tool in the toolbox in terms of how we can get a grip on the disease. There is work that is being done to make use of privately funded TB blood testing to support better risk-based disease management.

Longer term, our approach on a number of issues that are facing the sector is to try to think how we build long-term resilience into the farming sector so that we can be better at equipping farmers with the tools they need to manage multiple risks. Some of that can be done through peer-to-peer learning in terms of trying to get best practice to be common practice across farms.

Q168       Sarah Dyke: I have seen TB testing on farm; the inaccuracies are incredible. The calliper system has been in place for 40-odd years now. We should be doing this much better. Cattle that test positive on a non-statutory test face compulsory slaughter at present. Resolved inconclusive reactors can already be kept on farm under a lifetime restriction, sold only direct to slaughter. When will the Department create an equivalent responder category for non-statutory test positives, so farmers and vets can manage these animals in a way that is best for their herd?

Stephen Morgan: Thank you for that, I will certainly take those concerns back to the Department. It obviously just reminds us how important the next stage of the strategy is. It is worth noting that we are developing a new industry-government strategy board to drive the recommendations from the strategy. I will certainly feed that back and take it forward in terms of the work that I am doing alongside Baroness Hayman, who is the Minister responsible for biosecurity.

Q169       Sarah Dyke: Thank you. My final question is that the current guidance only allows non-statutory tests in OTF herds that have already had gamma testing, and stops further testing the moment OTF status has been regained. That means farmers cannot keep checking for hidden infection once a herd is clear. I have heard that on my own farm. We also heard that when we visited Gatcombe farm down in Devon; they found that exact example when they were reinfected back in 2023. Will you allow these tests in OTF herds without affecting their status? How will the Government make sure the SPS agreement does not restrict this activity going forward?

Stephen Morgan: I recognise those challenges. I will certainly take it back to the Department and explore the points that you raise further. Mike, do you have anything further you wanted to add to Sarah’s question?

Mike Rowe: It is right, Minister, that that is something we can look at in the strategy. I know that there is expansion of Government-funded mandatory interferon-gamma blood testing to help try to detect infection sooner and reduce breakdown duration. I do not know enough about the issue to know if that specifically addresses your question, but it is definitely something we can pick up with the teams in DEFRA.

Sarah Dyke: Yes, it would be great if you could follow that up.

Q170       Chair: It would be a lot of stuff to bring back to the Department; we will maybe follow up in correspondence. It would be good if we could get an answer by the end of the month, does that seem reasonable?

Stephen Morgan: I will see what we can do.

Q171       Henry Tufnell: Minister, we have the current policy and we have the strategy in respect of TB. I am just worried about the SPS. I know you cannot comment on negotiations, but are you worried about the difference between what our strategy and our policy says in this country and the European rules, and the divergence between the two?

Stephen Morgan: We obviously take these issues extremely seriously. Protecting biosecurity of our country is vital. That is why I work really closely with Baroness Hayman who leads on both the SPS and biosecurity issues, and those are at the forefront of our mind in the negotiations.

Q172       Henry Tufnell: The EU is not permitting us to vaccinate cattle; it has extending testing regimes. Are you worried about that in terms of combating TB, and our fight against TB to have official TB status by 2038?

Stephen Morgan: Lots of things that we do are world-leading in this space, which is why I was keen to see what Pirbright and APHA are doing. We can obviously get back to you on the specifics in terms of the response that Sarah has asked for, and I am very happy to do so.

Q173       Josh Newbury: I just wanted to pick up on the consultation that was released yesterday on the CO2 stunning of pigs. I am very much with the Government on the animal welfare agenda; the strategy is a visionary document, but obviously to actually achieve welfare gains we need to make sure anything we do is based on robust evidence.

The statement released by DEFRA yesterday stated, Minimising distress during handling and slaughter is an important part of safeguarding pig welfare, and that both argon and electric stunning are proven to substantially reduce animal suffering. But if you then dive into the Animal Welfare Committee’s opinion, it notes that “exposure to argon still causes vocalisations and sometimes escape attempts.” It takes longer for pigs to lose consciousness, which could have welfare implications and would certainly have commercial impacts for abattoirs. It then goes on to say that the CCTV the Committee saw was not in the gas system itself, so it was inadequate to properly assess their welfare.

On automated electric stunning we know that in a pig stunning trial as much as one-fifth of pigs showed signs of consciousness after they had gone through the process. By that point they are hoisted up by their rear trotters, so they would have to get the pigs down, re-stun them and put them back up again, which again could have terrible welfare implications. Pigs are big beasts, so potentially that could pose a risk to staff as well, further exacerbating labour shortages that abattoirs are already facing. Given all that, can you, hand on heart, at this point say that the evidence base is strong enough to bring that consultation forward?

Stephen Morgan: We have engaged with industry in advance of going out to public consultation. You will know that the commitment to do so is very much from our animal welfare strategy, which Baroness Hayman and the Government launched last December. It is really important that we have that engagement with industry and obviously encourage people to respond to the consultation, opened only yesterday with a deadline of December.

I am very keen to make sure we deliver on our manifesto commitments as we set out at the election, but also to work with industry around mitigating the risks and challenges. Mike, do you have anything further you wanted to add in terms of the specifics of Josh’s question?

Mike Rowe: Only that the consultation provides an opportunity for some of those issues that you have raised about argon and how suitable it might be as a replacement method. This is about gathering the evidence so that Ministers can then take decisions on the back of that consultation. We are keen to hear views about all aspects of the document that has been out.

Q174       Josh Newbury: Written responses to a consultation are clearly not the same as a full industry-led trial with independent oversight, which seems to me to be what we really need. Even the Animal Welfare Committee is not saying argon or electric stunning is certainly better, there are definitely reservations there. There are clearly huge gaps in the evidence. My question is, should that not have been gathered before the consultation was released?

Stephen Morgan: My understanding is the proposal would have significant improvement to pig welfare at the time of killing. As I said, we have been talking to industry and I hope those issues are teased out in the consultation period, which I encourage people to contribute to.

Q175       Josh Newbury: Lastly, I hosted a drop-in on CO2 use for the National Pig Association just yesterday; I did not know the consultation was going to be coming out yesterday, but it was quite timely. It told me that it has had many meetings with DEFRA officials and it has raised these concerns and many others, and yet none of that seems to have had any bearing whatsoever on what is in the consultation document. It does not see any of those nuances even reflected. Will you be engaging with pig producers and abattoirs going forward? We can see that their concerns are only going to grow louder and louder in the coming weeks. There is a lot going on in the industry and this is another thing that they feel is being heaped on them.

Stephen Morgan: Yes, I absolutely understand the pressures that the sector is facing. That is why I have met with the National Pig Association early on, and why I have met with pig farmers directly on farm. I am committed to having a summit with industry, processors and others to recognise the challenges that the sector is facing and to work through what the options might be to provide further support.

Q176       Josh Newbury: Were they telling you that the evidence is not there?

Stephen Morgan: Not at any particular meetings I have had so far, but I will commit to seeing the sector further to get into that detail and make sure that everyone has contributed to the consultation.

Q177       Chair: They are telling me that there have been no proper trials done in the use of argon. Are they not telling you that?

Stephen Morgan: Baroness Hayman leads on these areas, of course, but I will certainly follow up with them on the points you have raised today.

Q178       Chair: Mike, you have started the consultation but you are consulting on stuff that you have not properly trialled. Is that not putting the cart before the horse?

Mike Rowe: I have to be clear that it is not my policy area, but my understanding is that the Animal Welfare Committee report that was published in 2025 recommended, for all the reasons set out in that report, phasing out the current methods—CO2—and that there are other methods that the committee suggested in their report. What we are trying to do now is gather information and evidence from the industry about the implications of moving from the current methods to those new methods.

Q179       Chair: What other countries are doing this? Denmark? The Netherlands?

Mike Rowe: I do not have that information, I am afraid.

Josh Newbury: There is no mention in the EU whatsoever, and America is only looking to move to CO2 and is baffled that we are looking to move away from it because the evidence base is not there.

Q180       Chair: You are content to go on this? Okay, we will maybe raise this with Baroness Hayman, she is coming in later. Stephen, you mentioned your summit there. It is a fact that the pig sector is going to have too many pigs on farm between now and Christmas, they are not going to be on a contract and there is going to be no way for them to get to market. That is going to lead to a back-up of stock on farm, which in itself then becomes an animal welfare issue. Is that something that your summit is going to address?

Stephen Morgan: More generally, obviously, I want to drive more profitable, productive farming.

Q181       Chair: I have given you a specific question, we are all agreed on the generals.

Stephen Morgan: That is why I am really keen to work with the sectors to drive growth in the sector. You will know from your experience that it tends to be boom and bust in the pig sector, and therefore a key point that I would want to get across in the summit is about market monitoring and forecasting, working with industry and what the options are for growth for the future.

Q182       Chair: Does that mean that you are going to be addressing the specific concern of the industry that between now and Christmas you are going to have this animal welfare problem because you are going to have too many pigs on farm that you cannot get off to slaughter?

Stephen Morgan: If I am going to convene industry, I am keen to hear their views and concerns to see what Government can do to build resilience and growth in the sector.

Q183       Chair: Are you hearing it from me for the first time? Have you not heard this? You must have ongoing dialogue with the NPA, NFUS, NFU and others.

Stephen Morgan: I mentioned I have already met with them, been on farms, talked to them. I am very happy to engage further.

Q184       Chair: Have they told you that this is their concern? If that is their concern, surely it should go on to the agenda for your summit, should it not?

Stephen Morgan: The way that I operate working with the sector is to ask what issues they want to discuss with me, then we work through those. It is a partnership approach to then improve outcomes for our farming community, very much in the spirit of the “Farming Roadmap”. I am very happy to explore issues they would such as to raise with me when we have that summit.

Q185       Chair: Are you telling me that will be on the agenda?

Stephen Morgan: I am very happy to discuss any issues that industry wants to talk about.

Chair: Okay.

Q186       Charlie Dewhirst: I should refer to my wider register of interests submitted to the Committee in relation to my family connections with the industry. Just going back to Josh’s point here, it is quite well established within the industry that electrical stunning can lead to worse welfare outcomes. The use of argon and nitrogen when we have CO2 readily available presents another issue because I would ask, which countries would you expect to import the argon or nitrogen from?

Stephen Morgan: We will have to get back to you on those specific points.

Q187       Charlie Dewhirst: Okay. I can tell you that Russia is the major producer of those gasses, and that would mean that our domestic food security is further compromised by relying on a Russian import. That in itself would seem to be the wrong way to go about it.

As the Chair just alluded to, we already have 15,000 pigs backed up on farm. The transition period in this consultation around the use of CO2 talks about two to three years. That would require shutting down the abattoirs for a conversion. These are abattoirs that are running at full capacity trying to deal with the situation in the market as it is. Two to three years would be unworkable and would create additional welfare problems on farm because there would not be the throughput in the abattoirs to get the pigs that we are already producing. That does really need to be considered when you are looking at this. Would you agree with that?

Stephen Morgan: Thank you for that. I know that you speak with real authority on these issues, having worked for the National Pig Association in the past. It is really important that as many people as possible contribute to the consultation, and I am very happy to meet any Member on these issues to make sure that their views are fed into the consultation.

Q188       Ben Goldsborough: From pigs to poultry, in my circumstance. The trial of the avian influenza vaccine has just come to an end within Norfolk. We are very proud of what our local poultry producers have been doing to work with the Animal and Plant Health Agency on that. I had a meeting with the APHA on Friday of last week to talk about this. The findings are now obviously coming to a conclusion, but one of the things that was raised with me is that the vaccine itself has to be administered through a travelling process using liquid nitrogen, which makes it quite a costly process. Will that be taken into account when recommendations are given on whether this vaccine is given approval going forward?

Stephen Morgan: Thank you for that. I can give you assurance that we will certainly look at those options.

Q189       Ben Goldsborough: In terms of the next steps for this, obviously if we look at other counterparts around the world, Australia, for example, has had its first cases of avian influenza this summer, in August. It has done a mass rollout scheme for wild birds at a cost of around A$230 million, so it is doable in terms of if the Government puts their mind to it. What do you believe is going to be the next steps for the Government in terms of AI approaching us as the season has now started?

Stephen Morgan: Thank you for that. Again, these issues are for Baroness Hayman to answer, and I work really closely with her. More broadly on biosecurity issues, we obviously take these issues extremely seriously and I will certainly take back your views and ideas to the Department.

Q190       Ben Goldsborough: In terms of moving away from Baroness Hayman’s portfolio towards yours, obviously one of the issues that we have within the poultry sector is the lack of insurance that is now available. I raised this with former Minister Daniel Zeichner in a Westminster Hall debate. There does not seem to be any action that has come from DEFRA since that point, in terms of the support divergence and increasing the number of insurance providers. Is this something that you are aware of at all, Minister?

Stephen Morgan: Thank you for raising this. You will know we published our “Farming Roadmap” earlier this year and established a farming and food partnership board. There are a number of sector growth plans that we are taking forward; there is one around horticulture and one around poultry.

I met representatives from the poultry sector at the partnership board yesterday. We want to make sure we have a really good plan to build resilience and a sustainable sector for the future. All those issues that you described around insurance and other matters will be brought out in the plan so that we can ensure growth for the sector for the future.

Q191       Ben Goldsborough: When you say it will be brought out in further detail, have you had any conversations with NFU Mutual, for example, on this issue, or the only other provider of insurance?

Stephen Morgan: I have met with representatives of the poultry sector. I have not had that particular point raised with me directly yet, but I am very happy to follow through on those as we work out the sector growth plan for the future. Mike, do you want to chip in more broadly around support for the poultry sector?

Mike Rowe: As the Minister mentioned, we are trying to make sure the sector growth plans are industry-led. They were commissioned by the farming and food partnership board; we are expecting the poultry one to be submitted back to the board within the next six months. As the Minister said, these sorts of issues alongside others—we are aware that there are issues in the planning system, for example—are holding back growth in the sector. We are trying to look across the board at the systematic challenges that need to be addressed in order to enable the sector to grow, and I would expect this to feature in that plan somewhere.

Q192       Helena Dollimore: Minister, I wanted to ask you about the issue of local abattoir provision, something that has been vastly eroding in recent years; in Sussex—where my constituency is—we have just one abattoir left in the entire county. At a national level we had 2,500 abattoirs in the 1970s; we now have just 200 in the whole country. It is a really big issue for local farmers because it means they have to transport animals much further for slaughter, which can have animal welfare considerations. It also impacts their ability to sell meat locally and reduce food miles when we lose abattoirs.

This week the NFU published a letter with 150 organisations saying that the sector is in crisis and needs support from Government. Given that DEFRA put a huge amount of money into supporting the farming industry in this country, is it not right that we also think about protecting this vital national infrastructure of abattoirs? Do you recognise local abattoirs and the network of them as vital national infrastructure and can you say anything about how DEFRA can support them and make sure we do not lose more abattoirs in the future?

Stephen Morgan: It is an issue that has come up on the engagement that I have had through agricultural shows and visits across the country over the summer. I am aware of the coalition’s letter led by the NFU and 150 different organisations. DEFRA works really closely with an abattoir working group and a task and finish group to work through the options for the future. I have met with Susan at the FSA to look at what options can be done around regulation and visits.

It is worth saying that we have seen about a 2.5% reduction in local abattoirs across the country; I do not recognise the 10% reduction. They are hugely important to food resilience, which is why I am pleased there is work going on with industry and my officials to monitor the situation and see what further action can be taken.

Q193       Helena Dollimore: Can that working group look at setting up a dedicated fund to support local abattoirs? If we are putting £2 billion a year into supporting farming in this country, it would make sense that we put a small amount of money into that local infrastructure that the farming is dependent on.

Stephen Morgan: My understanding is the letter calls for a dedicated funding stream to support that. I want to look at what other measures we can take at this stage in terms of reducing some regulatory and vets’ inspection burdens on abattoirs and then see if there is anything further we can do to deliver on the commitments we have made.

Q194       Sarah Dyke: It is a really important point that the small and medium-sized abattoirs are closing at a rate that there simply will not be any left in 10 years. That is really important for the local supply chain, rare and native breeds and organic farmers. Recently—in September 2024—the Smaller Abattoir Fund was closed and has not been replaced. Will you be looking at bringing in a replacement for that? How are we going to stem these closures?

Stephen Morgan: In my answer to the previous question I mentioned the support we are providing around regulatory visits and vets’ activities.

Sarah Dyke: We are talking about the small abattoirs.

Stephen Morgan: Indeed, and it is about how we can make that more proportionate. I will certainly take away the suggestion around additional support.

Chair: I am going to move on to questions around water and heat resilience.

Q195       Terry Jermy: Apologies, I am leading a Westminster Hall debate at 11 am so I shall ask a couple of quick questions and run away; I do not run that fast. I wanted to ask about water resilience. It has been an incredibly tough year when it comes to drought; it has been like this for a number of years now in places such as Norfolk. If you follow the news it seems we are not out of the woods yet; there is potentially more to come.

Water is obviously crucial and critical to the operations of farms. I welcome the £15 million in grants for on-farm reservoirs. The core problem—farmers tell me this all the time—is getting the necessary licences and planning permissions. I understand that this cuts across different Departments, including MHCLG, and different briefs. When can farmers expect progress on the process of getting licences and planning permissions to be made easier?

Stephen Morgan: Just to echo what you have said I absolutely agree with how difficult it has been for farmers across the country this year. I heard about the value of reservoirs loud and clear on a farm visit with Tom Bradshaw to his own farm. We are obviously funding the water management grant of £15 million, the detail of which will come out next month.

There is a range of things that I am keen to do across Government. Yesterday there was a discussion at the farming and food partnership board with representatives from across Government—including MHCLG—working through some options for the future. Obviously the Prime Minister has taken this issue extremely seriously, hence the announcement in August of the additional £15 million when he was on a potato farm in Cornwall.

There is a range of things we want to do around abstractions and working with the Environment Agency and speeding up the planning process to deliver the change that we need. I mentioned there was a very healthy discussion about these issues and working with the sector at the partnership board yesterday and we have set some clear milestones to take forward further action. Mike, is there anything specific you want to add about abstraction planning or funding finance?

Mike Rowe: We are trying to take a system-wide look at the barriers, some of which might be in the planning system; hence we had colleagues from MHCLG in a meeting yesterday that the Minister referred to. We know there are issues with abstraction and if you have to have an environmental impact assessment there can be issues with the Natural England screening of that. We had both those organisations represented in the room and are trying to crack this in a group way as well as looking at the role that finance can play. Yesterday we agreed a plan of action with the sector and those other bits of Government—as I mentioned—to try to work through some things.

Smart abstraction may well be one thing—it is being trialled at the moment—but currently farmers would need to apply to the Environment Agency in order to get abstraction licences. Are there ways in which we can use technology for automatic monitoring of river levels so that we can take that out of the loop? That is one example of the changes we are looking at but we totally get the urgency. We started this work just before we experienced the extreme drought and it is something that Ministers are committed to resolving.

Stephen Morgan: Obviously you want to build more reservoirs and make it easier for people to build reservoirs. The national planning policy framework—which has come out recently—is helpful; it is about prioritising food production and the work of farmers. It is a really helpful strategic document that should drive the change that we need.

Q196       Terry Jermy: I am glad you appreciate the urgency, particularly around abstraction licences. As you will be aware, last week I held a farming conference in south-west Norfolk with 70 farmers and landowners. I have numerous farmers whose abstraction licences are up for renewal next March. They need to be putting seed orders in now but they do not know if they are going to have the water available. It is risky enough; we need to de-risk where possible. Do you think the current arrangements for abstraction licences properly prioritise food production and support for farmers? You have indicated that perhaps they do not and that is what we are looking to reform.

Stephen Morgan: More generally we obviously want to make it easier to build reservoirs. We want to review and update the planning guidance and remove some unnecessary barriers that exist. I have heard those messages loud and clear from parliamentarians but also on farm visits. Mike, is there anything further you want to cover in terms of those issues that Terry described?

Mike Rowe: Clearly there will always be a lead-in time for getting a reservoir from obtaining the permissions through to then building it. We obviously need to factor in any health and safety considerations with regard to the HSE aspect in this. Following the actions that we agreed yesterday with other partners around the table, we are hoping that they would see some benefit in terms of the construction of reservoirs next year. Obviously with the summer we have had, we would all prefer that to be quicker but equally this is a challenge that has been left unresolved for too long and we are trying to grip it now.

Q197       Helena Dollimore: I want to continue Terry’s questions but also delve into the wider issue of the very hot summer that we have had and the impact for farmers. Just to follow up on Terry’s question, in August the Government announced £50 million of funding would be reallocated to SFI to help farmers adapt to the risk of future droughts. Can you comment on how DEFRA has ensured that this money is ring-fenced for drought resilience?

Stephen Morgan: We have had £50 million allocated; when we did similar schemes before it was a slightly smaller amount and it supported about 70 reservoirs across the country. We will set up the specifics of the application opportunity when we publish it next month. This is alongside broader work the Government are doing around private investment going into the water sector to improve water management issues, which I know you are very passionate about and do lots of work on.

Mike Rowe: Just on the specifics we decided not to try to ring-fence that extra £50 million within SFI for certain drought-specific measures. At the time the windows were opened we put out communications around the actions that were available under SFI.

Q198       Helena Dollimore: Why did you not ring-fence it?

Mike Rowe: Given the speed that we would have needed to try to get the changes through we would have needed system changes to enable some sort of ring-fencing for that money. We decided to prioritise opening the scheme over pausing and getting those system changes done.

Q199       Helena Dollimore: Are you reconsidering that for next year?

Mike Rowe: It is one of many options that we are looking at for next year in light of the experience we have had this year.

Q200       Helena Dollimore: On the broader issue of the very hot summer that we have just had we also saw a number of wildfires, which is something the Committee has been looking at. In Stourbridge particularly, farmers played a critical role in getting those wildfires under control by creating firebreaks. When thinking about this issue in my own constituency we actually asked the local council whether it is in touch with local farmers in preparedness for any wildfires and there is no such link, database or connection.

In light of all the work going on in Government about wildfire preparedness, what role does DEFRA see for farmers? Are you doing any thinking about how we can further upskill local farmers and support them in that role and the fact that they own land that can be used in response to wildfires?

Stephen Morgan: I just want to pay tribute to the tremendous activity of farmers over the summer. Obviously this demonstrates again the resilience that we see from our farming sector. You will be aware that the Prime Minister hosted a wildfire summit last week on these very issues. I was able to secure the NFU representation at that important summit so that the farmers’ voices are heard in decisions around what we might do differently in the future.

More generally you mentioned the firebreaks, which was a new flexibility announced by the Environment Agency in August when the Prime Minister was in attendance. There is more work we can do around preparedness, which is why working directly with the sector is really important to learn lessons and make sure that we have a robust system for the future.

Q201       Helena Dollimore: Just making sure the local council knows who the local farmers are in a situation such as that is important; you do not want to be gathering those names and phone numbers at the time.

Stephen Morgan: The work of the local resilience forums is also key here. It plays more broadly into the wider work that the Government are doing around resilience and the work of partners to make sure we are more resilient to some threats and concerns.

Mike Rowe: As part of the announcements made last week following the summit, there are some new actions that we are looking to bring into our suite of environmental land management schemes that are specifically designed to help counter wildfires.

Q202       Helena Dollimore: You slightly led into my next question: is the Department outside ELMs looking at other ways to support more nature-friendly farming and climate resilience?

Mike Rowe: Absolutely. The ELMs budget is £2.3 billion a year but there is also work on local nature restoration strategies and work that can be factored in from biodiversity net gain. Only yesterday it was announced that the Government have partly contributed funding to secure the Rothbury Estate, for example, in order to try to get extra funding into more nature-resilient farming on important landscapes. There is a range of measures specifically on wildfires. We also made those announcements regarding new actions in ELMs last week.

Chair: We have had the starter; we have had the fish course. Now we come to the main course: sustainable farming incentive and the 2026 application window 2. Sarah, you are going to lead our questioning on this.

Q203       Sarah Bool: Minister, I am a big fan of your enthusiasm with the lists of the farms that you have been visiting and all the lists that you have done. Given that farmer confidence in DEFRA has been devastated by the shambles—as it has been said by farmers themselves—of SFI window 2, we really need to drill into some details. Can I take us back to 21 September, the day before the launch of actual window 2? What estimate did DEFRA have of the number of eligible farm businesses likely to apply compared to the budget?

Stephen Morgan: Just to start by saying that obviously earlier this year we redesigned SFI based on feedback from the previous year. That was about making sure that the funding was more fairly distributed and targeted more effectively to farmers as much as possible, which is why we introduced the two windows of opportunity. The first window opened earlier this year and then obviously the second window in September. I am really keen to learn lessons from what happened this year. The system held up despite huge demand, which is why I have started conversations with the sector to see how we design the scheme for the future.

Q204       Sarah Bool: Specifically on that question, how many farms did DEFRA expect and what was the budget?

Stephen Morgan: We were modelling high demand.

Q205       Sarah Bool: What does high demand mean?

Stephen Morgan: Significant contribution—

Q206       Sarah Bool: What does significant mean?

Stephen Morgan: Perhaps Mike can get into some detail of the modelling that was undertaken. Obviously we saw a very difficult summer for the farming community and therefore some saw this as an opportunity to support them.

Q207       Chair: If we do not get this right at the start we are going to be here talking about this for the rest of the day. Sarah has asked you a very direct question here. How many applications did you expect to receive? I do not know if either of you or neither of you knows the answer. That is the question that has been asked; unless we get the right answer to that, nothing else is going to make sense.

Mike Rowe: Our best estimates—noting that we had made some changes to the scheme compared to the previous iterations—were that we had in excess of 20,000 expiring agreements, some of which we would have expected to come into SFI. We clearly had window 1 that was open for people without an existing ELM agreement. Obviously we do not know who might have started an application the following day because of the speed at which it closed. As I think you know, for window 2 we secured 12,200 applications. Our best guess is that north of 10,000 would have potentially missed out who wanted to come in but could not.

Q208       Chair: Are you saying you were expecting 20,000?

Mike Rowe: We knew that we had in excess of 20,000 agreements expiring but we could not always guarantee—given the changes that we have made to the scheme—whether people would want to go into the new scheme noting that we had removed some actions and changed some payment rates or whether they would want to go into other schemes. Clearly what we saw over the summer was an exceptional spike in demand as a result of those applications.

Chair: Sorry for interrupting, Sarah.

Q209       Sarah Bool: That is okay because it is really important. There is a lot of expectation on farmers to be able to forward plan and part of forward planning is to know exactly whether they can or cannot get into these schemes. If there were 20,000 expiring and you said 12,200 submitted—we think it was 12,500—that means 12,500 were unable to. What was the budget and how was it going to be allocated? Basically you went in knowing that farmers would not be able to get it.

Mike Rowe: We made a number of changes to the scheme to try to make the money go as far as possible such as reducing those actions from 102 to 71; we capped agreements for the first time at 100,000; we reduced the three most popular payment rates; we brought some actions under a cap so that you are holding for a certain hectare and we removed the management payment. Against that backdrop we were not comparing like for like in terms of those old agreements.

Equally some expiring agreements are mid-tier, which are the legacy agreements that are halfway between what we would describe as SFI or higher tier, for example, and we did not know who might want to go up into higher tier versus down. This is all modelling, estimates and forecasting. We knew that the budget was going to be heavily oversubscribed hence why we made all the changes that we did to try to make it go as far as possible.

Right at the last minute we were able to secure an agreement to first put that extra £50 million in that was announced in August and then an extra £20 million and a residual £3 million. Having published that the budget would be £180 million earlier in the year when we said what date the scheme would open, we were then able to put an extra £73 million on top of that: around a 40% increase.

Clearly in light of the experience we had that was not enough because the demand was as high as it was. We knew we were going to have high demand and the budget that we had was finite, which is why we made that suite of changes in consultation with stakeholders around this time a year ago.

Stephen Morgan: It took the budget to £253 million.

Q210       Sarah Bool: On that basis why did you make it first come, first served? You knew demand would be higher. DEFRA did its own survey; 60% could not get the application in on time. One farmer left a funeral to try to get the application in on time. Are you setting farmers up to fail?

Stephen Morgan: I have committed to move away from first come, first served; we refined the scheme this year. You will appreciate that was before my time in the Department but I am very keen to learn lessons from this year. I have heard heartbreaking stories of the impact it has had and how stressful it has been for farmers across the country. That is why I welcome the survey that you have undertaken to capture views and concerns that we will feed into the co-design for next year.

Q211       Sarah Bool: The NFU believes that the value of the expiring agreements that we were talking about exceeds £520 million, and the budget for the 2 SFI windows in total is about £310 million. First, do you recognise those figures? Is the NFU right on that? Secondly, can you explain where that difference of £210 million has gone?

Mike Rowe: The NFU’s assumption would be that everyone in an expiring agreement would all go downwards into SFI rather than upwards in the hierarchy of schemes within the ELM suite, for example, if everyone who had an expiring mid-tier all went and looked at SFI rather than up at a higher tier. I recognise those numbers and they are in the ballpark of what our expectations were.

Q212       Sarah Bool: What is going to happen in terms of that missing £210 million? Again you are committing to having this longer-term vision and that there is funding there but there is an open gap here.

Mike Rowe: I do not accept the characterisation that there is missing money. The Department set out the full details of the spending review settlement that was secured nearly two years ago. At headline level that includes £2.3 billion for the farming budget, of which roughly £1.9 billion is for environmental land management schemes.

As per what we set out in our “Farming Roadmap”, over time we are seeing money that had previously been earmarked for SFI being applied to higher tier and landscape recovery. As I say, I do not recognise this notion of missing money but in our “Farming Roadmap” we have been publicly recognising that money within the farming budget is going to be tight. Therefore over time we expect that higher tier and landscape recovery will take a bigger share of it.

That said SFI is still the largest scheme that we have at the moment, and we estimate spend this year will be about £851 million on those legacy agreements that we already have. Clearly in window 2 and window 1 that we saw this summer, we committed £310 million; because these are three-year agreements that is a further £930 million that has been signed up to in applications that we have received.

Q213       Sarah Bool: From what I understand so far, DEFRA knew very well it was going to be completely oversubscribed. There was no sufficient funding to allow this and farmers were not given any indication. They were not told exactly when the window would open so many were staying up throughout the night. It opened at 10 am and shut just under six hours later.

Minister, I know you said you are going to learn lessons but how are you going to stop this happening again? This is numbers and banding around but how could farmers have possibly known? This is a repeat offence for the last two years of the carpet being swept away from under their feet. How could they have known that they had to be there and get through?

Stephen Morgan: Obviously in terms of the design of the scheme for this year, that was set out quite early on in the year.

Q214       Sarah Bool: I do not think that detail was there earlier on in the year.

Stephen Morgan: We set out the overall design of the scheme early in the year through the farming conferences that took place, obviously before my time in the Department. The date of opening window 2 was announced at least three and a half weeks in advance. Obviously in terms of the time it opened—10 o’clock that morning—that was not public knowledge because RPA needed to run some tests before going live on the funding opportunity.

Q215       Sarah Bool: Would it not have been better to tell RPA not to rush and actually to have communicated that so everyone could have planned? Even land managers did not manage to get all their applications in, God forbid a farmer trying to when they were on farm.

Stephen Morgan: I have already said we are going to scrap the first-come, first-served approach. That means some trade-offs in terms of how we design the scheme for next year but we are already working in partnership with the NFU and others to design that scheme to get it right for the future. As Mike said earlier, NFU and others were involved in the design of the scheme for this year, but we need to work through what the options are for next year to make sure that people do not miss out on the opportunity.

Sarah Bool: I doubt NFU would be happy with you saying it helped with the design.

Q216       Chair: Can I just get a sense of what was happening inside the Department? You had the first window, and 25% of a much less pressured window was allocated on the first day. This fastest finger first approach should have been obvious to the Department at the end of June before you started the design for the second window. Is that a fair comment?

Mike Rowe: The only thing I snagged on there was design for the second window. As the Minister was saying, what we tried to do earlier in the year was set out the timetable for both windows.

Q217       Chair: You surely sought to learn from the experience of the first window.

Mike Rowe: Yes.

Q218       Chair: You saw what was happening, the big glut of early applications coming in, and then you have another window opening that is going to be under much greater pressure. Stephen, are you getting briefed on this?

Stephen Morgan: Yes and really leaning into the lessons.

Q219       Chair: Were you getting briefed on the extent to which the window was going to be oversubscribed? You are the Minister here; Mike is the official.

Stephen Morgan: We very much understood the level of demand. Lessons have to be learned for the future, as I have clearly got across today. On the day itself we were made aware of how it was going. That is why we certainly communicated that information via the DEFRA blog to make sure that applicants knew how much was being spent throughout the day.

Q220       Chair: Even these warnings—25%, 50% and 75%—were not being seen, according to the respondents to our survey.

Stephen Morgan: I am very keen to see the full findings of your survey and want to make sure that feeds into the co-design of the scheme.

Q221       Chair: The decision to carry on with a first-come, first-served allocation was made by yourself in knowledge that it was going to be oversubscribed.

Stephen Morgan: All the decisions around how the scheme would run this year were made before my appointment to the Department.

Q222       Chair: You were briefed. You knew that there was a problem coming down the track and you decided to carry on with it, nevertheless.

Stephen Morgan: The information about how the scheme would operate had all been published.

Q223       Chair: If you knew that you had published how it was going to be done and it was apparent to you—as Mike is telling us, it should have been apparent to you—it was always an option for you to turn around and say, “Look, this isn’t going to work. We need to pause and redesign it.” Why did you not do that?

Stephen Morgan: I hear the message loud and clear from farmers that they want consistency in their approach from DEFRA in the spirit of the roadmap. We understood the levels of demand, which is why I was pleased to help secure additional funding.

Q224       Chair: Even if you are wrong it is still important to be consistent.

Stephen Morgan: We understood the levels of demand, which is why I was pleased to make sure we secured the additional funding of the £50 million the Prime Minister announced in August and then the £20 million, which took the overall pot to £253 million.

Q225       Sarah Bool: When farmers talk about wanting a consistent approach they just want to know that they can actually apply to a scheme and that there will be money. They would much rather have had this paused and delayed further. What is another week at this point rather than the devastation this has caused? This is now shifting farm practices. It is going to have a far longer impact because they are going to have to put land back into production, diversify and look at the intensification on farming.

I appreciate that plan was made before you came in but you are the Minister and you said earlier, “The decisions I make are based on the evidence before me.” The evidence was screaming to anyone that this was going to be a problem. Fundamentally the ministerial team and DEFRA have to go away and look at this because this cannot happen again; this is not the first time. I appreciate the scheme is changing but I have no faith that this will not be repeated in the future.

Stephen Morgan: I will politely remind you that this is a scheme inherited from the previous Government that had no budget control. We have refined and improved the scheme over the years since we have been in office. You have already heard me put across the key to designing a better scheme for the future, building on what has worked and what has not. That is what I am committed to doing and working with the sector to make it happen.

Q226       Chair: At its root the problem is the budget is just not big enough, is it? You cannot account for this £210 million that has been lost because the NFU figures—which come on a freedom of information request from the Department itself—say that those people who were coming out of schemes were getting £520 million. The window envelope for SFI26 was £310 million. We have lost £210 million and we do not know where.

Stephen Morgan: Mike has answered that point already.

Q227       Chair: Do you think that is going to come from future higher tier agreements?

Stephen Morgan: We obviously publish the annual report on farming grant schemes, with the most recent report coming out relatively recently. You will know that we are committed to £11.8 billion over the lifetime of this Parliament with an annual budget of £2.3 billion.

Q228       Chair: Do you not think the budget needs to increase?

Stephen Morgan: Obviously we are always keen to have more but we have to work within the spending envelope we are provided and the funding settlement that we are given from the Treasury colleagues.

Q229       Sarah Bool: I wish to say that this is farmers’ livelihoods here; it is not about political points. We very much try to keep the politics out of this room when we are discussing this. The Department has announced that there is a technical issues group, which will be expanded to allow farmers to report an issue up to one week after the window closes. Can I ask how many applicants are in this pool and will they be offered agreements?

Stephen Morgan: You are referring to the exceptions, which we announced following the closure of the scheme. RPA is working through those as we speak.

Mike Rowe: There are two groups. One is those that requested digital support and the other is those that reported—as you mentioned—that they had some system issues. RPA is working through all those cases and contacting individual farmers. It will depend on the individual circumstances of the farm. In some respects farmers might have felt there were system issues but it might have been the system performing as it was expected to in terms of applying the rules of the scheme. That is why RPA is committed to looking at every individual case within those groups.

Q230       Sarah Bool: I appreciate you are saying RPA is looking at it but given that that money is gone, where will the money come from for that?

Mike Rowe: We are not talking about large sums of money; lower than £5 million is our best estimate but it could be lower than that. It depends on RPA working through those on a case-by-case basis.

Q231       Chair: To what extent is the extra cost of administration of SFI eating up the budget compared to basic payments?

Mike Rowe: Unlike the basic payment scheme, SFI is not and never was intended to be a universal income support payment. It is a payment for the provision of public goods.

Q232       Chair: Do you know how much it costs to administer BPS?

Mike Rowe: I do not have that information before me.

Q233       Chair: Do you know how much it costs to administer SFI?

Mike Rowe: I do not have that information before me.

Q234       Chair: Can you get us that information? It should surely be available.

Mike Rowe: I can. A key part of that information is also looking at the benefit-to-cost ratios that we get from SFI compared to BPS. BPS was generally regarded as having zero or very modest benefit-to-cost ratio and was poor value for taxpayers’ money. SFI—depending on the actions, because some deliver more for the environment than others—had benefit-to-cost ratios of up to 5:1. We need to look at the benefit we get from the scheme as well as the cost of administration.

Chair: Farmers who are playing up to the edge of the field might see things differently now.

Q235       Josh Newbury: Fundamentally the two schemes have very different objectives do they not? Basic payments was fundamentally just designed to support farmers based on the amount of land they farm whereas SFI is clearly public money for public goods.

Mike Rowe: Yes.

Q236       Josh Newbury: When you are talking about value for the taxpayer you are comparing apples and pears there, are you not?

Mike Rowe: That is correct.

Q237       Josh Newbury: You cannot really say basic payments was a poor scheme with poor value for money on a cost-benefit ratio if you are looking at very different metrics from what you are saying there.

Mike Rowe: We still apply a common economic assessment to the use of public money that looks at the public money that used to be dispersed through basic payment scheme, which is very low, and the value for public money we get through SFI. As you go upwards into higher tier and landscape recovery, those assessments get bigger. Even though there might be different schemes, we still apply a common analytical methodology to look at the value for taxpayers’ money that they deliver.

Q238       Josh Newbury: As part of that are you going to look at the number of farms that are left with no public support whatsoever? Obviously, under basic payments that was zero. Now that we have had this second window that is going to be quite a substantial number of farms.

Mike Rowe: As the Minister has mentioned there are a range of options we can look at for how we can learn the lessons from this year, scrapping first come, first served is one, and look at what we might do in terms of the scheme next year. There are some stakeholder organisations that will be calling for the actions that we offer to be those that deliver most for the environment. We will have to balance both maintaining an attractive offer and respecting what is happening in the industry.

I fully understand that farmers want certainty and planning predictability. That is why this year we tried to set out the details of the scheme as early as possible even though the budget turned out to not be enough. We are also in a highly dynamic environment; agriculture does not sit still. Three years ago, arable farmers in particular did not want to come into the scheme, so calibrations had to be made to make it more attractive. Now the arable sector is feeling a very different set of headwinds.

Again there are discussions live with stakeholders at the moment. We need to think about what is going on in the sector and look at the uptake against various actions. Do we need to restrict the number of actions and look at payment rates again and the overall cap? These are all calibrations we can make to try to learn lessons from this year as we prepare the offer for next year. I am noting there is a real pressure to get clarity on this quickly but equally I am hearing quite a lot of demand for quite fundamental change.

Q239       Ben Goldsborough: Just extremely quickly on a point you raised there, Mike—I would be interested in the Minister’s reply to this as well—SFI does not focus on food production; it focuses on public good for public money. Obviously, without taking into account food production, do you not think that is fundamentally flawed for the future security of our nation?

Stephen Morgan: Obviously the “Farming Roadmap” sets out an ambition to at least maintain current levels of food production. The sector growth plans will drive that work, which is industry-led, as Mike said earlier. More broadly I want to see stronger, fairer, more sustainable funding streams for the sector. That is why I am coming in and looking at it with a fresh pair of eyes, looking at the various schemes and making sure we deliver on the commitments we have set out in the “Farming Roadmap”.

Mike Rowe: Just to directly address the point even further in addition to what the Minister said, we very much see SFI working in tandem with food production and not displacing it. Actually, in response to SFI24, in some cases we had made some payment rates so generous that whole fields were put into legume fallow or herbal leys, for example. We restricted the payment rates and the amount of land for some actions to try to make sure we were not inadvertently displacing food production. It is very much a land-sharing scheme whereas with some other schemes I mentioned you might be looking more at taking land out of production and landscape recovery if planting trees or restoring people is your aim.

Q240       Ben Goldsborough: It could be the best administered scheme in the world; the reason we have such a dash for people going for it is that there is no profitability in farming for the production of food. The Government and previous Governments have taken the opinion that there is not going to be a basic payment system now for the production of food so our farmers are going to consistently be disappointed by any process that we put in place. Is that something that you are considering in terms of reviewing the system going forward?

Stephen Morgan: Obviously we have responded to Minette Batters’s “Farming Profitability Review”, which is a really important piece of work that we commissioned in Government alongside the roadmap. We are very much keen to make sure we are driving productivity and profitability in the sector, which is why these growth plans and the work of the partnership board that I mentioned earlier are vital. We need to make sure the scheme matches the overall strategic ambitions as we have set out in the roadmap.

Q241       Ben Goldsborough: Are we really at risk here of just producing a lot of strategies, roadmaps and plans that only do good for the forestry sector and nothing else, and not actually putting any additional funding or looking at how we can streamline processes through either regulation or tax incentives to our farming communities for the production of food?

Stephen Morgan: I do not want strategies for strategy’s sake. It is really important that we set up what the strategic direction is or what we want to achieve around more profitable, productive, resilient farming practices. That is why that partnership approach is really important. I have certainly said to my officials it is really important that we use the roadmap as a framework for everything DEFRA does.

Q242       Ben Goldsborough: Would the Department ever consider including food in public good?

Mike Rowe: You would need a more specific proposition than that. Public goods is quite a strict economic definition.

Q243       Ben Goldsborough: Okay, food production: would the Department ever consider including food production in public good?

Mike Rowe: It is something that has wider societal benefits. The more food we can produce domestically the more it contributes to our national food security. I should confess—as I am probably displaying—I am not an economist on whether it would meet the strict definition; my instinct is probably not. That does not mean that food production is not important. In fact, in our “Land Use Framework” and the “Farming Roadmap” for the first time we committed strong wording about wanting domestic production to be at least maintained if not grown.

Q244       Chair: Sarah started by talking about the damage to DEFRA’s reputation and the standing among farmers. Imagine you were one of the farmers who did not get your application in so you do not know what you are going to do between now and the beginning of next year. You heard that at the biodiversity COP the Government announced something shy of £2 million to go into the purchase of the Rothbury Estate on top of £5 million of public money that has come from the National Lottery Community Fund. How do you think you would feel?

Stephen Morgan: Obviously I have heard frustrations from colleagues today and indeed from the farm visits I have done following the closure of the scheme. That is why being really clear on what our vision is around how we are supporting a profitable and productive farming sector is vital and the roadmap is a key document to drive the change we want to see in partnership with the sector.

Q245       Chair: Would you be happy to hear that £1.94 million was going into the purchase of an estate?

Stephen Morgan: Obviously we want to drive good food production alongside delivering on environmental outcomes.

Q246       Chair: Is that the purpose of the Rothbury Estate going forward in its new iteration?

Stephen Morgan: Obviously this is a discussion for my ministerial colleague, Jenny Riddell-Carpenter, who leads on these specific issues. Mike, do you want to chip in on that specific project?

Mike Rowe: This funding did not come from the farming budget; it was elsewhere in DEFRA’s resources and was an explicit commitment made with regard to the Government’s international commitments on 30by30. An issue that we will obviously be looking at closely is how this might affect the tenants on the estate because we want to make sure again that we are consistent with commitments.

Q247       Chair: Does it go with strings attached?

Mike Rowe: I genuinely do not know the detail beneath what I have just said but it is money that is co-funded alongside other sources of—

Q248       Chair: You are putting in almost £2 million; the entire purchase is something in the region of £17 million, just so somebody can go to the biodiversity COP and have a good news announcement. It is an expensive press release at that, is it not?

Mike Rowe: To the best of my knowledge this is work that the Northumberland Wildlife Trust had had in train for a long time.

Q249       Chair: DEFRA has done very well to get £17 million; I am not denying its interest in the Rothbury Estate. I am just asking whether this is a good signal to be sending at a time when farmer confidence in the Department is at an all-time low.

Stephen Morgan: I would refer you back to the £11.8 billion we are putting into farming over the lifetime of this Parliament. We are very keen to understand the frustrations and concerns that the farming community have and make sure that our schemes deliver for farmers across our country.

Chair: We will go on to countryside stewardship and landscape recovery.

Q250       Josh Newbury: We have just been talking at length about the need to make sure that publicly funded schemes deliver maximum benefits for both farmers and the environment. Do you believe that countryside stewardship, higher tier and landscape recovery are living up to those aims?

Mike Rowe: On countryside stewardship higher tier, we opened it on a new live service only last September. Prior to that there was a legacy of longstanding problems. We were reliant on paper-based application forms and have already secured 751 live higher tier agreements worth £31.8 million since we opened that service. We absolutely recognise that there is more we need to do to try to simplify countryside stewardship higher tier.

We have made commitments about wanting to move away from the invitation-only approach and have introduced a new expression of interest process to try to make it easier for more farmers to access the scheme. We have introduced some new single action agreements, for example on woodland creation or species-rich grassland, which is a way in which we hope we can ease some pressure on SFI. There is further work that we are doing. We are providing advice from the Minister right now in terms of other changes we think we can make to higher tier in order to get more people into it.

One thing I would say about higher tier is that it is very analogous to similar schemes such as the old countryside stewardship, environmental stewardship and new countryside stewardship. Sorry for the stewardship overload. Those schemes have been operating in this country since 1989; we have good experience of them. Natural England advisers have been working on them for a while. While it has only been a year since we put the new higher tier on the system, it is building on decades of practice

Landscape recovery is definitely the newest and most innovative of all the schemes that form the environmental land management suite. We currently have 56 projects in the pipeline, three of which have moved into implementation. We recognise that some complexity that we have encountered in a new innovative scheme of trying to get multiple landowners to agree to long-term actions at scale across big geographies is perhaps harder than we thought it would have been when we first had the ideas for the scheme. We are again preparing advice from Ministers on various things we can take to open up the pipeline and get more projects through to implementation. There are some due to go into implementation very soon but again Ministers have asked us for advice about what more we can do to open that up.

Q251       Josh Newbury: I really welcome a lot of those changes that you have set out to higher tier; it will enable a lot more to get in, particularly smaller farms, which was a real concern we had as a Committee a couple of years ago. When we spoke to Baroness Batters in reference to landscape recovery, she made it clear that she fears that with the way the scheme is designed we could end up with, in her words, “diamonds in paper crowns”. There is a concern of large sums of money going into discrete areas and then equally valuable landscapes around that area or elsewhere in the country getting nothing whatsoever. Do you think that represents good value for the taxpayer and for nature?

Stephen Morgan: I mentioned earlier that when I came into post I was very keen to understand all the schemes. I see how complicated they are. How we might do things differently is something that I have heard loud and clear from the sector. I was keen to get up to Upper Duddon in Cumbria and see what was going on there. What I saw there was a young farmer who was really ambitious and hopeful for the future as a result of that money going in.

Just to pick up on the specific points that you raised, Josh, it is a complex scheme and the governance is tricky. We are obviously investing significant amounts of public money over a significant amount of time. Working through what that looks like is absolutely a priority of mine and I welcome any feedback or concerns to feed into that process.

Q252       Josh Newbury: I will come back to landscape recovery in a minute. Just to go back to higher tier, earlier this year DEFRA announced new single focus higher tier agreements—which you mentioned—for species-rich grassland and scheduled monuments. Clearly the Department has specific objectives on those and thinks the scheme can help to reach them.

In stark contrast to what we have discussed around SFI, despite there being a budget for 1,200 agreements, from what we can see publicly it seems that only 650 expressions of interest were received between July and September. Why do you think that scheme is not attracting farmers?

Mike Rowe: I would want to check those numbers. I am not disputing them; I just do not have them before me. Some changes we announced earlier in July are still being worked through. As broadly as possible and in the right sequence we are trying to move away from that invitation-only. To date it has quite heavily been an adviser-led scheme. We are also looking to see if there are ways in which we can get external advisers to be able to help sign off applications because we are aware of resource pressures in Natural England.

The changes that we announced in July at Groundswell were very much a first step in terms of what we are trying to do to open up higher-tier stewardship. Again this was something that we discussed with a group of stakeholders within the last two weeks in terms of some other things and actions we can take. It is a work in progress.

Q253       Josh Newbury: We have heard as a Committee that a particular clause in agreements that would allow DEFRA to unilaterally withdraw funding is particularly causing concern for farmers. Understandably they do not want to make permanent changes to the way that they manage their land only to find that funding then disappears. Have you been picking that up as a concern that puts some off from expressing an interest?

Stephen Morgan: That is very much an issue that has been raised with me. I have basically brought together different applicants to understand some challenges and issues as they progress their applications. It is definitely something that I am aware of and exploring with my officials.

Q254       Josh Newbury: Mike, you mentioned you are looking at where to go next. Are you looking to redeploy that money elsewhere, broaden the focus of the agreements that are available or just do another promotion drive and hope that you reach that 1,200 for the money to be spent?

Mike Rowe: What we are very much focused on is trying to simplify the schemes on an administrative basis so that we do not have a bottleneck of people wanting to get in because they are waiting for either permissions from Natural England advisers or others. The scheme is high ambition in terms of the outcomes that it is pegged to, in particular SSSI restoration where you need quite specific actions on specific landscapes. It is always going to be more involved from a delivery perspective than SFI, which is designed to be self-service. We are trying to take out any unnecessary administration so that we can make it easier without diluting the effectiveness of it.

Q255       Josh Newbury: Just going back to landscape recovery, across the 2022-23 rounds we understand that 56 projects entered the two-year development phase of the scheme. Based on public announcements it seems that only three have moved into the implementation phase. Why do you think so few projects have moved into that? Stephen, you alluded to some challenges of the complexity of it.

Stephen Morgan: It picks up on what I was saying earlier around some barriers and challenges that the sector has faced. There are unique partnerships being established and these are things that people are signing up to that will have quite a lasting impact so working through that detail is vital. They are essentially complex agreements. As Mike says we want to make that process simpler and that is something that we are very much focusing on.

Q256       Josh Newbury: In the “Farming Roadmap” it mentions that DEFRA will provide information about future rounds of landscape recovery in 2026. Obviously we know that the applications have not been open at all during this Parliament. Given that we are a little over two months away from the end of the year do you intend to open the scheme for applications soon? If so do you know when?

Stephen Morgan: I cannot make that commitment today. Obviously we have not announced a third round but working through the details of how the first two rounds have gone is the priority for me at the moment.

Q257       Sarah Dyke: Recently I went out to the North Moor just outside Langport to meet the project team behind the Greater Sedgemoor landscape recovery project, including Damon Bridge from the RSPB, who is leading on that. They have over 4,000 acres in that scheme and are at an advanced stage of their development but they are desperate to know when they are going to receive an implementation agreement. Could I ask your Department to push on that so that we can get this project off the ground?

Bearing in mind what Josh has just said, they have said to me very explicitly that there is a real bottleneck in getting farmers to take up on this scheme because of that two-year withdrawal element. They are making a long-term commitment and need to be able to plan and one of the problems is that they are not getting all the farmers within that catchment set up.  I would also like to specifically ask if we can get this project—the Greater Sedgemoor landscape recovery project—up and running. I also have another one in my patch, Adapting the Levels, which is also at a stage where I would very much like to see that up and running as well. If we can get some news on that I would be very grateful.

Stephen Morgan: I will take that away, look at where we are with the applications and get in touch with the relevant stakeholders.

Q258       Ben Goldsborough: With delinked payments falling to just £600 in 2026 and 2027, how many farm businesses does DEFRA expect to have no environmental land management revenue agreement by the end of 2027?

Mike Rowe: I might need to come back in terms of by the end of 2027 but as of right now we have 84,000 live ELM revenue agreements in place. Clearly as part of the work that the Minister was alluding to in terms of how we recalibrate SFI, we have lots of schemes and agreements that are due to expire next year. Again we are trying to work with stakeholders to think about how far we can spread the money. Some decisions that we take over the coming months about the design of schemes for next year will have a material impact on the number of agreements by the end of 2027. That is why it is difficult to speculate.

Q259       Ben Goldsborough: It is something that I would really urge the Department to actually get a proper number on. If you do not know the numbers that are going to be outside the scheme I would ask what support is going to be made available to them. We need to make sure that all our farmers are being supported in the best possible way. Do you have any plans on how you would support people outside the schemes?

Mike Rowe: One of the comments I made earlier—which one of your colleagues also picked up on—was that SFI is not designed to be a universal income support payment; there will always be a finite budget for it. We would love to see as many farmers as possible adopting more nature-friendly and regenerative practices; that is very much the ambition in the roadmap. We have public money with which we will try to go as far as possible to encourage that. We know and recognise—quite honestly we set this out in the roadmap as well—that over time we expect the balance of schemes to change. At the moment, SFI is not designed to do the job that you are suggesting it is there to do.

Q260       Ben Goldsborough: Not all support for our farming community has to be pounds and pence; it can be a regulatory burden as well. Minister, outside these schemes is there any action that you would be planning on doing to help in terms of the regulatory framework they are working with?

Stephen Morgan: Obviously what I want to do is make sure that our farmers are equipped to deliver what they need to deliver. I have a key role in making that happen with my officials and that is why lots of things we set out in the “Farming Roadmap” will hopefully drive productivity and profitability. We mentioned the growth sector plans and issues around water storage earlier. Looking at how we change regulations and do things differently in order to achieve profitability is absolutely a priority of mine.

Mike Rowe: This is relevant to your final point. We have commissioned the Law Commission to undertake a review of the environmental legislation that applies to agriculture. That review launched in April this year and we are expecting it to conclude in early 2028. The Law Commission is obviously leading it independently but it is planning to do a consultation on changes that we can make to simplify that suite of environmental legislation. We are on it in terms of regulation and are trying to look systematically at all the things we might need to encourage the profitable, productive, sustainable, resilient sector we want.

Q261       Ben Goldsborough: Just turning towards fair access and food security, one thing I would be interested to know is how will DEFRA replace the first-come, first-served aspects of the SFI system in 2027 to ensure funding reaches farms delivering the greatest environmental benefits without disadvantaging smaller farms or—more importantly—undermining domestic food production?

Stephen Morgan: Obviously there are some trade-offs we need to think through as we co-design the scheme for next year. Earlier I mentioned the workshops we have been doing with the sector. I am also keen to hear from parliamentarians about what they want to see the scheme looking like for the future. There is only a finite resource for SFI but working through that detail with you to design the scheme for the future is an absolute priority.

Q262       Ben Goldsborough: One thing that I am slightly concerned about is that when I asked whether food would be included in a reviewed system going forward as a benefit of public payment, Mike said effectively food does not have an economic benefit. I am really concerned if that is the thought of DEFRA going forward.

Mike Rowe: I was answering your specific point about whether food is considered a public good and I was trying to give you the economic textbook answer. I have been in the Department for 26 years and I have never seen there be so much of a focus within the Department on both environmental and economic aspects of farming. We have tried to set that out in a roadmap and Ministers have talked about that being two sides of the same coin.

We have commitments made in the “Land Use Framework” and the “Farming Roadmap” around at least maintaining domestic production. We have set up the farming and food partnership board on the back of the Batters review. We are trying to get sector growth plans in as many sectors as possible starting with horticulture and poultry because they are the two where we see the biggest early opportunities but that is not where our ambition ends.

I do not necessarily agree with that characterisation that we do not take food and food production seriously. In fact, you only have to look at the hearing in front of the Public Accounts Committee last week when our permanent secretary was talking about food security being national security and the work we are doing on food resilience. I do not think it has ever been as high up the departmental agenda in my period there since 2000.

Stephen Morgan: Obviously food is a key part of my portfolio. The good food cycle framework came out in July 2025, which is an area of priority for me. Obviously there are themes about resilience, affordability and healthy support for children and young people. Some good outcomes have been achieved from that strategy but we are working through what that might look like for the future.

Q263       Ben Goldsborough: Just moving on to a slightly different aspect within ELMs of nature markets. The “Farming Roadmap” envisages private nature markets playing a great role in farming farms, yet many farmers tell us that markets simply do not exist for them. We went up to the Westmorland county show to gather evidence there and Lisa Bennett—a local farmer—gave evidence to us. When I raised a question about nature markets she shrugged her shoulders and said, “I’ve never heard of this before. We are upland farmers; this is not for the likes of us. It is for large arable maybe down south, in Norfolk for example.” I would like to hear what concrete steps DEFRA is actually taking to develop these markets and how it will ensure that public funding remains available where private finance cannot take that slack.

Mike Rowe: There was a publication we put out yesterday called “Growing Places” that very much looks at this issue of how we can get more private finance into farming. In some respects, some farmers I have visited around the country would already benefit within their food chain from producing to a certain standard that does not necessarily need Government intervention or Government-backed schemes to enable it. There are pockets of it happening.

Something we have also committed to is setting up a working group looking at private finance to try to understand more systematically where the barriers are. The opportunities are big and we are trying to get private finance in alongside landscape recovery. Again there is much more work we need to do on this.

Q264       Ben Goldsborough: Is the other issue that we face with this not that it is a free market? There is no set structure for these private investors to come in and set out schemes that make sense to our farmers. I can speak to some farmers who are on the Norfolk-Suffolk border and have been involved with schemes with Nestlé, PepsiCo or other bodies such as that. You can go two miles up the road and there will not be a scheme available. Is the Department going to take any action to set out a framework of what these private finance initiatives should actually look like?

Mike Rowe: That is what this working group I mentioned will look at. Where are the pockets in which it is actually working? I recognise it is pockets; it is not widespread. What are the conditions for success where it is successful? What are the barriers where it is not working? Setting up the market in the first place is probably the biggest one. I can assure you it is something that this task and finish group is looking at.

Stephen Morgan: Again, obviously the “Farming Roadmap” is key to unlocking that investment with that certainty and consistency we are looking to deliver over a 25-year plan essentially.

Q265       Ben Goldsborough: Just for you Minister, do you have full confidence that the private sector will be able to take over all the slack within the system to finance these schemes? Obviously as the processes are set out from Government expenditure it will decrease. On SFI it will close eventually in the hope that private finance will take over the complete slack. Do you honestly believe that will happen?

Stephen Morgan: We want to work in co-operation and partnership with the private sector. The growth plans are going to be really important. They are industry-led but I am certainly keen to make sure we are engaging banks around what the opportunities are for the farming community going forward so there is a nice blend of both public and private investment.

Q266       Ben Goldsborough: With the current economic climate of the world do you think that there will be private companies that will wish to invest in these environmental schemes or will they just see it as a nicety that they can go without? A lot of my farmers turn around and say they are only doing this because it is greenwashing and then once they find that the economic situation is too tough for them they are going to opt out of these schemes.

Stephen Morgan: We learned lessons from the work that Mike just mentioned that has been commissioned recently. I am certainly keen to hear any further thoughts and views as we work that through in more detail.

Q267       Chair: The US Secretary of State told us that these capital markets would be functioning by 2030. Is that still the Department’s view?

Stephen Morgan: I do not know the answer to that. We can get back to you on those specific points.

Q268       Sarah Bool: You mentioned earlier you were happy about the EU reset and the relationship with Europe is going to be obviously a key point of discussion. Talking about financing will the SPS agreement or any deal necessitate some basic income support payments?

Stephen Morgan: I cannot get into the specifics of negotiation.

Q269       Sarah Bool: What about in terms of the principle going forward? If you are going to put Europe and the UK on an even playing field, Europe is moving more towards that model again. I want to have a commitment from the Government and a recognition of what we can do.

Stephen Morgan: There are no plans to do so.

Q270       Henry Tufnell: I am conscious of time, but I have an important question. What is your vision for the uplands in England? What will they look like in 20 years?

Stephen Morgan: As a new Minister, the uplands will be one of my priorities. I have been to Dartmoor and Cumbria to understand the complexities and challenges they face: in some cases, those are long-standing. The “Land Use Framework” is a key document in recognising the significance of the uplands. There are issues around grazing numbers and how the land is used; the “Land Use Framework” will hopefully lead to better decision making.

I am also mindful of the important work that Dr Hilary Cottam is doing in Dartmoor to set out a longer-term vision, with a place-based, community-led approach that I hope will deliver lasting change in the area. To deliver on that vision, we need a key role and strong partnership working around the funding streams we offer: that is the key message I heard on my visit to Dartmoor.

Q271       Henry Tufnell: Do you view livestock farming as an issue to be managed or do you view it as central in terms of the management of upland areas? There is a distinction between the two: I appreciate you might think it is only semantic.

Stephen Morgan: Grazing numbers are important—farmers raise that issues with me—but it is also important to deliver environmental outcomes. It is not a binary choice, it is nuanced. Natural England has a particular role to play around supporting farmers with their HLS agreements, but I recognise that these are contested spaces; it is vital to have a clear strategy and vision for these communities, so I welcome Dr Hilary Cottam’s work.

Q272       Henry Tufnell: Before we come on to Natural England, I should declare that my father is a non-executive board member.

We have 5,400 higher-level stewardship agreements expiring in ’27-28, so it is important to understand whether farming or grazing is an issue to be managed, or whether it is integral to the beauty of the uplands in and of itself. How many of those agreement holders have a route into replacement schemes, and how will you prevent a funding gap for those who do not?

Stephen Morgan: We want to avoid a cliff edge. I have already had conversations with Natural England; in the case of Dartmoor, some agreements will soon be expiring. We are working through those as we speak and will continue to prioritise that work. It is important that our investments in the uplands are tailored to habitat, site conditions and environmental outcomes: that is why there is more work to do, and I am committed to making that happen.

Q273       Henry Tufnell: We are worried that both Natural England and the Rural Payments Agency lack the capacity to process the volume of countryside stewardship higher-tier claims that will arise when these other agreements expire.

Stephen Morgan: I have raised these issues with Natural England; I work closely with that organisation, which also has new leadership.

Q274       Henry Tufnell: What is DEFRA specifically doing to address that cliff edge?

Stephen Morgan: Mike, do you want to answer the capacity point?

Mike Rowe: I would like to respond to your first question. I can remember when the Lake District was designated as a UNESCO world heritage site because it was a farmed landscape. We absolutely want farming to thrive throughout the country.

On the specifics of the HLS expiries, we are taking a cohort-by-cohort approach. That will vary depending in particular on whether SSSI land is associated with the agreements, and if so, the state of that SSSI. There may be some expiring HLS agreements where it makes sense to move the best part into the higher tier without elaborating the agreement. There may be others—depending on the state of the SSSI condition and the management options or practices that the agreements have historically funded— that might need a more hands-on approach and more discussion and negotiation with Natural England. Natural England is working through those cohorts to make sure there is a smooth transition; that might mean taking slightly different approaches for different groups of agreements—depending in particular on the status of the SSSI—but we are providing advice to Ministers on how that should be handled.

Q275       Henry Tufnell: Do you think it is going to be fine?

Mike Rowe: It is challenging. We are dealing with long-term agreements: ideally we want similar actions to happen on multiple holdings, which brings complexity. The situation in Dartmoor is particularly complex and that often gets into the media.

Q276       Henry Tufnell: You are de-stocking animals on Dartmoor at the rate of 76%.

Mike Rowe: We are guided by Natural England.

Q277       Henry Tufnell: In terms of this cliff edge, if 5,500 agreements in the higher-level stewardship scheme are ending, will a 76% de-stocking rate be your blueprint in, for example, Cumbria? Is that what we should expect?

Mike Rowe: As our independent statutory nature conservation adviser, Natural England will look at the state of individual SSSIs. My understanding is that it will not provide a blanket, one-size-fits-all approach across the country; it will look at what is needed in each place and use that as a starting point.

Q278       Henry Tufnell: If this is being totally led by Natural England, are you concerned by what you hear from other stakeholders with whom you presumably engage? Those stakeholders have told this Committee that they feel this policy is being done to them rather than with them, and that when Natural England shows up—if it ever does—it shows a lack of understanding and a lack of respect; the relationship is simply not there.

Stephen Morgan: In answer to that question, I have been to Dartmoor and attended the Dartmoor forum hosted by Sir Geoffrey Cox. I have also met with a number of farmers through the groups that Hilary Cottam is convening. It is important that we engage with local processes and local organisations: there are existing groups and fora that we work with in Dartmoor to deliver the commitments that we want to see delivered.

Q279       Henry Tufnell: Are you saying that we should not lead with Natural England? If we are putting all the emphasis on Natural England to lead the process and deal with this cliff edge, we are hearing from other stakeholders that we will either end up with 76% de-stocking rates, or with local farmers on the land feeling that they are not being listened to or taken along on this process.

Mike Rowe: We are always keen to work in partnership with Natural England, respecting that it has, by statute, independent status as our nature and conservation adviser. I have also heard anecdotal evidence that on the ground, the relationship between Natural England and some landowners is very good; it works in some areas, and we want that to be common across the country. In partnership with Natural England we are looking at all the expiries and taking a chunking approach to how we treat different cohorts of agreements. We will then provide advice to Ministers on the best way forward.

Q280       Henry Tufnell: I am conscious of time, but what about the social and cultural value? In terms of the landscape, you talked about how farmers play an integral role in places such as Cumbria. Are you worried that there is no emphasis on those traditional practices?

Stephen Morgan: That is why Dr Hilary Cottam’s work is important in looking at a system approach to supporting important heritage—as well as habitat protection and grazing levels—and setting out a longer-term vision. Upland communities have seen converging challenges for far too long; addressing those issues in partnership, along with Hilary’s work, is really important. We will hopefully be moving on to Cumbria in the new year.

Q281       Henry Tufnell: Are you worried about the loss of practices such as hefting, breaking down genetic diversity, and ancient commoning traditions? Is that something DEFRA is concerned about?

Mike Rowe: Yes, those issues are on our radar: again, it will depend on the particular area. For instance, when we talk about SSSI land—where Natural England operates within a specific regulatory framework—it is hard to give you a one-size-fits all approach, but the best outcomes we have had in agri-environment schemes over 40 years have been when we were working in partnership.

Q282       Henry Tufnell: I am definitely not asking for a one-size-fits-all approach; that is not what people are telling us they want. We went to the Westmoreland show, and we have engaged with stakeholders and farmers; you heard a quote from a farmer earlier. It is definitely not the approach that is being reflected back to the Committee.

Can I quickly ask about common land: are common holders not being allowed to claim SFI or countryside stewardship for their common land?

Stephen Morgan: Commoners can already apply but at the moment there are certain issues with the system: my understanding is that we are working through those issues.

Mike Rowe: Historically, the system has not provided for this, at least on the common land itself, although in-bye land can be accessible. The RPA is currently piloting an approach to see if countryside stewardship higher-tier land can be put on the system; if that works we will look to open up the scale. At the moment, you are correct that common land is not eligible for SFI, but we are trying to tackle it for the higher tier.

Q283       Chair: They are excluded because of a software engineering issue?

Mike Rowe: It is a legacy issue; it is not new, and my understanding is that it is because—

Q284       Chair: It is not new but you have not fixed it until now, and that is why they are excluded?

Mike Rowe: The RPA is on the case now, fixing it in terms of the trials and the pilot.

Q285       Chair: Before we move on, I want to go back to Henry’s point about 75% to 76% destocking, which comes about because you have a very particular view on how Dartmoor should be managed and how it should look. That is the vision point. Surely the vision should not be coming from Natural England: it should be coming from the Department, and Natural England should then be charged with the delivery of that vision.

Stephen Morgan: I completely agree.

Q286       Chair: Then why is it not happening?

Stephen Morgan: That is why I have asked Marian and Tony to come to the Department to see me on these issues, and I have been to visit directly to hear concerns.

Q287       Chair: Is the vision of Dartmoor with a 75% reduction in livestock a DEFRA vision? Or have you subcontracted that vision to the arm’s length body?

Mike Rowe: Everyone recognises that as a result of overgrazing, the SSSIs in Dartmoor are not in a good state at the moment. We are working with Natural England, the land managers and the Dartmoor Land Use Management Group— chaired by Phil Stocker—to see if there are different ways in which we can tackle this problem. The accusation is often around blanket stocking rates, but I have heard the former CEO and chair of Natural England say that the biggest issue is the overwintering of sheep. At the moment, we are working with Natural England to see if there are ways in which we can reduce the overwintering of sheep without reducing overall stocking levels; there is a level of detail beneath that headline figure, which I know has some traction. We are trying to balance Natural England and its independent responsibilities with the requirements of the regulatory framework and what is best for the area.              

Q288       Chair: We have now gone to a place where the Government are telling farmers in Dartmoor where they can overwinter sheep.

Mike Rowe: I meant that we want to try to reduce the overwintering of sheep on the moor because it is preventing the establishment of the flora and the fauna there.

Chair: We will be returning to this with our upcoming report on upland farming, so I will not delay the Committee further. Charlie, we are awash with DEFRA strategies.

Q289       Charlie Dewhirst: We have the “Land Use Framework”, we have had the Batters review into farming profitability, and we have the “Farming Roadmap”. The “Land Use Framework” calls for 9% of agricultural land to be focused on environmental and climate benefits, a further 5% to be used for food production while incorporating environmental benefits, and 2% to be used for housing. How does that marry up with the Batters review and the “Farming Roadmap”?

Stephen Morgan: The “Land Use Framework” is exactly what it says on the tin: it is an overall framework to make sure that we make better decisions based on land use across the country. There is more work to do to help deliver that. The “Farming Roadmap” is about setting certainty and consistency for the sector over the next 25 years; this document drives my work in the Department to deliver the outcomes that we want to see achieved.

Q290       Charlie Dewhirst: I hope it would be your ambition to improve domestic food security by increasing domestic production.

Stephen Morgan: We are always keen to make that happen.

Q291       Charlie Dewhirst: Is that not going to be very difficult when you take 9% of land out of productive use?

Stephen Morgan: That is why these strategies are important, and working through them to make sure that we make better decisions and that I give informed advice. That is my priority.

Q292       Charlie Dewhirst: Let us take the poultry sector; it is an interesting one. We import large amounts of chicken from countries such as China and others in the Far East, which we would perhaps choose to avoid if we could produce it ourselves. There has not been a single new broiler unit approved in this country for the last two years because of problems with the planning system. We have NGOs jumping on the back of every planning application and issues with statutory consultees—such as Natural England—preventing increased domestic food security and increased food production. Supermarkets and processors will tell you that if we produced more chicken meat at home, they would be able to sell it. Minister, can I ask you to go away and work with your colleagues across the MHCLG and others to ensure that we break down these barriers? That would come at no cost to the Government and would be a real boost to the rural economy.

Stephen Morgan: Thank you, Charlie: that is absolutely the spirit of the work the partnership board is doing and the growth sector plans that we are taking forward with industry. I mentioned horticulture and poultry: we are expecting those documents in the new year. They could be helpful in taking forward the growth that we need to see in poultry and other sectors.

Q293       Charlie Dewhirst: On the planning point specifically, do you undertake to work with colleagues in the MHCLG to look at how the current system is preventing that growth? We have farmers who are unable to replace decaying buildings in order to reduce stocking densities and create better welfare, even though more emissions would be captured and it would be better for the environment. It seems barmy that farmers are not able to modernise and improve their own farms.

Stephen Morgan: I completely agree. That is why that partnership approach with MHCLG and others at the partnership board working with us on the sector growth plans is absolutely vital to build the more resilient, sustainable sector that we want to see in the future.

Q294       Chair: When are we going to get a food strategy?

Stephen Morgan: The good food strategy came out in July 2025: I am working through the details of that, and performance metrics are on the way. Some good things have been achieved through the good food neighbourhood scheme, which was announced relatively recently, with £10 million to support 45 local authorities across the country, the introduction of breakfast clubs and increased eligibility for free school meals. I want to make sure we get on and deliver some good, positive things working with the sector and that is why I am looking at that as we speak.

Chair: We still do not have a date? We have a few other questions, but I want to clear up the one on horticulture. Ben, do you want to take the lead on that?

Q295       Ben Goldsborough: This has already been alluded to in terms of the co-produced horticulture roadmap and plan that is coming through. Within the protected horticulture sector, there are greenhouse growers in my constituency—on the Crown Point estate in Kirby Bedon—who are facing a lot of trouble because they do not have a SIC code to allow them to access the energy intensive industry compensation scheme. They can grow 70 kilos of tomatoes in one square metre, thus increasing our food security and increasing profitability within our farming sector, but they are blocked off from help with rising energy costs. What assessments have you made, Minister, on the price that is paid through excluding this sector from the EII support schemes?

Stephen Morgan: I mentioned the importance we place on the horticultural sector, which is why we are developing a sectoral growth plan with it. It has been a pleasure to meet with representatives of the industry and the NFU in the last couple of weeks to work through the details of that plan, which we hope to publish early in the new year. You will know that 20% of farm gate value comes from the horticultural sector, but it uses only 2% of land, so there are huge opportunities for the sector going forward. I am aware of the challenges it is facing around labour, energy costs and so on. With specific regard to high energy costs, I recognise that this is a significant concern for the industry and we are working through that. I saw it directly in terms of the issues that were raised when I joined you in Norfolk, and when I visited Isle of Wight Tomatoes over the summer. We are continuing to look at options based on the evidence before us because I appreciate how important this is to the sector.

Q296       Ben Goldsborough: Will you be arguing with the Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade to give a SIC code to protected horticulture?

Stephen Morgan: We are working through the sector growth plan in tandem with the sector, looking at the issues and challenges. We will then take that back to the partnership board, which has cross-Government representation. If there are particular asks in there, we will try to make them a success.

Q297       Ben Goldsborough: I would quickly add that the last time I asked this question of the former Secretary of State for DEFRA, I was told by a representative from the Department, “It’s for global trade bodies and the National Audit Office to define this.” There did not seem to be any ministerial engagement in the process. Can you, as the Minister, give assurances that you will be pushing on this issue?

Stephen Morgan: These issues have been raised with me, and I am very alive to them. The sector growth plan is the vehicle for unlocking the barriers that the sector faces, and I am very much involved in the detail of that.

Chair: We have a few other questions around the wool market and the position of milking goats but, unfortunately, time is not with us; we will pursue those questions with you in correspondence, along with a number of other pieces from today. Thank you, gentlemen, for your attendance. We shall doubtless return to these and other matters in the future. For the moment, that concludes our session.